ALBUM REVIEW: Who Let The Dogs Out – Lambrini Girls
Brighton punk powerhouses LAMBRINI GIRLS are undeniably back – and sticking their middle fingers up to the patriarchy. With their debut album, Who Let The Dogs Out, dynamic duo Phoebe Lunny and Lilly Macieira are putting up a fight against the ruling class and using their personal experiences to speak louder than ever before. In 2024, the girls supported Kim Gordon (of SONIC YOUTH fame), played four shows at Glastonbury and supported IDLES when they went to Alexandra Palace. Now this year nothing is off the table. Women need to be heard, there’s nothing better than a riot and LAMBRINI GIRLS make the perfect soundtrack for it.
The riot begins encircled with police sirens and the low thrum of bass. Bad Apple is a fast-paced firecracker about racial inequality. Centering their lyrics on gun violence and the distrust of the police, their ferocious sound swells deeply into a chasm of noise. Guaranteed to make any ceiling sticky, this track calls for a no-holds-barred mosh of entirely epic proportions. Company Culture, the next explosive track is slower but just as impactful, digging deep into honest vocals about workplace harassment.
Vocalist Phoebe Lunny makes her talents known with her incredibly fast lyrics woven with cynicism and humour, but with a talent for getting straight to the point. A track about the collective feelings women and queer people feel about living in a patriarchal society – from walking home alone at night to the dangers of mansplaining – Big Dick Energy makes real issues feel heard. Accompanied by Macieira’s bass, it adrenalises the track into a deeply satisfying high-intensity song that is certainly not allowed to be played on FM radio.
The album has definitely found a rhythm by the time it gets to No Homo, a record about the importance of queer erasure. Taking more of a classic rock approach, with inspiration from artists such as THE BANGLES and HOLE, it uses fast chord progressions to pull the song along. Pushing into You’re Not From Around Here is a truly British slam sandwich filled with a lengthy monologue about gentrification and displacing rural communities. Following into Filthy Rich Nepo Baby, real struggles about making it big in the music industry and the working class, is refreshing and exciting. LAMBRINI GIRLS have always been the underdogs, but it’s testament to the extreme hard work they put into their music, especially through the intensity of their songs.
Love comes in and blindsides the record with a slow impactful melody that haunts the second half of the track. In an album where looking forward to the future is so important, this is the only real period of reflection. This singular moment pulls focus into the final act, giving in to an elation of a final track, Cuntology 101. It’s the payoff that is worth waiting for, imbued with electronic synths and C-U-N-T gang chants.
Coming in at just half an hour long, LAMBRINI GIRLS have created something spectacular. It’s an album that makes us proud to be British and more importantly, excited for the future of our music scene. Lunny and Macieira set the standard of how they feel engrossed every part of their musical persona and as real people. They make music that has true care for the people listening. Who Let The Dogs Out is a triumph and most importantly makes us feel empowered. The flow of the album is great and will be even greater in a live setting. The album does not have anything to prove because LAMBRINI GIRLS already know who they are.
LAMBRINI GIRLS are set to make 2025 their year. With a headliner spot at Reading & Leeds announced, billboards in Leicester Square, and number 1 in the Rock Charts already, mainstream is ready for a riot. LAMBRINI GIRLS join a real movement with artists such as AMYL AND THE SNIFFERS, SOFT PLAY, and BOB VYLAN to put punk back on the pedestal. Maybe the genre’s rise is a comment on our society as a whole, the truths we need to speak, or the dystopia we have found ourselves living in. Regardless, sometimes it’s good to scuff knees, break noses, and lose yourself in fast angry music.
Rating: 10/10
Who Let The Dogs Out is out now via City Slang.
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