Author: George Marsden is a graduate of Glasgow University, where he read English and Classics. His writing has appeared in IM-1776, The Mallard, and Sublation Magazine, among other outlets. As song writing is the only form of modern poetic expression with a mass audience, George thinks it merits special critical attention. He also aims to counter the nefarious influence that Oasis have had on British culture.

When garbled by the hum of a noisy bar, the song “You’re Not From Around Here” might strike you as a particularly unsubtle anti-immigration rant. But singer Phoebe Lunny is there to put you right. Around halfway through, she spares her vocal cords and drops the screaming to speak in the gentler, if more pointed, tones of the edifying lecturer: it’s gentrification she’s angry about, the process behind which Lunny then explains to you. Because Screwdriver this ain’t, but the Lambrini Girls; Brighton’s contribution to riot grrrl. And in the hallowed traditions of that city, their debut album ‘Who Let The Dogs Out’ is one loud protest at the political and sexual establishment. Or, rather, it would be, if what they say and think wasn’t also what top civil servants, university lecturers and Labour and Conservatives alike also say and think.

But then again, expecting intellectual substance from punk music is like expecting culinary discernment in a dog. The respective virtues of punk musicians and dogs lie elsewhere; and in the case of these musicians in particular, the virtues are potent enough to outweigh whatever offences to reason accompany them. After all, punk is inherently anti-reason, and in this album, the Lambrini Girls show that they are talented enough to communicate without it. Take the above-mentioned track: the dud spoken verse aside, the song is especially thrilling—an effect I attribute to their knack for lilting lines off the jagged backs of seismically significant guitar riffs. With exuberant playing like that, who needs thought?

I suspect this high opinion of their abilities is something they share themselves. As well as tapping into a trend, ‘Filthy Rich Nepo Babies’ sounds as if it testifies to a rage at obvious merit once being overlooked in favour of “Rod Stewart’s nephew’s best friend twice removed”. Combining venomous sarcasm with crunchy, distorted guitar playing that explodes with the chorus, the anger is certainly murderous enough for this to be plausible.

Thankfully, that merit didn’t go unnoticed long enough for either Lunny or Lily Macieira to become for the music industry what Luigi Mangione is to the US health insurance industry. Apparently, that has something to do with Iggy Pop. They collaborated with him in 2023 for a cover of Depeche Mode’s ‘Personal Jesus’ (which isn’t bad at all for a band just four years old at the time), and since then gigs and media appearances appear to have been plentiful on both sides of the Atlantic. And just in case you were wondering, Iggy is neither Lunny’s nor Macieira’s uncle.

Given all this pre-debut album success, it makes ‘Who Let the Dogs Out’ something of a victory lap. For me, the high point is the track ‘Love’. It’s arguably more accessible than the preceding tracks because it shifts its tone from hard to ethereal for Lunny to deliver lines that, in their wistfulness, are the one moment of vulnerability in a collection of extremely confrontational songs. But that ethereal soundscape is then savagely chopped up by the reintroduction of the drums and a return to the harshness of the song’s opening. That opening is itself characterised by an equally savage attack from both the guitar and drums, forming a rhythm for the trochaic line “That I make up as I go along” to canter over. Indeed, the writing here leaps in quality. “It makes me feel sick/ So hold back my hair until I stop” (as in being “sick” with love) is witty, and the shouted (nearly spat out) “True love is nothing more/ Than the wrong hill to die on” has a brutal poignancy that, I think, everything else in the song exists to undergird.

In fact, I can imagine the decision to include ‘Love’ was made precisely to prove that the Lambrini Girls can do poignancy and tone modulation. Neither quality really appears among the tracks upon which they’ve built their following (and which form the first songs on the album). ‘Bad Apple’ opens ‘Who Let the Dogs Out’ at a pace not matched by any other track, and its rage is too direct to really qualify for poignancy (which, obviously, is the point). With the heavy beat and Lunny’s Estuary English rapping, to my ear at least, it’s a lot like being Nu Metal’ed at by Tracy Beaker. And it’s in the same uncompromising and belligerent attitude as Jacqueline Wilson’s beloved character that ‘Big Dick Energy’, and ‘Company Culture’ are shredded out.

Better still are the moments when their sense of humour emerges. “I like your face but not in a gay way…I like your face and it’s in a gay way” from ‘No Homo’ is redolent of the piss-takey jocularity characteristic of the Cramps’ and Jello Biafra’s songwriting. And of course, any song named ‘Cuntology 101’ is going to stand out in this regard. Also making it stand out is its synth and pop hook; it certainly sounds very different from everything else on offer. Because of this, I wonder if the humour might not go beyond the obvious delight in obscenity and if there’s some light Chappel Roan pastiche here. The poppiness, repeated spelling out of C-U-N-T, and sex positivity certainly brings her to mind. While certainly no conservative, it’s hard to imagine her shouting “cunt” 32 times in a song; if the Girls did intend to bring Roan to mind in this fashion, it constitutes a pretty good joke.

I can well imagine the Lambrini Girls coming to define what punk is for the coming decade. That’s nearly a meaningless statement, of course: punk has meant as many things as there are bands associated with it over the last sixty years. But in their abrasiveness, avoidance of nuance, and anarchic stage presence, they surely veer closer to the primitiveness that defined a lot of the earlier acts than some of the later offerings. Perhaps Iggy Pop himself agrees. Anyway,  I am very interested in what the Lambrini Girls do next and hope that they never regain their reason.

You can listen to the album here: https://open.spotify.com/album/4GzF4Yg3GSkKi4hAzmjBKV?si=OC_WXy7rQlq6OTZauP5zrw