Brit punk duo Lambrini Girls make righteous noise in all of the right ways on stupidly good debut album, Who Let The Dogs Out?
The tree’s come down, the hangover’s passed and it’s time to rage again. Peace on Earth can’t last forever anyways, and no amount of tinsel can disguise society’s broken foundations. Thankfully, with their debut album, Lambrini Girls are here to sort it out. There might be protest albums everywhere right now, but Who Let The Dogs Out? goes far beyond mere chest-beating and shitting on the government. This one is special. It might also be the most fun you’ll ever have while screaming at the world.
For Phoebe Lunny and Lily Maciera, fun and fury are inextricable. It certainly helps the medicine to go down, but it gives them an irresistible edge as they make a righteous racket about gentrification, workplace sexual harassment, neurodiversity and more.
Impressively still, pretty much any of these tracks could have been a single. The quick-witted Filthy Rich Nepo Babies ('Hugo wants to be a rock star, smashing up five grand guitars / His dad works at Sony') and the sapphic twist-and-shout of No Homo ('I like your face and it’s in a gay way!') are overflowing with outlandishness, but this band can lurch between silly and serious quicker than you can say ‘patriarchy’.
Even in Nothing Tastes As Good As It Feels’ confrontational, often uncomfortable examination of eating disorders, they still squeeze in wisecracks. 'Kate Moss gives no fucks that my period has stopped' they rage. By its end, Phoebe’s screaming 'GIVE ME FULL FAT, YOU FUCKING BASTARDS!'
We know Lambrini Girls are noisy sorts, but they’ve not quite had enough credit for how great they are with guitars. If they happened to be on a mission to change that, it shows. The menacing buzz that powers opener Bad Apple sounds as much like a distress signal as the police siren that opens it. The squalling Love – a tirade against mistaking toxicity for genuine love – boasts riffs that must have been created with some secret sauce that induces cravings for endless repeat plays.
It all ends with a discordant dance party in the form of C**tology 101, a joyful celebration of self that reclassifies everything from letting go and setting boundaries to autistic meltdowns and 'Doing a poo at your friend’s house' as 'c**ty'.
Still, they’ve done something even more audacious than releasing a track with an off-the-scale number of C-words in it. They’ve dropped an album of the year contender just 10 days into 2025. Big power move, that.
Verdict: 4/5
For fans of: Amyl And The Sniffers, Petrol Girls, CLT DRP
Who Let The Dogs Out? is out January 10 via City Slang
