DOG CHOCOLATE - 'So Inspired, So Done In' LP (pre-order)
by Dog Chocolate
£18.00
NB. This title ships for its release date of Feb 27th 2026
Artist: Dog Chocolate
Title: So Inspired, So Done In
Label: Upset The Rhythm
Catalogue Number: UTR176
Formats: LP / DIGITAL
Running Time: 36 minutes
Release Date: Friday 23 January
Track listing:
SIDE A
01. Infinite Nuggets
02. Fun is Always Brilliant
03. Employee
04. Springfield Library Haunting
05. Drumming on a Tree with FM
06. Potatoes in the Basement Bin
07. Fungal Free 2023
08. Green Stuff
SIDE B
09. Architecture Days
10. Munchies and a Pen
11. Guildford Awkward
12. No Pavement Story
13. Worst Jobs in History
14. Unfinished Rock ‘N’ Roll Tattoo
15. A Bit of Paper
16. So Inspired, So Done In
Packaging:
Vinyl: Limited black bio-vinyl (500 copies).
Sleeve: Normal card sleeve, gloss finish, 8-page lyric / drawing booklet, glossy A3 poster, download card (inc. mp3s), white inner paper bags, sticker on cover.
After 7 strange years of relative silence, and 13 years of being a band, Dog Chocolate have returned with ‘So Inspired, So Done In’. Their fourth album is their most focused, cohesive and song-y yet. They still sound like a bin full of wasps, but now the bin has double-cream or a Viennetta or something at the bottom. While many of the 16 songs on here barely make it past the 3-minute mark, each one is bursting with all the textures and colours of an office cupboard: full of old sweets, fluorescent markers, and multiple ways to fix paper together.
Thematically, a lot of ground is covered, with songs tackling subject matter as diverse as overheard conversations, healing fungal toenails, the Rogerian concept of the Actualising Tendency, bronze age living conditions, dreaming songs into being and human-plant relations. Work (and anti-work) is a recurring theme, as is artistic inspiration and burnout. Dog Chocolate revel in the mundane and incidental, to explore bigger, existential questions.
Recorded and mixed by POZI’s Toby Burroughs and mastered by Sofia Lopes, ‘So Inspired, So Done In’ charts a long and confusing period in the band’s collective life, marked by major life changes, losses and shifts, colouring the band’s trademark frantic, daft and anxious energy with a contemplative glaze. Dog Chocolate continue to investigate their internal and external landscapes with playful curiosity, frustration, silliness and empathy.
Pre/history of the band: In the early 2000’s Andrew (vocals), Rob (guitar, vocals) and Matthew (guitar, vocals) played together as teenagers in South-East London-based maximalist, costumed surrealist punk band Yeborobo. They met drummer Jonathan playing with his instrument-swapping masked band Limn at art space Utrophia in Deptford. Later, when both bands had split, Dog Chocolate formed with a shared desire to make a band that was simpler than their theatrical past: small amps and light guitars, no more than 2 drums at any one time, a keyboard no longer than a ruler and a shared ethos… “it’s about giving a shit, but at the same time not giving a shit, but not ‘whatever’, not giving up never!”. The band floated the term “pencilcase punk” to describe their jumbled, colourful, dense and instant music.
Dog Chocloate built on this early scrappiness, bedding into their sound over several albums. Their first “Or” (2014) was a split with Ravioli Me Away, soon followed by “Snack Fans” (2016) and “Moody Balloon Baby” (2018). Along the way they played gigs with bands as wide ranging as Deerhoof, No Age, Dry Cleaning, Palm, Daniel Wakeford, Shopping and Pozi.
After the pandemic, some of the band’s members moved to different cities, got new jobs, some had babies, some encountered bereavement. All things that slowed down the pace of the band, making it harder to practice and play together. The band found a way to keep their friendship and creativity going through making a monthly radio show, “The CDRs Won’t Last”. This initially tried to chronicle the lost music of the Myspace era, but latterly became a fun place to just chat and play songs to each other. These life changes, as well as this period of a different relational pace, influenced the way the songs on “So Inspired, So Done In” came together. It was written in bedrooms, over the internet, and in a large shed in Shropshire (for a weekend writing get-together), rather than in the usual practice space.