Who Let The Dogs Out is the sound a police car makes when you set it on fire. It’s the sound of a brick connecting with a fascist. It’s precisely where punk needs to be in 2025.
Where do we find punk in 2025? Arguably, split into two distinctive camps. There are the old-schoolers, who are past it and angry: envious of the youth and (alarmingly frequently) going on rather un-punk tirades against ‘the woke’, cancel culture, starring in butter adverts or renting space inside right-wing figures like Trump or Farage: profoundly misinterpreting the very meaning of ‘anti-establishment’.
Away from the crusties (note, not crust-punks) are the kids: young, angry, queer and feminist, the new-wave punks are taking the fight to the establishment. Amid rallying calls uplifting the disenfranchised are some of the gnarliest, grittiest, filthiest punk tunes this side of 1977: bands who go hard as fuck while roundly rejecting the boot of any would-be oppressor.
One of the frontrunners of UK new–wave punk is Brighton’s Lambrini Girls: a piss-and-vinegar duo who brutalise social norms and societal inequality through dense, powerful, thunderous punk bangers. Made up of Phoebe Lunny (vocals/guitar) and Lilly Macieira (bass) (plus a fuck load of booze), the duo have been non-stop touring for some time now. Between the release of their cacophonous debut EP, 2023’s You’re Welcome, the band have hardly taken a night off from blasting larger and larger rooms and festivals across the UK, Europe and the US.
This relentless playing brings us to 2025 and a seminal release for the band: their exhilarating debut Who Let The Dogs Out arrives with an almighty crash – breaking down the door with a hefty boot and tearing the place to shreds. Opener ‘Bad Apple’ takes aim at institutionalised issues within the police with brutal intensity: Macieira lays down earth-shattering basslines, accompanied by Lunny’s howling guitar. The refrain of “Officer, what seems to be the problem?” appears to showcase Lunny’s voice at its guttural breaking point, but boy, we are just getting started.
‘Company Culture’ dissects misogynist attitudes in the workplace and ‘Big Dick Energy’ is an utter rabble-rouser of a track. Macieira’s bass fills the space around a cowbell lead drumline, weaving fat licks between fuzzy, crunchy guitar blasted from Lunny’s Fender Mustang.
Not only is it a brilliantly eloquent takedown of male faux-feminism, but it’s also communicated in an utterly working-class, entirely relatable and (most importantly, real) fourth-wave feminist tone. The musicality around the societal critique insights a riot and is tailor-made for the moshpit. It’s exactly what punk music should be in 2025, and so much of Who Let The Dogs Out follows these firmly established roots.
‘No Homo’ is a little softer from LG, with some awesome harmonies and a fuck-off-face-melter guitar solo reminiscent of The Germs or Bikini Kill. ‘You’re Not From Round Here’ acts as an educational session on what gentrification is and how it kills working-class culture. All that over yet another Macieira bassline that is almost vulgar in its gargantuan filth. There is a brief interlude in the shape of ‘Scarcity is Fake (Communist Propaganda)”, which comes in the form of a powerful anticapitalist quote from Stokely Carmichael of the All African People’s Revolutionary Party. The quote is drenched in effects and shrouded by howling guitar.
Brilliant, poignant quotes from revolutionaries show that LG are far from posers, they know their shit. Marx uses the term “praxis” to refer to the free, universal, creative and self-creative activity through which man creates and changes his historical world and himself: Who Let The Dogs Out is by it’s very definition praxis. Though you can swap out “man” for “women”.
A real highlight of this record is ‘Love’, the most recent single and the album’s penultimate cut. Its myriad of head-spinning bass effects on chunky hooks are accompanied by end-of-the-world guitars from Lunny, who – in a more vulnerable moment – describes her relationship with love and loss all at once. The breakdown is LG at their most intimate before the thunderous guitars once again kick the door in – it’s exceptional.
We close out with something off the wall and experimental from LG – ‘Cuntology 101’ is a manifesto for the band. The track is all about prioritising their own needs, reclaiming sex and sexuality, denouncing social stigmas and stealing shit from chain shops. All this is over a whirling key/synth part and driving percussion is quite something.
Massive, in-your-face punk and verbal assaults are what we need in 2025. Lambrini Girls are shaping the genre with fierce spirit, like so many before. Their punk 101 is honed to a tee, and the experimental parts of Who Let The Dogs Out show that the duo have plenty more in the locker.
featured image: Derek Perlman
