Lambrini Girls - Who Let The Dogs Out?

Capturing the famed freneticism of their live show with confidence and clarity, each of the eleven tracks on Lambrini Girls’ debut full-length holds absolutely nothing back. ‘Who Let The Dogs Out’ is an album that – as expected – is replete with ruthlessly cutting one-liners: “True love is nothing more than the wrong hill to die on” asserts ‘Love’; “You act like I’m your mother and your therapist”, ‘Big Dick Energy’ berates. Clearly, the self-same visceral fury at our capitalistic, patriarchal, racist, queerphobic society that first drew people’s attention to the duo (comprised of vocalist/guitarist Phoebe Lunny and bassist Lilly Macieira) is still burning strong. But here, there are also as-yet-unseen layers to their rage; indeed, Phoebe is lyrically at her most powerful when she turns her gaze inward, reflecting on the individual, personal consequences of these institutional issues.

Among the standouts are ‘No Homo’ – a playful yet actually quite poignant look at the anxieties of navigating same-sex attraction in heteronormative spaces – and ‘Special, Different’, on which the vocalist mulls over the lonely realities of neurodivergence (“Why can’t I just fit in?”). ‘Nothing Tastes As Good As It Feels’, meanwhile, is the most vulnerable they’ve ever been on record; taking its title from the infamous Kate Moss quote, this album lynchpin distills their every strength – the no-holds barred honesty and the ire – into a gut-punch testimony of disordered eating and body dysmorphia: “I wish I was skinny but it’ll never be enough” she snarls, encapsulating a whole generation’s self-loathing in a sentence.

Though lyrics are undoubtedly Lambrini Girls’ prime weapon of choice, with Phoebe also spitting home truths about police corruption (‘Bad Apple’), workplace misogyny (‘Company Culture’), industry inequality (‘Filthy Rich Nepo Baby’) and more, the record’s instrumentals nevertheless hold the weight of her words with ease; cleaner, more ambitious, and more diverse than the arrangements on 2023 EP ‘You’re Welcome’, they cement the duo as natural successors to modern punk rock greats like Green Day, SOFT PLAY and Amyl and The Sniffers.

Until, that is, we get to closer ‘Cuntology 101’ – a sudden left turn towards markedly dancier territory, it’s yet another tongue-in-cheek reminder that, for this band, making very serious points has never been mutually exclusive to a bit of silliness. A laundry list of self-proclaimed “cunty” (complimentary) behaviours sandwiching a ‘HOT TO GO!’-style chorus, it’s a ridiculous, brilliant anthem that’s sure to have festival crowds everywhere bodily spelling out the English language’s most taboo swear word with glee.

The continued rise of Lambrini Girls is testament to the fact there’s a genuine, passionate appetite for these things to be said – and said loudly. While detractors might claim that it’s too on the nose – that there’s a lack of lyrical ambiguity, or nuance – the point which ‘Who Let The Dogs Out’ makes spectacularly is that with some things, you need to just be straight (though not sexually, obv).