(Self-released, digital)
Don’t be fooled by the cheeky title. Anyone expecting a playful, sexually titillating romp as they listen to Klovis Gaynor & the Urinal Cakes’ debut record, SAVE ME 4 THE SPANK BANK, needs to curb their expectations. Nothing can prepare the world for the depths of depravity to which this New York City experimental quartet sinks. It makes San Francisco’s Folsom Street Fair go, “Whoa.”
Ostensibly centering queer struggles and sexuality, SAVE ME 4 THE SPANK BANK is actually a demonic, directionless 48-minute tirade Gaynor vomits up while standing between two mirrors, gazing at himself as he infinitely regresses. The album is truly masturbatory, a self-indulgent wank that serves no purpose other than to shock.
Partially recorded and produced at Burlington’s Future Fields and Big Lake studios, as well as at Brooklyn’s Secret Beach Studio, the album trudges through shit, bile, cum, spit and blood, all of which burst forth or leak out at one point or another in this overlong, graphic depiction of the artist’s stomach-turning sex life. Nothing is off-limits as Gaynor defiles himself and desecrates his listeners’ ears.
What is the point of asking “Am I the only horny vers in this town?” on “HORNED UP HAZY BABY”? Boi, it’s New York. There are literally thousands of dudes who’ll take it or give it within a five-mile radius. And why is Gaynor clumsily noting, “Cum inside / Lie out loud / & leave my guts rearranged on the couch” on “KLOVIS YOU ARE THE MOST SPECIAL”? For most of the record, Gaynor chokes out porn- and Grindr-addled sour nothings.
Musically, however, the album occasionally coheres into something accessible. Gaynor’s neoclassical piano explorations compellingly abut the full band’s hardcore eruptions, flitting back and forth within and between tracks. But the instrumentation feels completely divorced from Gaynor’s singing, which transparently rips off Jamie Stewart’s affecting, breathy lilt circa queer-rock elder statesmen Xiu Xiu’s 2004 album Fabulous Muscles. Ditto Gaynor’s songwriting.
There is nothing inherently wrong with graphic sexuality or tough, trauma-informed themes in music. But when Peaches raps about boners on Impeach My Bush‘s “Tent in Your Pants,” she’s having a blast and in total control as clever wordplay tumbles out of her lipstick-smeared mouth. When Tori Amos sings a cappella of her experience being raped in the devastatingly beautiful “Me and a Gun” on Little Earthquakes, the result is meditative and emotionally resonant.
The problem with SAVE ME 4 THE SPANK BANK is not that it’s explicit; it’s that it’s completely artless. And it turns sex — specifically, gay sex — into something revolting. It lies splayed out on a soiled mattress, devoid of joy and beauty. It’s as if Gaynor sold his soul to the devil for a bottle of poppers, a cheap pleather harness and a douche autographed by Charli XCX.
Save yourself from the spank bank.
SAVE ME 4 THE SPANK BANK is available at theurinalcakes666.bandcamp.com and on major streaming services.
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This article appears in The Money & Retirement Issue 2025.
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