“Running”, released in the autumn of 2024, is one of the most irresistible, over-the-top bangers of recent years. Its parent album, Fat Dog's debut, Woof., contained more in that vein. And their live shows are notoriously energised. In fact, their second album is, they say, called Cancel Me (I’m Tired) because their performances are so in-demand that they want a break. If that’s the case, they could have made their new music slower and less relentless. They don’t.
The London band, led by cowboy hatted singer Joe Love, have patented a galloping electronic sound that mingles punk rock urgency, stadium techno thrust, and enormous euphoric synths akin to Nineties trance. They’re not subtle. But I’ve always said subtlety is overrated (especially by music journalists). Instead, Cancel Me comes on like a Mad Max war-wagon of freneticism and exhilaration.
Opener “Smile and Wave”, sets the scene, like a cross between The Prodigy and Youth Code, with horse samples and organ by the Phantom of the Opera. And there are plenty of equivalent pogo-dance batterers on board – “Bad Dog” and “Shit Love”, to name two – but there’s also more. Fat Dog keep it noisy but, in their own way, explore pop.
“Call It What You Want”, for instance, comes on like an Eighties synth stomper given an overdose of steroids, “Snakes” is bouncy spaghetti western country, and “Aliens” is as near as they come to a lighters-in-the-air epic, albeit the chorus is a screeched “You’re the reason that Aliens don’t come”.
On which note, Love’s lyrics are enigmatic but intriguing, often simultaneously random and outraged. Here’s a sliver of twangy bellow-along electro-rocker “The Devil”, as an example: “I sent you back to the sadder days/When I found my friends on Facebook Marketplace/I don’t know if that’s heaven/Is it fucking hell?”
Unless they head sideways into full-on industrial metal, Fat Dog will eventually need to muster more nuance, but, right now, in our age of Lana/Mitski/Olivia Dean comfort blanket pop, they’re a righteous amphetamine tonic.
Below: watch the video for the title track of Fat Dog's Cancel Me (I'm Tired) album
