Featuring hotly anticipated albums from Lambrini Girls, DITZ and Laundromat Chicks, plus EPs from Skydaddy and medb.
Introducing our one-stop guide to the best new albums and EPs released this month. Our highlight this month came from Lambrini Girls, whose debut album ‘Who Let The Dogs Out’ is an essential listen right now.
Lambrini Girls – Who Let The Dogs Out?
The unrelenting and furious punk duo have at last released their very long-awaited debut album, a state-of-the-nation rant spread across 11 tracks. There is so much to be angry about today but the response from many artists is simply to create space to escape. That is exactly why we need records like this, unafraid to confront the ugliness. The lyrics are sarcastic, funny and uncompromising, moments of earnest political assertions offset with celebrations of messy individuality (“setting boundaries is cunty” but so is “having cum on my shirt” according to closer ‘Cuntology 101’). While the punk format of smashed drums and up-to-11 guitars is familiar, the band keep us on our toes by playing around with unpredictable arrangements and creating epic builds for the album’s most cathartic moments.
DITZ – Never Exhale
Another electric Brighton band, DITZ return with their second album, a collection that heaves with an anxious, lurching weight. Guitars slam expressively against strained vocals, a formula that hits its peak on the surreal ‘Taxi Man’, whose riff makes you want to swing your head limply in time with the rhythm. Elsewhere, as on ‘The Body As A Structure’, vocalist C.A. Francis softens to a croaking growl comparable with Jack Merrett. The band are a furious live presence and ‘Never Exhale’ does an excellent job of bottling that energy.
Laundromat Chicks – Sometimes Posessed
The third album from the Viennese janglers is a beguiling collection. Rough DIY edges give the songs the haunting feel promised by the title, and this quality lends a new edge to the inherently youthful storytelling perfected by pioneers of the form like The Go-Betweens and Lloyd Cole. With favourites so far including mini-epic ‘Sunburn’ and the striped-sunlight sounding ‘Secrets’, we are looking forward to revisiting this one when warmer weather returns.
Read our interview with Laundromat Chicks here.
Skydaddy – Anchor Chains, Plane Motors & Train Whistles
A second solo collection from the former Spang Sister, ‘Anchor Chains…’ is replete with the rich, transcendent textures that have proven consistent across Rachid Fakhre’s output. ‘Age of Empires’ kicks things off with cinematic scale as lyrics explore modern life with ambivalence. ‘Mushrooms’ is the highlight, however, a West Coast psychedelic freakiness coloured by Fakhre’s unique, sardonic perspective with lyrics telling of an industrial chemical disaster. ‘Anchor Chains…’ celebrates opportunities for escape but never loses sight of the reality from which it pushes away.
medb – Hercules!
With ‘Hercules!’, songwriter and visual artist medb has put together her most ambitious collection to date. Her first record recorded with a full band, the collection also features guest features from Wildwood Daddy (on the latest incarnation of her calling card, ‘Peach’) and Tallulah Argue (on the brilliantly enraged ‘This Will Be The Last Time You Hurt Me Tiger’). As a writer, medb has a natural flair for channeling confessional shock factor into rock ‘n’ roll poetry, and with a band behind her that attitude hits new heights.
Hard Of Hearing Magazine 