Ringlets – The Lord Is My German Shepherd (Time for Walkies) (Flying Nun/Leather Jacket)

Ringlets return with boldness, bite, and theatrical flair on their second album, The Lord Is My German Shepherd (Time for Walkies), a record that channels the angular rhythms and nervy energy of post-punk into something emotionally frayed, rebellious, but with a social conscience.

Musically restless and lyrically loaded, the album pulls in multiple directions through a rotating cast of voices, characters, and moods.

Ringlets are an Auckland four-piece comprising Leith Towers (vocals), László Reynolds (guitar/synth), Arabella Poulsen (bass), and Arlo Grey (drums), all of whom contribute to songwriting. Their sound blends wiry, off-kilter instrumentation with narrative surrealism and a restless theatricality. The album was recorded at The Lab in Auckland and co-produced with Michael Logie (formerly of The Mint Chicks). Mixing was completed by Isaac Keating at Abbey Road Studios, with mastering by Ike Zwanikken, giving it a polished finish without removing the power of the rough edges.

Opening track Posh Girl Hold a Whip sets the album’s tone with swirling guitars, an upbeat rhythm, and a loud/quiet dynamic that builds to a cacophonic, full-volume finale. It is an impactful start and ups the tension for the tracks that follow.

Street Massage, perhaps the album’s most blistering track, indicts care work as a form of commodified servitude. It launches straight into an indie-dance guitar riff before descending into a chaotic churn of rumbling bass and squealing feedback. Towers‘ vocals bark and accuse, cycling through degradation; “punish her / as you would your sickly mother,” before dropping to a whisper and snapping back into mechanical propulsion. It’s confrontational and disturbingly physical.

Heavenly Wheel continues the emotional intensity. Opening with the ironic challenge “Quick / say something profound”, it spasms between pounding drums, feedback, and looping refrains, “The devil you knew / loves you still.” The song builds and collapses repeatedly, like a narrative chasing its tail, ending in a controlled squall of guitar dissonance.

But Ringlets aren’t all fire and fury. Rolling Blunts on the Dresden Codex is slower burning, opening with chiming guitar and conversational vocals. It rises and recedes as bass and drums shape the momentum, showing the band’s ability to hold tension without always exploding into noise. Half an Idiot also shows them holding this balance of tension and release. It begins with hesitant, circling guitar and builds toward a shrieking, chaotic climax while the vocals shift from deliberate to raw, hurtling forward with growing urgency.

I Was On That Roof Once captures emotional volatility too, with urgency giving way to whispered spoken word and skittering drumstick taps. Disorientating, it evokes a memory disintegrating the harder you try to recall it. And Ancient Gays is similarly fragmented. Its bright, jaunty strums quickly dissolve into darker tones, but whilst these shifts in style bring variation, the track feels less cohesive than the album’s stronger cuts.

The Year’s Hottest Movie is melodic and danceable, with a groove undercut by a persistent and questioning tone in the vocal delivery. In contrast, Sucking on a Surly Pout rides a scratchy guitar and a relentless rhythm section, with the vocals buried beneath the instrumental fireworks.

Closer Hit the Frog returns to light strums and gradually builds into a driving, percussive rush. It tapers off into silence, which feels like a purposeful closing gesture with the momentum spent but questions left open.

This is an ambitious and absorbing record, though it could be more powerful still. The repetition of certain stylistic patterns (quiet intros, slow builds, explosive finishes) loses impact by the end. With such creativity in play, more surprises, and more true detours, would elevate the album’s sharper moments even further.

In the end, The Lord Is My German Shepherd (Time for Walkies) is full of anxiety, satire, and dissonance, and it unspools like a late-night monologue you are not sure you were meant to hear. At their best, Ringlets are precise and unhinged, threading together violence, vulnerability, and absurdity into daring sonic episodes, channelled through Towers’ elastic vocals. They are a band with something to say, and the means to say it.

John Bradbury

THE LORD IS MY GERMAN SHEPHERD (TIME FOR WALKIES) is out June 27th VIA FLYING NUN & LEATHER JACKET RECORDS
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John Bradbury
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