Brighton, England · punk · post-punk

Lambrini Girls

3 festivals played ↓

Bilious, very funny queer punk that names names — thirty seconds into the set someone is already in the crowd, and nobody is being spared.

Lambrini Girls started in Brighton in 2019 as a four-piece, with a different singer and drummer alongside Lunny and an earlier bassist, taking their name from Lambrini, a cheap perry drink. Lunny took over lead vocals within a year, and bassist Lilly Macieira joined soon after, having previously worked alongside her behind the same Brighton bar.

Their songs are short, loud and pointedly political, taking aim at misogyny in the music industry, policing, gentrification and the hypocrisies of institutional allyship, usually with a strong streak of comedy running through the abuse. Tracks such as 'White Van', about catcalling, 'Lads Lads Lads', about lad culture, and 'Help Me I'm Gay' carry the same mix of anger and jokes.

The band's debut single, 'Homewrecker', came out in 2021, and by the end of 2022 they had signed to Big Scary Monsters. Those early songs, along with 'White Van' and 'Lads Lads Lads', were gathered on the 2023 EP You're Welcome, which drew warm reviews and charted on the UK's independent record store chart.

After a 2023 performance, the commentator Graham Linehan criticised the band for supporting gender-affirming care for trans youth; the group responded by pointing to suicide rates among trans teenagers. Comments Lunny made in Kerrang! about confronting transphobia head-on later drew further backlash from another anti-trans campaigner.

They built their following through live shows in which Lunny regularly ends up in the crowd, and released the album Who Let the Dogs Out via City Slang, which reached number 16 on the UK Albums Chart.

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punkpost-punk