Fat Dog – WOOF.

‘It’s fucking Fat Dog, baby!’

The South London outfit’s debut album is a veritable Frankenstein’s monster, stitching two-tone ska and 90s rave to a post-punk core. Fat Dog’s ethos is pure hedonism, "the polar opposite of thinking music", says keyboardist Chris Hughes. 

Opener Vigilante double barrels biblical spoken word with Mortal Kombat soundtrack instrumental hits while Clowns brings the vocoder back from the dead on one of only two moments on the album that Fat Dog allow you to come up for air. Much of WOOF.’s thrust comes from the patently maximalist singles; all synthwave, acid and chaos. King of the Slugs is seven minutes of shapeshifting, moving through sections of Phrygian mode – think Jarre’s Lawrence of Arabia – and ska chanting before losing its post-punk mind through its conclusion.

WOOF. is an intense joy, and absolute in establishing Fat Dog. It can, however, hit the same notes throughout. The question may arise over whether WOOF. suffers from a saturation of concept – if half of the runtime is pregnant with noise and notion, is there anywhere else for Fat Dog to go? You need only attend one of their notorious live shows to get your answer.

Listen to: Vigilante, Clowns, King of the Slugs