Party Music For Gay Angry Sluts

Like all good LPs Who Let The Dogs Out starts with a police siren, its a sound that never fails to stir my punk blood*. The siren morphs into ‘Bad Apples’ a furious tirade inspired by everything that’s wrong with the UK police, particularly fuelled by the death of Sarah Everard and the treatment of the vigil held for her; ‘not just bad apples / its the whole fucking tree’. I just love the righteous rush of the whole thing and the tightly focused anger.

Welcome to my fave LP of 2025 so far, Lambrini Girls Who Let The Dogs Out. The debut from the Brighton duo of Phoebe Lunny and Lilly Macieira-Boşgelmez, supplemented by drummer Jack Looker.

I lucked out and pre-ordered it after reading an interview by them and my copy landed on my doormat on 20th Jan bringing a hugely welcome day-glo fizzy-sugary rush of noise and messy rage with it.

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Cultural Note of interest to those not from my green and unpleasant land: Lambrini is/was a fizzy-sugary drink that was, from memory, a bit pink and very naff. It is exactly the sort of thing that kids stole from adults and drank in the park with their mates at age 13 before painting their bedroom with fuchsia coloured vomit. The adverts used the phrase ‘Lambrini girls’ because, obvs, no male would EVER drink it**.

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Lambrini Girls are punk as fuck and as angry as they have every fucking right to be, I mean, the planet is actually burning as we speak and, you know, fascism. Who Let The Dogs Out gives us songs about misogyny^ in the workplace, toxic masculinity, neurodiversity, gentrification, toxic love, pressures on female appearance^ and a track called ‘Filthy Rich Nepo Babies’ who’s target escapes me …

Which could all sound very single note, dour and oppressive if it wasn’t overlaid with so much joy and vigour. Lambrini Girls are witty and play it with such vim and verve that you cannot help but hurtle down their musical log flume with them. Don’t tell anyone but being this angry and swearing a lot is as fun as it is cathartic.

‘Company Culture’ is a real highlight for me. Its as virulent as it should be, ‘When will I learn / That men just do it better’ and those lines about harassment and being seen as the one ‘asking for it‘. There are some truly evil chord changes to ram the words home where the sun doesn’t shine.

The scathing ‘Big Dick Energy’ is sooo great, properly skewering male allies who are just in it for the shagging is something I haven’t heard in a tune before, ‘I’m one of the nice guys so why won’t you have sex with me?‘. It really isn’t that big, the Girls conclude and I’m reminded of L7’s immortal line ‘got so much clit she don’t need no balls’.

The tunes are mostly great throughout Who Let The Dogs Out, with the exception maybe of ‘Special Different’ which has better words than tune, but there are two here which just s-l-a-y.

First up is the utterly rocking, funny, sardonic, paean to gay attraction that is ‘No Homo’. Every compliment the singer pays her friend she ends with ‘no homo’ despite that being a lie and when she later confesses it’s an exhilarating moment, as well as being kinda sweet and messy. This is a perfect pop punk jolt and worth the price of the LP alone.

As an enormous fan of swearing I had to love ‘Cuntology 101’ didn’t I? Its a delirious, funny, contradictory list of things deemed to be ‘cunty’ – setting boundaries, healing your inner child, doing a poo at a friend’s house, learning to let things go, shagging behind some bins. Add in a low-slung electronic beat and the best cheer-beer-chant since FNM’s ‘Be Aggressive’ and I’m there.

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Who Let The Dogs Out does a stand-up, stand-down, stand-out, outstanding job for a debut. It really is totally now – angry, messy, hairy, queer, hedonistic and unapologetic. I’m excited to see what Lambrini Girls do next, do they stick with their current sound, or twist with maybe a more electronic edge?

I wasn’t quick enough to get tickets to see Lambrini Girls live yet, unlike certain hipsters of my acquaintance and I regret that. Who doesn’t want to get a dose of real delirium from these ‘gay angry sluts‘ even at my advanced age?

The icing on the Lambrini cake being when the right-wing press got very angry in March this year about their criticising the state of our nation, whilst taking a government grant to fund a tour, bless those editor’s angry little hearts; only music unthinkingly unstintingly praising our great nation should be allowed. If we judge Lambrini Girls by their enemies then they’re bang on as far as I am concerned.

I hope I don’t come on like some ancient vampiric parasite, leaching energy from the young and recklessly rebellious, but whilst I may not be Lambrini Girls exact target audience here, their tunes invite all of us sympathetic souls to the party to rage.

Fight the law that fights you harder
Bite the red right hand that feeds you

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As a pre-orderer type I got a ‘my grandma dies on this couch oxblood red’ copy of Who Let The Dogs Out. Other options included ‘gay Smurf dick blue’ which I think would make a fine addition to any colour range.

1284 Down.

*LPs are also permitted to start with the sound of a tolling bell, preferably in rain.

**I really liked it.

^contains the truth ‘Also diet drinks taste like absolute fucking shit’.

^^sadly, harder to spell than do.