I ramble, at length, about basically everything. Word limits fear me. My friends dnf my texts. I think I may have single handedly crashed Twitter. Straight to the point, I am not. However, in the spirit of things, I’m going to dive right in.
Who Let The Dogs Out is Lambrini Girls’ first full length album. 11 tracks, 29 minutes, no time at all for clowning around. This album is accessible and I don’t mean that, well, mean. The guitars are loud and the vocals are uncomplicated. The message is clear- they’re angry and with good reason. I think a lot of us are too. The lyrics take centre stage with a straightforward bluntness only enhanced by the brash tone they’re yelled with.
Album opener ‘Bad Apple’ blares on with a heavy, frankly foreboding, riff. A track about cops and the abuse of power, it’s fuelled by snappy drums and buzzing guitar. A militaristic intro followed by increasingly frenzied riffs, ‘Company Culture’ picks apart workplace sexual harassment. ‘Big Dick Energy’ discusses toxic masculinity with snarling vocals that bring to mind Amyl and The Sniffers. While ‘No Homo’ is not my favourite track musically, it does contain one of my favourite lyrics- “I’m homo for sure”. I’m considering getting that on a t-shirt.
‘Nothing Tastes As Good As It Feels’ flashes a terrific guitar melody and painfully realistic lines regarding eating disorders. This one is definitely worth a trip to Google if you can’t make out the ultra-confessional lyrics. A hummable melody runs throughout ‘You’re Not From Around Here’- a track about gentrification and, ultimately, class. The buzziest, more feedback soaked song of the lot is ‘Filthy Rich Nepo Baby’. It’s about the music industry, sure; but, honestly, it’s a Common People-esque, (from the beloved British rock band Pulp), anthem about money, class and the guises of success. ‘Cuntology 101’ is fantastic, not only for its name, but its spacey opening riff and cheer-style playfulness.
‘Nothing Tastes As Good As It Feels’ and ‘Cuntology 101’ are two tracks I’ll be returning to (although, for wildly different moods).
The album falls in the lineage of riot grrrl, yes; but it’s reminiscent of The Chats and early IDLES too. The album spans the spectrum of punk rock standards- class, cops and companies. It also takes on mental health, eating disorders and nepo baby ‘artists’. Lambrini Girls charge forward with an album that milks every second of its 29 minute runtime. Juicy bass, driving drums and enough vitriol to fuel several hundred mosh pits, Who Let The Dogs Out is worth far more than 30 minutes of your time. Lambrini Girls have lived up to their own hype with their first full length release and I hope we continue to see more singles in the future.
