The Menstrual Cramps

Bristol-based punk band The Menstrual Cramps are delighted to announce that they have signed to Alcopop! Records.

Fresh from a run of dates supporting fast-rising Isle of Wight punk trio Grade 2 (Hellcat Records), the band recently announced a run of headline dates for March 2024 and will be appearing at Nice As Pie Festival 2023, Rock Against Violence 2023, Manchester Punk Festival 2024, Outer Town Festival 2024, and 2000 Trees Festival 2024, with further live dates and festival appearances TBA (see below for full listings).

To celebrate signing to the label, the quartet have today revealed the video for their storming new single ‘Body Politics’, recorded, mixed and mastered by the band, and set for release on 21st November 2023.

Based on American philosopher Judith Butler’s idea of gender performativity from her book ‘Gender Trouble’, vocalist Emilia Elfrida explains that the song is about “how gender constructs are forced upon us all, how capitalism reinforces gender stereotypes to benefit the patriarchal structure that thrives under it, and the need for true gender liberation in society. It’s also more personally about my own journey and relationship with my gender being very fluid.”

Complete with an evocative throwback video filmed at Dixon Road Studios that conjures up Elfrida’s experiences of growing up in the early 2000s, it’s a look at the gender stereotypes that were rife at that time in our magazines, TV, books, advertising, schooling systems, clothes, parents, and peers.

“The list could go on! I wanted the video to be a kind of letter to my younger self, who didn’t have the vocabulary to express everything they felt in their messy teenage brain at the time, and had minimal queer people in the media to look up to,” says Elfrida. “The music video is a loop, so the end of the music video is also the start of the music video my younger self watches when turning on the TV in the bedroom. Metaphorically, it’s letting myself become who I wanted to be, or finally being happy with who I am—being inspired by myself to relive my younger years with that expressive freedom.”

“It was important for us to keep this video a personal project, but we invited three other queer people from our local scene to help us with the music video,” say the band, crediting Executive Assistant, Cheri Clouds (she/they), Videographer and Editor, Dory Valentine (they/them), and Stylist, Laurie Cousins (he/him).

Formed in a broken bedroom in Bristol on the verge of homelessness, and rife with anger, The Menstrual Cramps were born with politics on the brain and surrounded by injustice. Jumping ship to a dive in London to record their 2017 debut album We’re Not Ovaryacting on distorted acoustic guitars, they called on the world to ‘Save the Badgers’ and ‘Cull the Tories’.

Their debut music video for ‘My Bush Ain’t Ur Business’ was subsequently removed from YouTube after some trolls who didn’t want people to reclaim their own breasts or bodies reared their ugly heads, and they won the 2017 LOUD WOMEN Hercury Prize alternative to the Mercury Prize.

By the summer of 2019 they were back with a new album, Free Bleedin’, which featured revolution-demanding song ‘The Smash’, the powerful ‘No Means No’ highlighting problematic rape culture, ‘Idols’ which approaches the art world’s problem with abusers, and 'I Like That Top'—a catchy and comedic take on hipsters and gentrification taking over Bristol, which was also featured in the BIFA Award-winning film Sweetheart (2021). The record was named in Louder Than War’s Albums of The Year 2018 and also the LOUD WOMEN People’s Vote Readers’ Choice Award 2018.

Now, at the back end of 2023, The Menstrual Cramps are finally back with some long-awaited new material, and they still aren’t here to take your sh*t.

Further new music and live dates TBA over the coming months.