Victoria’s 14 Flamingos have long specialised in the soundtrack to bad decisions and the pink plastic lawn ornaments that litter the walk of shame. With “Habsburg Chin,” the gonzo art-rock collective leans fully into their modern vaudevillian experiment, turning the infamous royal jawline - that protruding mandibular prognathism born of centuries of strategic inbreeding - into a sly, lopsided anthem that feels both courtly and completely unhinged.
The track opens with chiming keys and a restless rhythm section that nods to Balkan bounce, late-night surf rock and the kind of burn-barrel barbershop harmonies you’d half-expect to hear leaking from a forgotten roadside thrift store. Cornet flourishes and organ swells lend a faintly imperial grandeur, only to undercut it with wry, dry-as-dust lyrics that circle inheritance, awkward lineage and the quiet absurdity of inherited misfortune. It’s equal parts Tom Waits sideshow carnival and Leonard Cohen end-of-the-world poetry, delivered with the band’s trademark knowing smirk.
What elevates “Habsburg Chin” is how completely it embodies the Flamingos’ ethos. This isn’t polite indie rock; it’s a collective of musicians, dancers and circus spirits conducting a slightly dangerous experiment in the margins. The arrangement never settles into the expected—shifting from jaunty swagger to a more haunted, liquid groove—mirroring the way a family trait can both define and doom a dynasty.
At under three, the song sticks in the mind like a genetic quirk you can’t quite shake, equal parts catchy and disquieting. In a scene crowded with careful revivalism, 14 Flamingos remain gloriously themselves: too weird to live, too rare to die, and perfectly suited to the moment when the party tips into beautiful disaster.
“Habsburg Chin” is another sharp reminder that their particular brand of art-rock alchemy still cuts deeper, and stranger, than most.
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