This “Party Music for Gay Angry Sluts” Absolutely Slaps
Punk duo Lambrini Girls’ politics merely begin with queer liberation.
WHY THEY’RE HERE: I think the headline speaks for itself y’all
WHAT’S THE VIBE? Raging, queer, exactly correct when it comes to politics
START HERE BUT ALSO KEEP READING: “Big Dick Energy,” “Filthy Rich Nepo Babies,” “Company Culture”
Shortly after I first heard of the queer British punk duo Lambrini Girls, I encountered a BBC 6 Music video interview with the band’s vocalist and guitarist Phoebe Lunny that I really adored. I’d already been liking the group’s debut album Who Let The Dogs Out, released on January 10 of this year, and Lunny’s commentary on something I’ve occasionally thought about endeared me even further. “You may never discover your favorite band because they’re not going to have the opportunity to get in your ears,” they told interviewer Huw Stephens, and it’s true. I’ve certainly had the thought that an artist I would absolutely love isn’t reaching me because they lack the money, access, connections, and other resources to hire, or split their income with, a publicist, manager, booking agent, or record label.
Lunny chatting about this while on a radio appearance ostensibly meant to promote their own band also fits cannily with their character and interests: Who Let The Dogs Out is home to a song called “Filthy Rich Nepo Babies.” The LP is a great punk album in the classic sense — the type that, as I said in my previous newsletter, abounds if you look for great music outside the mainstream. It’s rife with explicit social commentary, and its music is rage-filled, fast-paced, and built from overdriven power chords and vocals that are sometimes shouted, sometimes snarled, rarely sung. (Fittingly, Lambrini Girls recorded the album with Daniel Fox of Gilla Band, which makes a very extreme version of noise rock that I’m obsessed with but is decidedly outside the queer music canon, fair warning it’s not for everyone.) It’s “party music for gay angry sluts,” to use the band’s exact wording from its Bandcamp cover image, so yeah, I’m exactly their target audience and, honestly, so are you.
Whereas some punk music might be guilty of aping the genre’s musical aesthetics without seriously engaging with its formational politics, Who Let The Dogs Out is rigidly devoted to the latter, but never in a didactic, pontificating, or otherwise unexciting manner. Lunny has bars — these songs are hilarious, and the humor often makes the band’s politics all the clearer. On the rampaging second single “Big Dick Energy,” which I absolutely love, Lunny impersonates men who put on the veneer of feminism but are actually viciously misogynist (think Justin Baldoni and Joss Whedon). “I’m one of the nice guys, so why won’t you have sex with me?” they whine-sneer amid throaty snarls of the song’s title. Later, they scream “Your work persona is completely fucking terrifying!” while seemingly on the verge of tears; it’s an earnest moment that contrasts and emphasizes the song’s humor. In Lambrini Girls’ liberationist world, mocking predators (“How big is that dick in reality? / It’s not that big!”) is as meaningful as calling them out.
Case in point: “Smile and ignore / That my boss wants to fuck me,” Lunny shouts on “Company Culture” as the guitars become more threatening. All but the static-drenched bass drops out as they sneer, “Michael I don’t want to suck you off on my lunch break!” You’re supposed to laugh, you’re supposed to feel gross, you’re supposed to feel it all, and you do. Other “Company Culture” lyrics tackle how seeking recourse from HR and other employees often results in both groups icing you out or actively pursuing your demise. It works because it’s about one specific person’s experience and what so many people experience for roughly 40 hours per week.
Lambrini Girls might not have solutions to our misery and hellish conditions — punk rarely does; it’s more of a communal emotional bloodletting — but I’d gladly hear Lunny’s ideas for our future given how clearly they see things. “Bad Apple” rails against the systematic ways in which cops enforce property over life, the kinds that liberals might counter with “well, we still need cops to maintain order” (as if cops are a natural function of life or something that has existed for more than just a few centuries, yeah right bye). “You’re Not From Around Here” includes a rapidly spoken definition of gentrification in the middle of the song; “Scarcity Is Fake” is literally just 18 seconds of a speech by Kwame Ture, the Black revolutionary who fled the U.S. in the late 1960s because he was targeted by, yes, COINTELPRO, the predecessor to today’s surveillance state (though our current one has way more AI, yikes). Lunny’s education and intellectualism shine so brightly that when they chant that getting out of your comfort zone, having cum on your shirt, and autistic meltdowns are all cunty on “Cuntology 101” — a dance-punk anthem that leans more dance than punk — it comes off like a firmly held belief they could meaningfully argue rather than just silly queer humor. It rocks precisely because it’s probably the former and it’s definitely the latter.
“No Homo” is maybe the song that’s most overtly a mix of queer humor and politics, but I personally haven’t heard people say “no homo” in ages now (yes, even amid the culture war that’s both the cause and effect of the U.S. government’s ongoing efforts to eradicate LGBTQ+ people in every sense of the word “eradicate”). Between that and the song being more melodic and sunny than the others here, I find it the weakest of the overtly political numbers. I also don’t connect with Lambrini Girls as much on songs like “Nothing Tastes As Good As It Feels” that lean more personal than political, and while, yes, the personal is political, some artists fare better when working explicitly with the latter — at the moment, that’s Lambrini Girls.
On “Filthy Rich Nepo Baby,” which sounds like if Motorhead was gay (never thought I’d write that and god do I hope to get to write it again), the line “If you want success to last / Fetishise the working class / From your five-bed house in Surrey” is at once a brutal, laugh-out-loud read and an evergreen point about who gets ahead in the music industry. I see this track as a song-length extension of what Lunny said during Lambrini Girls’ BBC interview: “It’s the ones who act like it’s some rags-to-riches underdog story,” but are really well-padded, that bother them. On record, though, absolutely everyone is in their path of fire: Who Let the Dogs Out thrives in the vast intersection between empathy and agony. Lambrini Girls make the violence fun.
It would mean a lot to me if you took another quick moment of your day to learn why queer people, and especially queer Jewish people like myself, should care deeply — and never stop talking about — the ongoing genocide in Palestine, via these resources; article from them; mattxiv Instagram slideshow (and two videos if you have more time); Prism piece on pinkwashing and Israel’s anti-queer blackmailing tactics. It would also mean a lot to me if you quickly read about Apple’s exploitation of Congolese people and the ongoing war in Sudan — both of which many also describe as genocides.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Max Freedman launched the LGBTQ+ music newsletter Lavender Sound in January 2025 to create an online writing community by and for LGBTQ+ people about LGBTQ+ music. They also interview artists for The Creative Independent, which is their favorite website (they really want you to read their Jaboukie Young-White interview), and they’ve previously contributed music criticism to Pitchfork, Bandcamp Daily, and Paste. Their pronouns are whatever float your boat ⛴️💜
LOVE the Lambrini Girls! <3