# Who Let the Dogs Out (Lambrini Girls album)

Who Let the Dogs Out is the debut studio album by British punk rock band Lambrini Girls, released on 10 January 2025 by City Slang Records. The album was written and recorded in April 2024 during breaks in their tour and was preceded by the singles "Company Culture", "Big Dick Energy", and "Love". Who Let the Dogs Out comprised ten tracks about social issues and then "Cuntology 101", for which a video was released. The album received widespread acclaim from critics and charted at No. 16 on the UK Albums Chart.

## Background

Lambrini Girls released the EP You're Welcome in May 2023, which charted at No. 29 on the Official Record Store Chart. The EP was the last release to feature Catt Jack, who had left earlier that year. The band had become known for abrasive punk songs about social issues such as misogyny, transphobia, and homophobia, and had a reputation for actioning their beliefs, having threatened to "scrap any TERFs any day, in person, with my fists" in 2023 and having pulled out of The Great Escape Festival in 2024 over the band's pro-Palestine stance. They wrote their debut album, Who Let the Dogs Out, in Oxford in April 2024 during two bursts over ten days during breaks in their tour. The first half of their sessions followed a strict structure of waking up, going for a run, making breakfast, and then writing from about midday to around 7 or 8pm, but they found this too regimented, so for the second half, they ordered in massive amounts of alcohol and took breaks at will. The album was then recorded with Daniel Fox of Gilla Band, who the band had previously supported on tour and who had produced their single "God's Country", and mixed by Seth Manchester, who had produced works by Mdou Moctar, Battles, and Model/Actriz.

## Promotion and release

In September 2024, they released "Company Culture", a sarcastic track written about toxic workplace environments. By the following month, they had signed to City Slang; that month, they announced Who Let the Dogs Out and released "Big Dick Energy", a track about toxic masculinity accompanied by a lyric video containing the Urban Dictionary definition of the phrase "big dick energy", messages they had received on Hinge, and shots of the band performing. In the album announcement of Who Let the Dogs Out, the band mooted the idea of dedicating the album to "all the booze we bought at Tesco". The month after that, they released "Love", a track about toxic relationships. They released Who Let the Dogs Out on 10 January 2025; the album took its name from an inside joke involving the song of that name by Baha Men. The album includes many diatribes about social issues; "Bad Apple" and "Nothing Tastes As Good As It Feels" rail against police brutality and diet culture, while "You're Not from Around Here", "No Homo", and "Filthy Rich Nepo Baby" address gentrification, homophobia, and nepotism and "Special Different" is about neurodiversity. The album contains one interlude, "Scarcity is Fake (Communist Propaganda)", which comprises a speech by Stokely Carmichael. In an interview with the Official Charts Company shortly after release, the band described the album as "a party for pissed off, gay, angry sluts".
They promoted the album with a music video for closing track "Cuntology 101" posted shortly after the album's release. The song contained 32 uses of the word "cunt" and a "C-U-N-T" cheerleading chant and describes many things as "cunty" such as "learning how to let go", "sensing boundaries", "respecting others", "having cum on my shirt", "having an autistic meltdown", "shagging behind some bins", "doing a poo at your friend’s house", and "stealing shit from chain stores". Lunny wrote the song as a palate cleanser, as she wanted to write something celebrating herself, and as an exercise in relating as many trivial matters to self-love as she could. The song's title took its name from a phrase she found amusing: "Yeah, that's "Cuntology 101", bitch!". For the song's recording, Maciera attempted to teach herself FL Studio, but found learning the program in a day overambitious and ended up writing using the studio's Behringer Model Ds. Dale Maplethorpe of Far Out compared the song with Limp Bizkit's 2000 song "Hot Dog", a song which made frequent gratuitous use of the word "fuck", while Alexis Petridis of The Guardian used a review of the album to liken it to a Brat-era successor to Ian Dury and the Blockheads's "Reasons to Be Cheerful, Part 3" and Lex McMenamin of Teen Vogue described it as a "cheery spiritual sister to Chappell Roan’s "Femininomenon"". The month after release, they released a video for "No Homo".

## Reception

Professional ratings :
| Aggregate scores ||
| Source | Rating |
| Metacritic | 83/100 |
| Review scores ||
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic | |
| Clash | 9/10 |
| DIY | |
| The Guardian | |
| Kerrang! | 4/5 |
| NME | |
| Pitchfork | 7.3/10 |
| Rolling Stone | |
| The Skinny | |
| Sputnikmusic | 2.5/5 |
Who Let the Dogs Out received widespread acclaim from critics. According to review aggregator Metacritic, the album holds a score of 83 out of 100 based on 17 critic reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". The album received positive reviews from Petridis, the Financial Times, When the Horn Blows, Pitchfork, The Soundboard Reviews, Beats Per Minute, DIY, The Arts Desk, Kerrang!, Clash, Rolling Stone, Dork, NME, AllMusic, Narc, Classic Rock, Louder, The Skinny, and MusicOMH, though Sputnikmusic gave it a negative review. Initially forecast to chart at No. 3 on the UK Albums Chart, the album instead made that week's listing at No. 16, and made No. 2 in the Independent Albums Chart and No. 1 in the Rock & Metal Chart.

## Track listing

All tracks are written by Phoebe Lunny, Lilly Maciera-Bosgelmez and Jack Looker, except "Big Dick Energy", written by Phoebe Lunny and Catt Jack.

## Personnel

Lambrini Girls
* Phoebe Lunny – lead vocals, guitar, production
* Lilly Maciera-Bosgelmez – bass, backing vocals, production
Additional contributors
* Jack Looker – drums
* Daniel Fox – production, recording
* Seth Manchester – mixing
* Joe LaPorta – mastering
* Derek Perlman – photography
* John Gottfried – photography
* Doreen Becker – layout

## Charts

Chart performance for Who Let the Dogs Out :
| Chart (2025) | Peak position |
| Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders) | 175 |
| Scottish Albums (OCC) | 3 |
| UK Albums (OCC) | 16 |
| UK Independent Albums (OCC) | 2 |
| UK Rock & Metal Albums (OCC) | 1 |