The epitome of everything, I’ll tell her how I really feel
She’ll realise that I’m homo for sure
I like your face but not in a gay way
No homo
Who! Who who who!!
Heeeeeeeeey, all you Dr. Who fans, that could be a new chant for you! Whenever the new Dr. Who episode about planets having the right to defend themselves (with genocide), or whatever, you could all chant “Who let the dogs out! Dr. Who, who, who, who!”! You can have that. Mind you, I don’t really watch a lot of Dr. Who, but I don’t think dogs feature too heavily in the core plot? Do they still have K9? Is that still a thing? You could maybe try to fit K9 into the song? “Who let Daleks out! Dr. Who, who, who who!”. That kinda works? Listen, it might need a bit of work, but I am officially relinquishing the intellectual property of that chant, so it’s public access now.
I’m sorry, I’m getting a bit overexcited, which is actually completely understandable when it comes to the Lambrini Girls. The Brighton duo are the Sex Pistols if they were less concerned with creating Anarchy in the UK and more concerned with dissecting the country’s anarchic situation and offering solutions on top of decrying problems. They’re the sound of Frederick Engels hiding a glitter bomb in the first edition of the Communist Manifesto to prank Karl Marx, but Marx forgiving him to the extent that they end up having sweaty, rough sex while Engels reads out quotations from ‘Condition of the Working Class in England‘ in between impassioned moans. Like if the Maoist Nazalite uprising were all, fucking, gay as shit, I dunno, I’m running out of similes here.
You see I’m trying to tell you something
And it’s the opposite of what no homo means
But for the sake of full transparency
I like your face and it’s in a gay way
Homo
Singer/guitarist Phoebe Lunny and bassist Selin Macieira-Boşgelmez actually had a modicum of hype for this debut album, which isn’t really something you get in 2025. And it was proper old fashioned ‘hype’ as well – the duo’s live shows were chaotically incredible events*, to the extent that anyone who caught one was immediately converted to the cause. Plus the two were loudly outspoken on important issues whenever interviewed, and gave their fullest support to LGBT causes, battling sexual abuse, and generally calling the government out for its continued attacks on the Working Class. The Tories when the band started, Starmer’s pathetic ‘Weekend at Bernie’s attempt at a Labour Party now. Different spots, same leopard. Also, their label sent a track to 6 Music and Iggy Pop played it, which is a a different kind of awesome. Basically, they were given prominence in the same way White Town did, yeah? They have also been consistent and loud supporters of Palestinian emancipation, and have put their money where their fabulously big mouths are – pulling out of SXSW after it was revealed the festival had links to weapons contractors funding the genocide in Gaza. The band’s early songs like Help Me I’m Gay {“Help me I’m gay/Yet everything I do is for the male gaze/Pray for my soul/Because everything about me is apparently a spectacle”) and God’s Country (“All hail God’s Country/Daily Mail bacon baps/Racist uncles want their country back Flag Shaggers/Maggie Thatcher/Oh Britannia/God save the King”) showed a lot of early promise, so there was something of a buzz around if they could land it on their debut album. Seriously, you have no idea, the last time there was any sort of buzz around a debut British rock band it was whether Gay Dad’s ‘Leisure Noise‘ would be worth all the talk back in 1999.
(*something that I can confirm they were managing to transfer to the big leagues – the 1500 capacity O2 Ritz – by the end of the year. Erm… sorry about the finger in that video. I couldn’t get it out. I accidentally put my finger in and couldn’t work out how to get it out. Oooh Matron etc.)
And… yeah, the Girls essentially just decided to do tracks as good as those eleven times and call it an album 🤷♀️. 13th best of the year, fuck all y’all.
‘Who Let the Dogs Out’ (I like the lack of a question mark, like the album title is a statement; ‘Tis the Lambrini Girls who let the dogs out) is an absolute fucking riot. 29 minutes of tight, high energy, politically conscious and – most importantly, remember – fucking banging punk rock. It doesn’t really offer anything new, it could perhaps be accused of being a tad too deferential, it’s just three chords, the singer shouts too loud, blah blah fucking blah. Take your snobbish musical elitism to the Frank Ocean subreddit and write another 4000 word post about why he hasn’t released an album in ten years or whatever the fuck – if you love music and you yearn for music that can truly ignite your bones and conduct fury inside your very spleen, then stick around, you’ll have a great time.
Gentrification is a process of urban development
In which a neighborhood develops rapidly over a short time
Changing from low to high value
Original residents, families, single working mothers, low-income households
Are displaced from the very community that they helped build
Yeah, they’re the lyrics, so what? Are we going to have a problem here?
I get a bit pissy about artist’s not being class conscious. I mean, I kinda lost my shot when I found out that Blondshell was basically a Vulture Capitalism Nepo Baby. I end up rolling my eyes when I find out that music I love is made by children of two music journalists. I went it to class consciousness so hard on my Psalm One book review that she called me out on it in an interview we did that she never fucking released!! What the fuck, Cristalle?? Yet the Lambrini Girls are so conscious of the ridiculous class divide and the completely hidden lack of any Working Class representation in music that receives any sort of traction that they’re able to narrate this issue as good as anyone since Jarvis Cocker (“If you want success to last/Fetishise the working class/From your five bed house in Surrey”)
And, sure, the album is a bit samey. And, sure, the general high quality of the tunes if offset a little by every chorus just being the song title shouted out five times. And, sure, this album could have likely come out at any point in the past 50 years. But I don’t care. Maybe my ‘Manics Alarm‘ was set off by the band stopping the song for a spoken definition of gentrification in You’re Not From Round Here. Maybe it’s the fact that, much as I obviously love 4st 7lbs, it would kill for a line like “Kate Moss gives no fucks that my period has stopped“. Like, seriously, we now know for a fact Richey is dead, because if he was in Peru or whatever and heard that he’d be on the first plane over to shake both of Lambrini Girls’ hands.
This album is, officially, Cunty. Like doing a poo at your friends house, apparently.
User score of 60!! Fuck right off you Yank twats!!
Yeah, all the negative reviews basically say that.
Necessary Evil 
One thought on “13 Lambrini Girls: Who Let the Dogs Out”