After years of sharpening its claws in the underground, Science Man returns with Monarch Joy, a jagged and dissonant LP of dystopian hardcore, set for release on May 23 via Swimming Faith Records. The album’s third and final single, “Animals,” was released this past Friday.
Science Man began in 2018 as what John Toohill describes as a “silly side project” in between other bands. That shifted in 2020, when the project took on a life of its own. “I like to think of anything before 2022 as just a different project,” Toohill says. “I’m still writing all the songs but nothing about this band would be what it is without everyone else who is involved.” The live lineup and performances since then shaped Monarch Joy, which documents the last two years of chaotic, scifi-fueled sets.
The themes across Monarch Joy reflect that same instability—interrogations of decay, disillusionment, addiction, moral failure, and the inescapable ugliness beneath so much of what we take for granted. Toohill doesn’t claim lyrical clarity: “Sometimes you get a blurry Bigfoot or UFO that is hard to explain and a bit mysterious, but everyone knows what it’s supposed to be.” His writing leans closer to David Yow’s abstract approach than traditional hardcore directness, preferring strange allegories over slogans. Still, the underlying critique is pointed.
“Animals,” the latest single, lashes out at the justifications people make for brutal behavior. “I never liked using the excuse of ‘it’s just our animalistic nature’ when trying to justify ugly actions.” The song’s lines—“Aggressive beasts. Wild. Invasive eyes. Cold… Failures of nature. Errors of god.”—strip any pretense from the violence.
That tone of bleak satire and dread runs through the whole record. Monarch Joy opens with “S.C.I.M.N.”, an instrumental storm that Toohill describes as “an ancient creature being called forth from the depths of its slumber for the last time.” From there, tracks like “Control Collar” and “Ruthless Prism” challenge religious and societal constructs of morality and truth. “Control Collar” probes how systems dictate grace and justice: “Suffering frees control. Control collar. A soldier for your soul.”
The LP also leans into darker surrealism. “Funeral for an Arm” takes off from a real-life anecdote about limbs being buried before death, using it to explore failure and sacrifice. “Giving everything to achieve something, but still failing; forced to live on without your arm or what you sacrificed it for.” “How the Butcher Gets Paid,” a previous single, came from a passing comment by guitarist Spek about not wanting to ruin the illusion of a new city by learning how things really work: “Nobody wants to know how the butcher gets paid… What kind of animal? What kind of flesh makes it glow?”
The visual side of the band is just as integral. Toohill and Lindsay Tripp started making DIY music videos during the Nines Mecca era with no real plan, just “props outta random junk” and “every weird idea.” That evolved into a looser narrative thread linking the clips together. For Monarch Joy, they’ve built a full three-part video series centered around the journey and perilous transformations of a nameless protagonist. The videos aren’t literal representations of the lyrics but are meant to act as a parallel short film scored by the LP.
The record’s title, Monarch Joy, came to Toohill in a dream: humanoids devouring a delicacy—Monarch Joy—that contains small, intelligent creatures. The title track, “Lesser Species,” ties directly into that image, with lines like “The lesser shall be freed. Spare them of existing. The lesser species.” It’s a dark metaphor for justifying cruelty in the name of pleasure.
The release show is May 23 in Buffalo, NY, with Razorface, One Way Terror, and Big Dog. Toohill notes the show lineup reflects the cross-sections of Buffalo’s current punk scene—crust, thrash, Oi!—and all three bands include past or current members of the Science Man live band. After that, the band heads out on tour.
You can find the full first-hand commentary for each track off of Monarch Joy below.
S.C.I.M.N.:
No lyrics. Just unhinged, rising dread. An ancient creature being called forth from the depths of its slumber for the last time.
CONTROL COLLAR:
“Cure the virus. Cook its host. No reason to spare the holy of the ghost. Control grace. Forgiver emitter. A vicar’s warm embrace. Love’s pain heals you always. Control grace. Suffering frees control. Control collar. A soldier for your soul.”
Feeling disgusted by and attempting to understand how society and religion influence the way we view, endure, and enact grace, justice, morality, and forgiveness.
RUTHLESS PRISM:
“The educated speak of a noose. A ruthless prism has a way with the truth. Inside golden rooms a snake roosts. The fascination with venom’s use. Always seduced by the glimmer of the sharpest tooth to win the room.”
I’ve never been great at debate nor do I believe “winning” an argument necessarily means you stated the better case or argued a morally superior point. You can wrestle a pig but when you do, you both get dirty, and the pig loves it.
ANIMALS:
“Aggressive beasts. Wild. Invasive eyes. Cold. Animals. Dripping cocks. Endangered brains.
Animals. Failures of nature. Errors of god.”
The track we’re premiering today. How quickly we can devolve under the worst circumstances. I never liked using the excuse of “it’s just our animalistic nature” when trying to justify ugly actions.
FUNERAL FOR AN ARM:
“As earth’s finger rots. A harvest moon bleeds. Pulling ticks from my sides. A sucker bursts every second. Ill decision. Cut the lost cause. Separation fate. A fool and his body make ill decisions. A butcher’s bold prediction and baron’s a deal at dawn. A weightlifter’s promise and a funeral for an arm.”
While on a recent tour someone was telling me about how people’s severed limbs occasionally get buried long before their death. Apparently there are tons of famous instances of this, often with the rest of the body ending up buried in another location later on. I was thinking about that and the saying of “I’d give my right arm” to have or do something. Giving everything to achieve something, but still failing; forced to live on without your arm or what you sacrificed it for.
HOW THE BUTCHER GETS PAID:
“Lying in the sun. Belly up till overdone. Sweet grass to ease the drink. Forget the sand that burns your feet. No. Nobody wants to know. Nobody wants to know how the butcher gets paid. Nobody wants to know why the clown still paints his nose. What kind of animal? What kind of flesh makes it glow?”
Our guitar player, Spek, was musing to me about possibly moving from his home in Cleveland to another city but “didn’t wanna see how the sausage was made”, meaning he didn’t wanna risk moving there and starting to hate it when the illusion faded. To risk seeing it like any other city- deeply flawed, full of drama, and other bullshit. This song is about that and how most things we enjoy are filled with horrors once you dig a little deeper.
PUZZLE HOAX:
“A puzzle hoax. A cancerous joke. Infinite. Insatiable. Lying in sick. A bid, a boast. A curse to cast upon a host. Nowhere. The truth is nowhere. Just psychic fire. Feed them to the hounds. Puzzle hoax.”
It’s harder to unravel the whole truth about something than it is to either believe what you first hear, or simply ignore it altogether.
LESSER SPECIES:
“Crushed. All with love. Spare the beggars from becoming thieves. Weak. At misery’s peak, suffering defeat. Spare them of deceit. The lesser shall be freed. Spare them of existing. The lesser species.”
This is gonna sound like some Wayne’s World 2 shit but the album title, Monarch Joy, actually came to me in a dream. Giant humanoids eating a new, sweet delicacy known as Monarch Joy. Inside the tasty treats are these small, intelligent creatures. The humanoids know this and eat them anyway. Their greed and obsession with pleasure has them convinced they are doing these “lesser species” a favor by sparing them of such a miserable existence.
THE LAUGHING HOUR:
“A little dog barks at the sun. A broken finger points to a gun. Dancing through the bloodstream. Singing pressured steam. Hold his head under the stream. The laughing, spilling teeth. Fathers in the pig pen. Baby’s in the street. For hours. And hours. In the laughing hour, you cry. In the laughing hour, I arrive.”
Ya know, just some uplifting poetry about drugs, addiction, and a lifestyle based on pleasure, insanity, and adventure…that I of course would know nothing about…
