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 \u2013 emboldened, perhaps, by the band\u2019s vow to double up as security guards. \u201cIf you don\u2019t feel safe, tell us and we\u2019ll punch them in the dick!\u201d shouts Phoebe Lunny, the lead vocalist and guitarist.<\/p>\n
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 \u201cqueer legends\u201d (there are many). \u201cThis show is as much yours as it is ours,\u201d Lunny announces, before she and the bassist Selin Macieira-Bo\u015fgelmez pummel everyone with shouty rants, furious beats and sludgy grunge.<\/p>\n
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-Bo\u015fgelmez is a year older, with red hair and a quiet poise, that seems at odds with her headbanging stage presence. They\u2019re not long back from a European tour where their visuals made their politics plain. In France, the screen read \u201cFuck Marine Le Pen\u201d. For London, it\u2019s \u201cFuck Nigel Farage\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe issues we address are not specific to the UK,\u201d says Macieira-Bo\u015fgelmez. \u201cOppression is growing. People\u2019s anger is growing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018The system is so unfair\u2019 \u2026 Phoebe Lunny and Selin Macieira-Bo\u015fgelmez on stage in London last year. Photograph: Lorne Thomson\/Redferns<\/p>\n
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<\/a> and a remix by the queer idol Peaches. In January 2025, their debut album Who Let the Dogs Out<\/a> charted at No 16 \u2013 not bad, given that it contains a song called Cuntology 101. Recently, they\u2019ve been able to pack in their 9-to-5s, although they feel a little ashamed about it. \u201cThe guilt is extremely prevalent,\u201d says Macieira-Bo\u015fgelmez. \u201cIt is on my mind every single day. You watch your friends work so fucking hard\u00a0\u2026\u201d Lunny agrees: \u201cThe system is so unfair.\u201d<\/p>\n The band has a sense of humour \u2013 their debut EP featured a cover illustration of a giant flaming turd and one early song is effectively just a call-and-response of \u201cCraig David\u201d \u2013 but they\u2019re 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\u2019re 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 \u201cthe disenfranchised, disaffected and disillusioned\u201d, Lunny says.<\/p>\n Lunny was raised in Sussex by a single mother, a primary school teacher and socialist, who politicised her. Lunny did a music BTec: \u201cI didn\u2019t pass and went to the University of Burger King.\u201d Macieira-Bo\u015fgelmez, who is of Turkish and Portuguese heritage, moved to the UK to become a musician and says she has always had \u201ca really strong sense of justice\u201d from growing up \u201cfinancially privileged. My parents made sure that I knew that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n In September 2025, just as Lambrini Girls were really popping off, Macieira-Bo\u015fgelmez took time out from touring (a friend stepped in to cover her). She had been diagnosed with autism and bipolar disorder four years prior and wrote a candid, moving social media post<\/a> about the distressing effect of touring on her health. \u201cIt was slowly accumulating and gradually getting worse and that was influencing my behaviour and me not being aware of my limits,\u201d she says now.<\/p>\n When Macieira-Bo\u015fgelmez returned in February 2026, the duo went to play Australia for the first time. During one gig, Lunny leapt from a balcony and injured herself. She was told it was \u201cjust whiplash\u201d. It was six weeks before she discovered what was up. \u201cIt was only when I was in a hotel at 2am, fitting and passing out on the floor, that it was obvious that something was really wrong,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Lunny had a small bone fracture in her neck, which had punctured a hole in her brain membrane. Fluid had been draining out. \u201cSo now I have a lopsided brain,\u201d she says, matter-of-factly.<\/p>\n She was forced to rest for nearly four months, but being laid up in bed wasn\u2019t her style. \u201cSo then I started touring with a hole in my brain. It was the hardest thing I\u2019ve ever had to do.\u201d She took flights in a wheelchair. \u201cI had to lay side of stage, force myself up with willpower and rely on adrenaline to\u00a0carry me. As soon as I was off stage, the pain would disorient me to the point where I didn\u2019t know where I was. The thing is, I insisted on touring as it offered me 40 minutes of feeling like myself again. I don\u2019t regret a thing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018The world is a far darker place than it was two years ago\u2019 \u2026 Lunny (left) and Macieira-Bo\u015fgelmez. Photograph: Jessie Morgan<\/p>\n She had two rounds of surgery in\u00a0July this year and feels as if she is\u00a0finally recovering, but says: \u201cI\u2019d kill to have a body that was capable of what it was able to do before.\u201d The new album includes an acoustic track, Spilt, an unwavering look at her booze-fuelled party era. \u201cI feel very fortunate that I can\u2019t really relate to that song any more and that\u2019s testament to growing up a bit,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019ve had so many health scares. I\u2019m very restricted with my drinking.\u201d<\/p>\n But, for the most part, No Refunds is bigger and beefier, railing against fascism and \u201cthe ruling class\u201d, Lunny says. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to shake people and say fucking get off your asses. The world is a far darker place now than it was two years ago. Even though we thought it couldn\u2019t get any worse, it has.\u201d<\/p>\n Musically, it strikes a balance between corrosive grunge low-end, bristling punk intensity and the arch delivery of Britpop, with some of their peppiest songs yet \u2013 although a suggestion of Elastica, a female-fronted band, elicits the subtlest of shared sideways glances. \u201cThe majority of my influences from that era, because it was so male-dominated, are men,\u201d says Lunny. \u201cI\u2019m a huge fan\u00a0of\u00a0Blur.\u201d<\/p>\n There is some classic Lambrini Girls sarcasm, such as Is This AI?, Don\u2019t Talk to Me Till I\u2019ve Had My Abortion and the lead single Cult of Celebrity, which references the Epstein files (\u201cOh, how the other half live \/ \u2026 on Lolita island\u201d). But the fun-poking has largely been replaced by fury; the lyrics are less direct, more conceptual. \u201cI don\u2019t want to go through a list of societal ills and be like: right, we\u2019ve done that,\u201d Lunny says, mimicking ticking off a list. \u201cBecause I feel like that trivialises it.\u201d A lot of the last album was \u201cI don\u2019t like this and here is why\u201d, but No Refunds is more about \u201ctrying to build a world\u201d.<\/p>\n Strength and secuirty \u2026 Lunny (left) and Macieira-Bo\u015fgelmez. Photograph: Katja Ogrin\/Redferns<\/p>\n Regarding another new song, Gaza Beach, Lunny says she \u201cwanted to write a song about Palestine for years, but I couldn\u2019t do it. Obviously, to encapsulate a genocide is incredibly difficult to do in a way which doesn\u2019t sensationalise the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people\u201d. But seeing an AI-generated video of how a glitzy new resort in the territory might look gave her the idea. \u201cI started thinking: well, what would that actually look like? I felt like I was able to convey the moroseness and the insidiousness of this genocide [but also] encapsulate the imperialist settlement, which was really important to do.\u201d She is encouraged to see more artists speaking out about it, too. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to write a song about it, but you have to use your voice.\u201d<\/p>\n Macieira-Bo\u015fgelmez cites Macklemore being criticised by Pink for his pro-Palestine comments<\/a> on Ed Sheeran\u2019s tour (we spoke before Macklemore was kicked off the tour and Sheeran faced a retaliation of his own<\/a>). \u201cEven though there are some artists that are speaking out about this, the backlash you face is still incredibly disproportionate,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n