Opening for the night were Glasgow’s finest new upstarts, Mélange, whose danceable punk riffs filled the room with head bopping glee, their final track, Psychosomatic, set the tone for the chaos to come. But it was Cumgirl8 who hijacked the evening, transforming the basement of The Hug and Pint into a seedy, shimmering riot of sound, satire, and subversion.

Let’s get one thing straight: if you’re distracted by Cumgirl8’s lingerie-clad, fishnet-sporting, bloomered aesthetic, then you’ve missed the memo. These four women are soldiers in the fourth wave of feminism—a movement shaped by intersectionality and digital disruption—and their defiance is wrapped in fishnets, not for titillation, but as a gauntlet hurled at the male gaze. It’s a bold reclamation of their bodies, a rebellion that screams: “Here’s your objectification back, mate—choke on it.” It’s this very battle cry that has sold out a venue on the other side of the Atlantic.

Each member of Cumgirl8 embodies an intoxicating mix of chaos and precision. Veronika Vilim, whose blonde locks glint like NYC’s neon gutters, swaps guitars for a candy-pink butterfly iPad programmed with glitchy digital beats. Lida Fox, on bass, is the band’s brooding metronome, pulling thick, rubbery lines straight out of a cyberpunk dive bar. Chase Lombardo the drummer with a banshee’s snarl, doesn’t so much play as summon storms. And then there’s Avishag Rodriguez, wielding her guitar like a machete, slicing through the noise with distorted riffs that feel like broken glass in a velvet glove.

Cumgirl8’s music is a heady cocktail of Tamagotchi pop, Riot Grrrl snarls, and the saccharine-yet-savage edge of early 2000s electroclash. It’s as if Bikini Kill shacked up with Ladytron, sharing a diet of glitch-core and existential dread. Tracks like Dumb Bitch marry drum machines with sardonic, tongue-in-cheek lyrics that tip the hat to their feminist mission. It sounds like a party stomping through an 80’s goth graveyard.

I Don’t Wanna Go takes you by the throat with its pulsating synths, a kind of punk anthem reimagined for the TikTok generation. Meanwhile, UTI had drummer Lena clambering over her kit like a Slipknot poltergeist, shrieking, “I got a UTI! I cry between my thighs” It’s not just a song—it’s a health PSA wrapped in a sneer.

Hailing from New York City, Cumgirl8 is a love letter to a city that birthed punk, no wave, and every gritty subculture worth a damn. Their sound—and their very existence—is a response to a society drowning in surveillance, misogyny, and the commodification of rebellion. These women aren’t just making music; they’re staging a cultural intervention. Their videos—where they dress as iconic feminists like Gloria Steinem and Angela Davis—mock the sanitized hero-worship of these figures, reminding us that feminism isn’t a Pinterest board; it’s a fight.

The dark humor woven through their set was sharp enough to leave scars. When a DI cable malfunction delayed the show, the band’s chatter about the sound guy’s “dirty fingers fingering holes” had the crowd both wincing and howling. It’s this blend of irreverence and insight that defines them. They’ll tell you about UTIs and antibiotics one minute, then sucker-punch you with an anthem about agency and autonomy the next.

And then there was Somebody New, a moment of pure, sweaty catharsis. An overzealous fan was welcomed on stage to scream along to every lyric, a gesture so unexpectedly wholesome that the band’s collective grin lit up the room like a malfunctioning strobe light.

Their penultimate track, Cicciolina, paid tribute to the Italian pornstar-turned-politician with a hypnotic rhythm that felt like a manifesto disguised as a dance party. There’s a kind of magic in how Cumgirl8 threads their influences—pop, punk, electroclash—into something so distinct, so undeniably their own.

But it was the finale, Picture Party, that took the show into uncharted territory. Under a strobe light that turned the room into a rave on the brink of implosion, the band unleashed a full-throttle assault of pounding beats and warped synths. It was a Chicks on Speed sensory overload, a celebration of chaos where every bass drop felt like the floor might cave in.

Cumgirl8 isn’t just NYC’s coolest new punk band—they’re a glitch in the matrix, a razor-sharp reminder that rebellion is messy, funny, and infinitely necessary. Their music is both a middle finger and a lifeline, wrapped in a glittery neon bow. As they swaggered off stage sweat soaked and grinning to raucous applause, one thing was clear: the future belongs to them.

Article: Angela Canavan