As flag-waving, political, wake-up-people-the-world-is-fucked albums go, this is one of the best in a long time. It is rowdy, witty, laser-guided and it sounds amazing.
Lambrini Girls‘ message is far from new: that misogyny, classism, racism, rampant capitalism and a media hell-bent on demeaning or dismissing people “different” to cis white men are all still rife. In the last few years Idles and Bob Vylan, to name but two bands, have expressed this in successful, similarly abrasive, punkish fashion.
But Who Let The Dogs Out delivers it in a way that is fresh as the first ripe bramble fruit and so rousing that you will start dancing before you realise that you’re being told that things are not ideal.
The album by the Brighton duo opens with three scathing swipes: at the police force (‘Bad Apple’), toxic masculinity in the workplace (‘Company Culture’), and, well everywhere (‘Big Dick Energy’). And each song makes its point with extreme force – like in the first song, where vocalist Phoebe Lunny (who also plays guitar) yells “Officer, what seems to be the problem?!” before adding in a quiet, matter-of-fact tone: “Or can we only know post-mortem?”.
‘Big Dick Energy’ should be played to every teenage boy in the English-speaking world – and their fathers, for that matter. It is about male entitlement, and it skewers the phrase trotted out by self-styled “allies” that “it is not all men” that engage in casual sexism, misogyny or unconscious bias.
In the breakdown, Lunny spells it out: “Mate. That white-knight act is getting pretty fucking irritating, considering it is nothing but performative”. And if those words are too long for men and boys to comprehend, she ends each verse with the rather more concise “it’s not that fucking big”.
And ‘You’re Not From Round Here’ takes aim with machine-gun delivery at gentrification (“elevate, globalise, modernise, dehumanise”) over a jangle-pop backing that could be from a Wedding Present album.
It is not all political, however. ‘No Homo’ takes a homophobic hashtag and transforms it into an upbeat pop-punk song about the awkwardness of fancying someone when you’re not sure they’re into you. And it is delivered with a hook – “I like your face, but not in a gay way” – that will be impossible to get out of your head once you hear it.
And ‘Nothing Tastes as Good as it Feels’ borrows the ‘thinspirational’ phrase of the early 2000s popularised by Kate Moss, that pressured women into dangerous eating habits and turns it into an upbeat punk commentary on experience with eating disorders – the closing line is “lemme eat carbs”. It works.
Living with neurodiversity is tackled in ‘Special, Different’, while ‘Love’ is a reverb-soaked banger on mistaking love for coercion. If it doesn’t get extensive radio play (it is one of the only songs on the record that isn’t peppered with expletives) then there is no justice in the world.
The heaviness of the subjects covered could easily come across as lecturing, if they weren’t packaged in the right way. But the music and the lyrical delivery sugar the pill and make it an upbeat, empowering and enjoyable listen. The fuzzy bass, played by Lilly Macieira, underpins the songs with urgency, while the melodies – written in two short, sharp bursts of creativity, one sober and one debauched, according to the band – get into your head and stay there. You find yourself singing phrases from ‘Filthy Rich Nepo Baby’ to yourself hours after listening. Lunny sums up the methods best: “If you had a piece of brown bread on a plate and were like, ‘you’ve got to eat this whole thing and it’s going to be really good for you,’ you’d probably think, ‘fuck it, maybe, if I have to…’ but you’re not going to be excited about it.
“If you give someone a piece of brown bread that’s got icing on it, sprinkles, maybe a sparkler… I’d shove that in my mouth immediately!”
Incidentally, the aforementioned ‘Nepo Baby’ song is a blistering commentary on privileged kids’ class tourism in the music industry. It is Pulp’s ‘Common People’ after two bottles of carbonated wine.
‘Cuntology 101’ ends the album on a high note. It reclaims the broadcasters’ nightmare word as a positive attribute, listing things like doing what’s best for yourself, saying no, getting out of your comfort zone, and, err, doing a poo at your friend’s house as “cunty”, over a scuzzy electro beat. It has the hallmarks of being a shoutalong classic live. An audience joining in on the chorus chant – “C-U-N-T, I’m gonna do what’s best for me, I’m cunty! Cunty, cunty, cunty, cunty!” would be a sight to see. And, let’s face it, if we were all a little more cunty and there was less big-dick energy in the world, it would be a much better place. Hail the Lambrini Girls.
