“Yes, I’m old / Solid gold / A woman in control of all her holes,” asserts Peaches in typically brash form on ‘Panna Cotta Delight’, from her first album in a decade, ‘No Lube So Rude’. Famously, the electroclash trailblazer commented around the release of her 2000 breakthrough ‘The Teaches Of Peaches’ that she wouldn’t be bending towards the mainstream – she wanted the mainstream to come to her. Twenty-six years later, and you can see her lineage in the sex-positive queer bops of Chappell Roan or Billie Eilish, or even the scabrously funny lyrics of former NME Cover stars Lambrini Girls, whom Peaches collaborated with on a remix of ‘Cuntology 101’.
For the most part, ‘No Lube So Rude’ joyously revels in the scatological, unleashing a Hanky Code’s worth of fetishes, over punk, electro, dance and industrial. There’s a grim irony, however, in that as pop’s Overton window has shifted towards her, Peaches’ lyrical touchstones – such as bodily autonomy, and gender identity and expression – are increasingly politically under threat. Even the title ‘No Lube So Rude’ refers to turning the friction of the world into pleasure and pride. Rising to meet the moment, Peaches brings a dildo-shaped bazooka to a knife-fight.
Over buzzsaw synths, the mechanical trap clatter of ‘Fuck How You Wanna Fuck’ references both Elon Musk (“Starlink anal beads / Shove it and squeeze”) and the overturning of the landmark abortion ruling of Roe V Wade. The filth is accompanied with fury on the righteous protest chant ‘Not In Your Mouth None Of Your Business’. Taking its moniker from an impassioned speech by her longtime partner, artist Black Cracker, in her 2024 documentary Teaches Of Peaches, about the reductivity of those who try to police genitals, it’s a frontline howl-of-rage against the rollback of LGBTQ+ rights around the globe: “Orders won’t make us lie down and die / We will stop you fucking up our lives.”
It isn’t just the state of the world that’s in her carnal crosshairs. When Peaches played one of her first shows in the UK in 2001, a review memorably read: “Grandma, you’re scaring the kids!” She was 33. Now that she’s 59, Peaches is shredding the expectations and misconceptions of post-menopausal women with the same riotous, bawdy approach that she used to challenge gender norms. On the celebratory hyperpop-inflected opener ‘Hanging Titties’, she raps: “Older than you / Looking so cunt… my hanging titties hit like a punch.”
In contrast to the sparse electro and rock of previous releases, Peaches expands her sonic palette on ‘No Lube So Rude’, such as the aforementioned ‘Panna Cotta Delight’ (suffice to say you wouldn’t find it in Asda’s dessert chiller), which melds retro video game synths to soulful funk, or yearning closer ‘Be Love’, which culminates in violin strings. Fittingly for an album title referencing Liquid Silk, ‘No Lube So Rude’ might be Peaches’ slickest work yet.
