By – Jackie Lo

If you like: IDLES, Amyl and the Sniffers, Fontaines D.C., Mannequin Pussy

Lambrini Girls released their debut album Who Let The Dogs Out today on City Slang. This Brighton, UK duo of Phoebe Lunny and Lilly Macieira came to my attention in 2023 with the release of their You’re Welcome EP and I instantly fell in love with their track, “Boys in the Band”. It’s everything this Riot Grrl loving, rage filled woman with a love of fuzz guitars and screaming vocals could ask for, so I was incredibly interested in hearing what they had to bring with their first full length album.

The album opens with “Bad Apple” and the sound of police sirens, “Officer what seems to be the problem? Or can we only know postmortem” sets the tone for the violence and anger against police brutality and the violence and anger you’re going to hear on the rest of the album. It’s followed by a single from the album “Company Culture” whose opening guitar rift is reminiscent of IDLES “Gift Horse” and tackles workplace harassment, consent, and my favorite, the cold resting bitch face. Another single, and one of my favorites on the album “Big Dick Energy” absolutely is a face melting anthem with “Stay the fuck away from me? Why? You’re really not that big.” It’s a well-deserved burn for the negative feedback women receive, the need to apologize for our behavior, of having to worry about getting home safely and all of the downfalls of dealing with Big Dick Energy that’s really just a facade for insecurity. “Nothing Tastes As Good As It Feels” chants “Wish I was skinny but I’ll never be enough.” and the last few lines were a perfect middle finger with “Give me full fat you fucking bastards… let me eat carbs…”.

“You’re Not From Around Here” tackles urban development, “run down houses in a run downtown” gentrification, single working mothers alongside “Filthy Rich Nepo Baby” with its dirty fuzzy guitars hitting their limit to the breaking point as minimum wage, class systems, and nepotism are yelled into your ears. “Special, Different” was one of the standout tracks for me dealing with all the self-doubt and negative words you hear about yourself, imposter syndrome, how you don’t fit in, or are only good in small doses. The lines “Don’t tell me to fit in? Don’t tell me to sit still? Special….Different….” screamed is so cathartic and helps wash away my adolescent years of feeling like I was the only one that didn’t fit in.  ”Love” is another single off the album and I absolutely LOVE the guitars and fuzz on this one with a perfect opening line “True love is nothing more than the wrong hill to die on”. “Cuntology 101” made me laugh out loud as I was just having a conversation with a friend on the word “cunty” and how we both found it amusing and so perfect to describe specific things that don’t have other words that really capture it. This song goes through all the things that are “cunty” and is such an enjoyable way to end the album.

If you need something to listen to while you get some shit done, need to scream, or need to know that someone else in the world hates the same things you do, then Who Let The Dogs Out is the perfect listen. It’s loud. It’s unapologetic. It’s angry. And it’s everything I needed to start this insane year.