Fat Dog – Cancel Me (I’m Tired) Review

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From Woof to now, Fat Dog has created an image as kindly yet provocative. Their instrumental style is a blast; all of it points towards an alternative rock powerhouse. With their second album Cancel Me (I’m Tired), Fat Dog looks to pick up where Woof left off. Energetic, excitable, but change is in the air. Frontman Joe Love has put the words first. On the band’s previous album, they felt like a guiding force for the instrumental spirit, but here he has something to say. Fat Dog were already sounding rabid but pair that with disgust at the world around them, maintain that ludicrous energy, and you get a fantastic collection of enraged songs. We’re all tired, Fat Dog. But putting your words in the hands of others, to bleed the heart dry with an honest appraisal of the world, is wonderful. It’s ambitious to say the least that Fat Dog has not come out the other end of two years just screaming for forty-five minutes. Everyone else is. Nice to have something to soundtrack the horrors, though.  

Nothing changes if nothing changes and Fat Dog are the antidote. Play Cancel Me (I’m Tired) and you can just about forget, however briefly, that you’d spent the last month spiralling. Sometimes you need a bit of noise, and Fat Dog are experts at crafting thoughtful fury out of the noise. Opening song Smile and Wave is nothing short of staggering. When they let the instrumental swell build and build, Love near-screaming that he can see that mix of fear and love in the whites of our eyes, it’s one of the most commanding vocal performances you’ll get from this year. The energy found on Smile and Wave doesn’t last, though. Fat Dog makes a conscious decision to slow down, to take note of their surroundings and to see if they can concoct a catchy, repeatable song. Their attempt on Go Fuck Urself falls a tad flat, but they remember their energetic roots with the dance and synth-influenced title track. A real winning mix, from the sentiment to the stylish new sound Fat Dog fancy stretching across their album.  

Parts of Cancel Me (I’m Tired) are just delightful. It’s an album that’ll wash over you if you let it, Heart of Darkness particularly. Fat Dog has found a fine balance between those light, sentimental songs, and a brutal tempo shift. Shit Love follows up Heart of Darkness and, not for the first time on Cancel Me (I’m Tired), shifts the momentum so wildly that you’re left scrambling. Fat Dog are exceptional at keeping you guessing. That whiplash appeal is what made Woof such a staggering first release, and it’s fascinating how the band has maintained that energetic tone but used it as a tool to pace their slower tracks, like following up Call it What You Want with the acoustic, whistling, Snakes. Again that contrast comes through with Bad Dog, a menacing number with a brilliant, electrifying feel to it. All of that comes together brilliantly, and it’s a credit to the band for making that whiplash feel work in their favour.  

Fat Dog push themselves further on their second album. Every band should do so, and it’s reassuring to hear that the likes of Gurriers, Knats, and Friko, have done just that this year. Fat Dog joins a line-up of impressive, instrumentally intriguing bands with a style that feels familiar yet fresh. They’re still the leftfield powerhouse that came together on Woof, but there’s a sincerity on Cancel Me (I’m Tired) that feels somewhat refreshing in the face of so much carnage. They may be as tired as we are of public discourse, of how disorienting it feels to be present in a social media-heavy world, but they push against it as all of us should. The Devil and Aliens serve as staggering final points on that animosity, spreading so wildly across the album and beyond. Fat Dog took a risk in putting Love’s lyricism at the centre, but it works phenomenally across Cancel Me (I’m Tired).