For the past two years or so Fat Dog have rampaged their way round any venue that would have them (and some that were pretty doubtful from the outset) leaving delirious chaos and destruction in their wake. Sweaty, debauched, hilarious, and exhausting, each live show seemed to push both band and audience to the brink, pieces of outrageous audio theatre that were somehow disturbing and thrilling in equal measure.
The problem of placing such deviant extravagance on record, though, has long tripped up other – some would say lesser – acts. It’s a problem they solve within seconds of debut album ‘WOOF’. “It’s fucking Fat Dog, baby” screeches Joe Love (real name Joe Love) with all the commitment of that party-hardy mate knocking on your door at 4am to claim your flat as the afters of nightmares.
‘WOOF.’ isn’t an album of subtlety or nuance, but then, who the hell wants that? This isn’t Sufjan Stevens, it’s Fat f*cking Dog, baby. ‘Vigilante’ is a bold, absurdist opener; ‘Closer To God’ pushes their synth-punk sound to cranial-bleeding insanity, and ‘Wither’ pins down the pogo-tastic elements of their live show.
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For all its colour and intensity, there’s breadth here, too. Repetition seems to be the arch-villain in Fat Dog’s world – hence a song like ‘King Of The Slugs’ and its cellular, centipede-like structure, a seven-minute cut ‘n’ paste that crawls its way to sundry hitherto unimaginable realms.
Spread across a mere nine tracks – and 33 minutes – of music, ‘WOOF.’ Stamps the door down, makes it point, scrapes dog muck on the carpet and sashays back out again. ‘I Am The King’ is the kind of wildly entertaining post-rave bollocks that only ever makes sense in the wee small hours, ‘Running’ is skronk-tastic braggadocio – “wake me up when the shooting starts” – while closer ‘And so it came to pass’ is a 44 second message from the other side.
And that, essentially, is that. As this breathless debut comes to a close, you’re left with the challenge of summing it all up, obtaining meaning from the meaningless, and purpose from the glittering void. As album titles go, ‘WOOF.’ Is pretty accurate, says Robin Murray (real name Robin Murray).
8/10
Words: Robin Murray
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