Lambrini is one of the cheapest wines. It’s a drink held by sweaty teenagers at their first house parties and passed around the bedrooms of girls getting ready for a night out. It’s fizzy, it’s sickly-sweet, and above all it’s fun.
Such is the namesake of Lambrini Girls, the punk-rock duo who are bubbling with juvenile hedonism. Armed with songs titled ‘Help Me I’m Gay’ and ‘Cuntology 101’, Phoebe Lunny and Lilly Macieira aren’t bothered about coming across as too direct. Sonically they’re as strong as a cup of black tea, verbally they’re as pissed off as swear words after stepping in shit. And like Lambrini, they’re overflowing with bags of youth and charisma. Their cup runneth over.
It’s a fever-like energy that spills out into the crowd as the duo take the stage at The Crescent in York. With one arm on the electric guitar, and another outstretched like a furious preacher, Phoebe commands everyone in the room to get on their knees and prepare to mosh. This isn’t music to be listened to on expensive headphones, it’s music that demands experience, and it has to be bounced around the spaces between 100 other frenzied people.
Importantly it’s music built of anger at the current state of the world. Their 2025 release – ‘Who Let The Dogs Out’- is brimming with maddened guitars and brash vocals shooting arrows at misogyny, classism and racism in the UK. ‘‘Company Culture’ takes aim at harassment in the workplace, meanwhile ‘God’s Country’ is a bullseye for the GB News crowd, asking: “Great Britain / Are you sure?”
Still, despite their targets, Lambrini Girls have been mocked online for not being ‘punk’ enough. But what is punk, anyway? It’s definitely not a playbook. Isn’t the most punk thing you can do to channel all your energy into causing a scene? In not pausing for contemplation, but rushing at the issue head on? It’s much easier to stand back and remark: those who change things actually do it.
Lambrini Girl’s manifesto takes on a new shape when played live: something about their political messaging becomes more real in the chaos of the crowd’s dancing. There’s a moment before ‘Help Me I’m Gay” where Phoebe asks everyone to help cheer on the ‘Queer Legends’, another where they call out the sexual harassment that takes place at concerts. You get the feeling of watching their lyrics turn into action in real time, of watching theory become praxis.
From this comes a sense of unbridled freedom. Particularly for those who don’t have the space to do so elsewhere. Emerging from the fury of the mosh pit is the true feeling of fun, like the giddiness of having your first drink. Phoebe’s interjections – asking the crowd to catch her – or pouring tequila out to eager fans – have the same thrill of a devilishly chaotic friend egging you to do something stupid. And the whole time, everyone in the room is grinning.
There’s a latent desire to go feral in today’s society that Lambrini Girls tap into. Lingering underneath all the beige colour palettes, sanitised Instagram feeds and lack of third spaces is a craving for realness, for messiness, for making mistakes together. Hurtling at light speed and crash landing in concert venues, Lambrini Girls are a much-needed antidote for a culture being slowly consumed by scrolling. The kids need to let out their emotions! They need to bounce around in a mosh pit!
