Standing Over By The Record Machine: Lambrini Girls’ *Who Let The Dogs Out?*

2025’s *Never Mind The Bollocks*, from two genderqueer women, monkeywrenches the new anti-DEI agenda.

📸 Pic courtesy of City Slang Records

“It's very hard to write about anything which isn’t inherently politically charged, when your frame of reference is a world around you which is literally on fucking fire, and we see late stage capitalism fucking crumbling and people being blown to bits and dying every day,” said Phoebe Lunny, 27 year old singer/guitarist with UK punk firebrands Lambrini Girls, in a Teen Vogue profile published three days after the release of their potent debut LP Who Let The Dogs Out? [City Slang Records UK]. Issued ten days before 45 took office—while Los Angeles burned and certain very rich men pushed conspiracy theories instead of offering aid—Dogs is pure, undiluted fury, a record that couldn’t be more of the moment. It‘s already the Album Of The Year. No one else should bother trying.

Lambrini Girls hail from Brighton, led by two genderqueer women—Lunny and bassist Lilly Macieira. They first crossed paths in an earlier band, Wife Swap USA, bonding over a metric fuckton of grievances—every last one of which gets screamed across Dogs’ furious, noisy party-punk. In general, they’re anti-misogyny, anti-homophobia, and very eat-the-rich. But their commitment to general pro-inclusivity and their embrace of genderqueer radicalism are the core of their philosophy.

“The punk scene…is still extremely male-dominated,” Lunny informed the Nialler 9 website almost a year ago. “I think it’s very important that we create those spaces for artists who aren’t straight cis males.

“But the brunt of it is the only people that will enforce and create those spaces, are women, queer people, non-binary. Those are the only people that are going to do that. So it’s important that we get our foot in the door to open up dialogue and disrupt the sort of culture which is so male-dominated. But it does come down to us, the majority of the time.

“It’s really important to do and I think everyone says, ‘Oh, my God, it’s so important,’” she concluded, adding that “the only people who actually are the ones enforcing that are the women and genderqueer artists themselves, I’d say.”

They waste no time making their stance clear. Dogs opens with wailing sirens and a relentless, one-note riff that lands like police pounding on your front door, demanding entrance. Perfect, considering it kicks off “Bad Apple,” a full-throated, anti-police brutality incendiary device. “Not just bad apples, it’s the whole rotten tree,” Lunny roars over a guitar riff that swings like a battering ram, before it erupts into pure blowtorch fury. Macieira’s bass rumbles thick and hairy, like The Stranglers’ JJ Burnel fending off a sick absinthe hangover. The drum assault comes courtesy of Sam Evans from fellow Brighton wrecking crew Ditz.

Lambrini Girls target modern rot with heat-seeking missile accuracy. Gentrification, male entitlement, nepo babies, anti-neurodivergence bias—it all gets shredded in under 30 minutes. Yet they’re hardly po-faced about it. Witness their name’s origin story: “Lambrini is a reasonably priced alcoholic beverage,” they informed ASBO, “available at most newsagents.” More specifically, the tipple targeted mid-’00s “fun-loving young women" with its campaign slogan: "Lambrini Girls Just Wanna Have Fun."

Then there’s closing electro-raver “Cuntology 101.” Among the “cunty” virtues it celebrates? Therapy, “autistic meltdowns,” shoplifting from chain stores, and taking a shit at your friend’s house. Dogs delivers its fury with a cracked grin, rough humor replacing self-righteous finger-wagging.

“When you grow up with a broken nose and weird straw hair, and no one wants to talk to you,” Lunny explained to the NME last December, “you have to become really funny in order to make any friends. I gained a few friends, and then I got really fucking hot. Now I’m hot and funny – job done!”

And honestly: Would the Sex Pistols or even The Slits or Bikini Kill have named their debut album for history’s most annoying hip hop track?! Lambrini Girls took a name everyone associates with pure fluff and weaponized it into a punk wrecking ball.

“Company Culture” skewers corporate sexism with a deadpan sneer, its bass-heavy churn (courtesy of producer Daniel Fox from Irish noise-rockers Gilla Band) tunneling straight to the root of the problem. And no matter how much an aging single white male punk rocker like me may thrill to their message and music, the Lambrinis fire off a withering “Big Dick Energy,” making it clear they don’t need the comradeship: “Oh my god, hi do you remember me? You reposted that thing I wrote about women in music/THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR DOING YOUR BIT!"

I don’t mind. Times like these require stronger-than-strong stuff. It does not feel coincidental that Who Let The Dogs Out? came screaming out of the pressing plant days before 45 stood at his inaugural podium and declared war on DEI. Lambrini Girls made their positions explicit to Teen Vogue’s readers:

“Fuck your president-elect!” screamed Lunny. “Fuck Project 2025! Fuck America, f*ck the UK! Trans lives matter!”

“Free Palestine and all occupied countries,” Maciera added.

“Fuck colonization!” Lunny leapt back in. “Fuck the patriarchy and the capitalist social system that we've built which is detrimental to everybody who is not a straight, white cis man — and even to them, it is detrimental, they just don't know it!”

Who Let The Dogs Out? is the Never Mind The Bollocks this collapsing world needs, and Lambrini Girls are my new favorite band. They’re yours’, too. You just haven’t realized it yet.

🔥 SUPPORT INDEPENDENT MUSIC JOURNALISM—LIKE MARC CAMPBELL DID (AND I BET LAMBRINI GIRLS WOULD, TOO). 🔥

If you’ve made it this far, you already know: The Tim "Napalm" Stegall Substack doesn’t do lukewarm takes.

Like Lambrini Girls’ Who Let The Dogs Out?, this publication swings the hammer, lights the fire, and keeps punk journalism fearless.

That’s what Marc Campbell understood from day one.

Marc wasn’t just a supporter—he was the first. The very first subscriber to this Substack, and he immediately went for an annual paid subscription because he knew: this work deserves real backing.

He understood that if you want punk journalism to stay loud, unfiltered, and unapologetic, you’ve got to support it.

And judging by the 1,018 unique views (and counting!) on the Marc Campbell memorial, many of you get it, too. 10 new free subscribers have also joined the fold, thanks in no small part to Marc’s wife, Mirgun Akyavas, recommending the piece.

And while that’s beautiful, there’s an even stronger way to honor Marc’s spirit:

💥 Go paid. Show the same commitment Marc did. 💥

Every annual or monthly paid subscription keeps this Substack alive and burning. Marc believed in this. He’d likely love to see his friends do the same.

So if you’ve ever read a post here and thought, "Hell yes"—make it official.

Subscribe now.

Because punk journalism—like Lambrini Girls and Marc Campbell—doesn’t do half-measures.

#TimNapalmStegallSubstack #TimNapalmStegall #PunkJournalism #StandingOverByTheRecordMachine #LambriniGirls #WhoLetTheDogsOut #AlbumReview #PunkRock #QueerPunk #Genderqueer #UKPunk #BrightonMusic #LoudAndProud #WomenInPunk #LGBTQMusic #NoToFascism #AntiRacism #TransLivesMatter #SmashThePatriarchy #EatTheRich #FuckProject2025 #PunkAgainstFascism #FreePalestine #IndependentMedia #SupportIndieWriters #DIYMedia #SubscribeNow #NoHalfMeasures