ALBUM REVIEW: GOD FORBID A GIRL SPITS OUT HER FEELINGS BY LØLØ
Reviewed by Cecilia Pattison-Levi
Release date 17 April 2026
Lauren Mandel is the 28-year-old Toronto-based pop-punk and rock musician who is LØLØ. She has been selling out concerts all over Europe, has been a fixture at the big US and Canadian rock festivals over the last two years, released one of 2024’s best albums in the witty and insightful ‘Falling For Robots And Wishing I Was One’, and has built a substantial worldwide fan base. LØLØ is known for her melodic pop-punk music that has captivating narrative storytelling at its heart and great melodies, her work is tuneful and fun.
LØLØ’s new 12-track album ‘God Forbid A Girl Spits Out Her Feelings’ is a departure from her debut album. The new album is more concerned about matters of the heart and heartbreak, and this drives the central lyrical narrative. The lyricism has a more immediate diary-style of writing, and the melodic delivery is more acoustic guitar strumming patterns that are stripped-back. There are no divergent flights of fancy, this new record is more diaristic and intensely personal, and heartbreak is the central driver in the lyrical narrative.
The album begins with the emotional intent of the title track ‘God Forbid A Girl Spits Out Her Feelings!’, where the acoustic guitar and poetry are going to be our guides as we take a ride into the effects of betrayal and into “healing” as we deal with others’ bad “intentions”. ‘Me With No Shirt On’ is warning not to engage in sex/texting and sending sexy pictures over yourself on your phone to someone you truly do not know. The warning is wrapped in gorgeous, fluid acoustic guitar melodies, gentle drum beats, and floating vocals. Then, the pop world hits with ‘Dumbest Girl In The World’. It is an absolute banger about being stupid, and engaging in ‘situationships’ and affairs with someone stupid, the “architect of embarrassment”. The song rings with lived experience and heartbreak.
LØLØ’s focus is love and its consequences via acoustic guitar riffs and melodies. The condition she rails against, “shitty kisses”, crushes in ‘Hung Up On U’, the wrong “pretty monster” boy in ‘The Devil Wears Converse’, the dumb ‘American Zombie’ boy, the ‘007’ bad boy, and the cheat and player who gets his just desserts in ‘The Punisher’. She worries about being alone, accepting second best, and doing “dumb” things to avoid these ‘supposed’ problems like in ‘Delusional Darling’, where red flags are ignored. LØLØ laments being the “poster girl of stupidity” and digging her own “grave”, especially when it comes to ‘Stuff Like That’. Then, she reaches out for the ‘Whiskey & Coke’ to deaden the pain.
While the acoustic guitar-based melodies on this album are really good, the songs shine when the electric guitar riffs deliver smooth and clever pop-rock like on ‘007’, ‘American Zombie’, and ‘The Devil Wears Converse’. The album ends with the song the ‘Boy Who Doesn’t Want To’, and it is a realisation that the male (or men in general) will probably “never, ever… change” and love won’t help nor will “crushing 100 spiders”. The path to insanity is lined with false hope just as “snow doesn’t fall in August” in the Northern hemisphere.
The 12 songs on ‘God Forbid A Girl Spits Out Her Feelings’ is about quiet desperation. The songwriting is sharp, witty, and has a gritty edge with “no revenge, just metaphors”. But don’t let LØLØ fool you, her songs are cutting, brutal in fact, with a pop-punk sense of tuneful fun.
