“It’s… fucking… Fat Dog, baby!” vocalist Joe Love bellows to kick off Fat Dog’s debut album, WOOF. What follows is “Vigilante”, a loud, bombastic song full of ominous synths and pulsing cymbal work from drummer Johnny Hutchinson. Love declares that he was there for momentous events from when the Earth was created through the present day. Halfway through the track, the song locks into a synth-rock groove that it follows the rest of the way.
“Vigilante” is a hell of an opening statement for the quintet from South London. It’s swaggering, boastful, and way over the top, but it’s also fun and catchy. Love, the band’s primary songwriter, knows what he wants out of Fat Dog, and the band are game to follow him. He is also the perfect frontman for this kind of project. He’s only a passable singer, but his personality and confidence easily make up for that.
“Closer to God” and “Wither” keep up the energy level, as Love sing-shouts, “Every single day you get closer to God” and “You better wither, baby / Before you die.” Hutchinson’s live drumming provides that energy level, as does bassist Ben Harris, particularly on “Closer to God”. Saxophonist/keyboardist Morgan Wallace has two different functions on these songs. In “Closer to God”, he shows up here and there, adding color but not standing out. For “Wither,” though, he gets a song-closing solo, which is an interesting wrinkle to this style of music.
Fat Dog take a couple of moments to breathe on WOOF. “Clowns” functions as a ballad, with thick synth strings backing Love most of the way. A constant electronic pulse keeps the tempo up through most of the song. Everything drops out for the last 45 seconds except for an acoustic piano. It’s a strikingly different and compelling sound. “I Am the King” also starts with strings, but it features choral voices and Hutchinson’s super-fast hi-hat cymbal work. After repeating the title phrase many times, Love gets into lyrics with this weird but funny kiss-off: “If you think I’m crying for you / I ain’t crying for you / I just watched Karate Kid 2.” These songs eschew the constant dance beats that dominate the bulk of the album.
The seven-minute-long “King of the Slugs” is WOOF‘s centerpiece. It begins with Fat Dog’s usual ominous, minor key dance beat, while Love describes being crowned “King of the slugs” by actual slugs. After a couple of verses, though, the track begins to drift away from its initial style. A slow section is followed by a klezmer-adjacent acceleration and the eventual return of the dance beat. Then the beat stops for a finish that is by turns quiet and flute-dominated and loud, pushed by Love’s shouting and Hutchinson’s crash cymbals. To their credit, Fat Dog keeps “King of the Slugs” moving so that it never gets boring during its seven-minute run.
On WOOF‘s back half, “All the Same” rides on a combination of thumping industrial synths and distorted guitar noise that could be a lost Nine Inch Nails track from the mid-1990s. Fat Dog doesn’t bring any fresh ideas to lift the song above pastiche, but it’s a decent change of pace. More successful is the de facto closer, “Running”, which starts with tension courtesy of Hutchinson’s cymbal work and Love’s declaration to “Wake me up when the shooting starts.” Once the main beat kicks in, the song rides on a cheesy, obnoxious 1980s-style synth sound. Impressively, Fat Dog maintain the song’s dark mood despite this ridiculous noise being all over the track.
WOOF is a lot. Even with the brief breaks, it’s a record that feels like it’s on maximum all the time. Fat Dog’s mantra seems to be maximum volume, attitude, and speed. Fortunately, they are charming and catchy enough to pull it off. Even more fortunately, this album is only 33 minutes long, wrapping up before listeners have the chance to get exhausted by everything going full blast. Fat Dog also have style going for them. Their combination of live instruments and rock influences with a more modern dance sound seems like a winner for finding an audience in 2024.