Fats Canine – ‘Woof.’ assessment: unserious, unhinged and sensational

When Fats Canine’s highly-anticipated debut single ‘King of the Slugs’ arrived final August, it signalled the feral modus operandi for his or her debut album ‘Woof.’: capturing the pandemonium of their stay present. Maybe the UK’s wildest stay act in latest reminiscence, their adoring fanbase ‘The Kennel’ have already helped promote out exhibits at London’s Electrical Brixton and Scala, with the two,300-capacity O2 Discussion board Kentish City subsequent on the agenda. Followers have been already belting out the lyrics to tracks from ‘Woof.’ earlier than producer James Ford (Arctic Monkeys, Fontaines D.C.) even laid a glove on it.

Undoubtedly knowledgeable by their unhinged, frenetic stay exhibits, ‘Woof.’ veers from abrasive punk to techno and klezmer, with hints of Insanity and 9 Inch Nails. Lyrically, it’s chaos, with an underlying idea surrounding ‘The Canine’ (“We’re all simply canines gnashing our enamel on the moon”) – maybe some form of superior deity that Fats Canine (and all of us, apparently) worship (“You’ll be able to kill the person however you can not kill the canine”).

Opener ‘Vigilante’ is a tension-building monster, a becoming introduction to the cult of Fats Canine. As church bells sound over some form of biblical speech, the economic peppering of dance-punk that follows is nearly apocalyptic. It’s like witnessing an historical ritual happen earlier than us on the dancefloor; each animalistic and liberating, our minds and our bodies are fixated. You’ll be able to’t stand nonetheless, and that sentiment runs all through ‘Woof.’

‘Confidence, not competence’ is the foundational Fats Canine precept which frontman Joe Love embodies – no surprise his pleasure is thru the roof after watching Karate Child 2 in ‘I Am the King’ (a phrase he strengthened to himself in a Wetherspoons rest room, post-break-up). “Though the sky is breaking / I ain’t even shaking”, he bellows on ‘Nearer to God’, commanding an aura that would in all probability face up to a hurricane. In the meantime, ‘All The Similar’ is tribal and round, whereas the breathless ‘Operating’ is purifying, the climax of the self-release that the album induces in its entirety.

It’s clear from the get-go that this isn’t a band who take themselves severely – you needn’t look additional than drummer Johnny ‘Doghead’ Hutchinson’s ever-present latex canine masks. However crucially, they’ve dedicated to the bit, and it makes the intricate and sometimes depressing post-punk that’s inundated the UK not too long ago look like a bore as compared. Scream the phrases and dive head-first into the Fats Canine expertise, as a result of ‘Woof.’ is pure, unbridled escapism – simply what the world wants proper now.

Particulars:

• Launch date: September 6, 2024
• Report label: Domino