In an established age of anti-romance, embraced chaos, and utter carnage, which hill is the right one to die on? Lambrini Girl’s debut album Who Let The Dogs Out simply responds: all of them. Kickstarting the year with all the playfully turbulent rage of womanhood, the Brighton noise punk duo, Phoebe Lunny and Lily Maciera come for all that is fucked about Britain in a commentary that is uniquely hilarious and queer.
Standing out for Maciera’s sinister lurking bassline, ‘Love’ is a horror song and is definitely out to get you. The track comprises some of their best lyrics to date with “true love is nothing more than the wrong hill to die on” and the haunting bridge encapsulating all the rage towards fears of modern romance creeping up on their cynicism. In contrast, the tongue-in-cheek No Homo hijacks a homophobic cliché to scream about her desires for women. The sharply funny delivery is only topped by a blisteringly rage-fuelled guitar solo.
Tackling the throbbing drone of misogyny from workplaces to social media, ‘Big Dick Energy’ and ‘Company Culture’. Of the two ‘Big Dick Energy’ arguably does the better job, with hints of Joan Jett and the Blackhearts in the guitar riff, which aims to wound the male ego and strip it apart, ending the song comedically repeating “You’re not that big”. ‘Filthy Rich Nepo Baby’ similarly uses its explicit and cutting lyrics to attack the fetishisation of the working classes.
Able to take itself seriously when necessary, the record comments on a world still recovering from the body dysmorphic ‘90s hell, ‘Nothing Tastes As Good As It Feels’ screams at the reflection in the mirror, standing out as one of the album’s more emotionally raw and darker tracks. Littered with references to Kate Moss, from the title’s twist on her infamous quote, “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels,” to the relentless chant, “Kate Moss gives no fucks if my period stops,” the song hurtles forward, mimicking the unthinking devastation of these ideals through the unflinching bassline which eventually descends into atonal chaos.
Album opener Bad Apple channels Charli XCX’s Apple, drawing from its theme of generational trauma to confront complicity in a discriminatory police system that “is a whole rotten tree”. Driven by the sirens of Lunny’s distorted guitar, in punk fashion Lambrini Girls protest with the bass drop and lyrics “or can we only know post-mortem?” packing an unquestionable punch. On the other end of the spectrum and album, ‘Cuntology 101’ takes inspiration from pop merging punk and synth-pop in its fun and satirically imperious queer anthem.
Who Let The Dogs Out is not without a whimper though, with ‘Special Different’, a commentary on neurodivergent acceptance, which ironically does not come across as unique – feeling to lack Lunny’s usually biting lyricism. ‘You’re Not From Around Here’ suffers from the same problem, with a commentary on gentrification, it struggles to tread new ground and is fairly musically stunted.
While the album undeniably echoes IDLES’ Brutalism in moments, with driving bass lines and politically charged, socialist lyricism, reducing it to that comparison alone feels short-sighted. Instead, Who Let The Dogs Out stands on its own for its wit and unapologetic female rage and that is not the wrong hill to die on.
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