At a last-minute surprise show in London, the British punk duo Lambrini Girls are sharing their stage with a continuous tide of crowd surfers. They move almost as one, a jumble of limbs rippling over a sea of bodies – emboldened, perhaps, by the band’s vow to double up as security guards. She also requests that people pick up anyone who falls over in the moshpit and goes around with the mic asking fans to introduce themselves if they are “queer legends” (there are many).
Backstage, before the gig, the two Lambrini Girls are sitting on a battered sofa. Lunny, 29, is the chattier of the two, with bleached-blond waves and broken Mary Janes. Macieira-Boşgelmez is a year older, with red hair and a quiet poise, that seems at odds with her headbanging stage presence.
They’re not long back from a European tour where their visuals made their politics plain. In France, the screen read “Fuck Marine Le Pen”. For London, it’s “Fuck Nigel Farage”.
People’s anger is growing.” Their second album, No Refunds, was announced this week, capping a successful few years for the band who formed in Brighton in 2019. There have been magazine covers, support slots with Iggy Pop, Idles and Amyl and the Sniffers and a remix by the queer idol Peaches. In January 2025, their debut album Who Let the Dogs Out charted at No 16 – not bad, given that it contains a song called Cuntology 101.
Recently, they’ve been able to pack in their 9-to-5s, although they feel a little ashamed about it. You watch your friends work so fucking hard …” Lunny agrees: “The system is so unfair.” The band has a sense of humour – their debut EP featured a cover illustration of a giant flaming turd and one early song is effectively just a call-and-response of “Craig David” – but they’re serious about confronting that unfair system. At the London show, their touring drummer, Misha Phillips, delivers an impassioned speech about transgender liberation before they unleash one of their most popular songs, Terf Wars.
These biting calls for social justice mean they’re often compared to riot grrrl bands such as Bikini Kill (for whom Lambrini Girls will be opening next week in Brooklyn). As the duo have evolved, so has their mission to represent “the disenfranchised, disaffected and disillusioned”, Lunny says. Lunny was raised in Sussex by a single mother, a primary school teacher and socialist, who politicised her.
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