Is white lipstick the trashiest shade of lip color? Despite continually mulling over what belongs in the oozing dumpster of the trash aesthetic, I never really thought about it until the elongated scream of “Whiiiiiiiiiiiii-te lipstick!” that kickstarts the sonic tribute to this pasty lip on Hunx and His Punx’s new album Walk Out on This World, a passionate howl that is only rivaled in eye-popping intensity by the “SURPIIIIISE!” of The B-52’s’ “Party Out of Bounds.” With that kind of fervency, white lipstick certainly deserves some consideration as the tackiest tone. I mean, what other tint would reach the top of the makeup garbage heap? Hot Topic mall goth black? Gathering of the Juggalos Faygo green? Dated mid-1990s metallic purple, best paired with butterfly hair clips? Rite Aid parking lot Wet n Wild frosty pink? Though the latter may come the closest, even that doesn’t carry the same trash culture cache. White lipstick is the hue of the hair-hoppers, best paired with silver eyeshadow, a dangerously sharp cat eye, and precariously towering, chemically soaked, hyper-flammable beehives. Two white lipstickers immediately come to mind: Cookie Mueller’s Concetta in Female Trouble, her spackled lips like gummy bathtub caulking, curling to whisper threats in her do-gooder classmate’s ear, and still the baddest girl of rock n’ roll, Ronnie Spector.

Both certainly deserve the adoring yet ultimately tragic tribute of Hunx and His Punx’s “White Lipstick.” In this garage rock song, in between singer and bassist Shannon Shaw and drummer Erin Emslie’s backup refrains of “with white lipstick on!”, vocalist and guitarist (and campy ceramicist!) Seth Bogart reminisces about a formative moment: a glance at an unnamed singer’s white lips “shining in the night.” This instance of makeup elation inspires him to smear on the same hue, only to disappointingly discover he can’t nail it (“When I put it on/I wish that I was just like her/But I’m not, no, I’m not). Who hasn’t made a fashion blunder attempting to mimic an idol? No matter, though, Seth is going to keep trying! Never waver in your demented dedication to trash maquillage, even if it doesn’t work!

If “White Lipstick” seems like either a song penned by The B-52’s, to be placed alongside their other sartorial anthems like “Wig” or “Hot Pants Explosion,” or a tune written specifically for the Camp John Waters dance competition, you wouldn’t be wrong. While Walk Out on This World is the band’s first album since *gasp* the 2010s, when they unknowingly provided the oft-repeated soundtrack to some of Filthy Dreams’ founding, the album is an impeccable resurrection of their quintessential sound, a genre I’d describe as “John Waters-core.” Granted, this genre may only consist of Hunx and His Punx and potentially Shannon Shaw’s other group, Shannon and The Clams. And just in case you think I’m wedging in John Waters yet again, the band genuflects to our Pope of Trash’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in their video for “Alone in Hollywood on Acid,” Bogart has designed merch for our Prince of Puke, and the Sultan of Sleaze has even introduced their live performances. So, what exactly is John Waters-core? A Watersian mix of 1960s girl group fanaticism, as heard not only in Bogart’s nasally Ronnie Spector whine but flawlessly brain-puncturing backing vocal harmonies, Emslie’s drumming that recalls Hal Blaine’s work with The Ronettes and The Crystals, and a dash of nostalgia plucking details like the dramatic claps and snaps on the album’s title song, and raucous early punk, like the chanted “Top of the punks” on the song of the same title, which reminds me of The Ramones’ “Beat on the Brat.” Think: music made for Divine rampaging around Baltimore, shocking the neuters, and causing a panic.

Walk Out on This World’s sound represents a return after the band’s slight diversion into 1980s-style hardcore with their relentless 20-minute aural assault Street Punk, which boasted such aggressive ear bleeders as “Everyone’s A Pussy (Fuck You Dude),” “Don’t Call Me Fabulous,” and the sludgy, no wave-esque “Rat Bag.” More than a decade later, the band dials back the noise and rage for a bit more of the good old Wall of Sound romanticism heard on their earlier Too Young to Be in Love and Gay Singles. That doesn’t mean that the band lost its bite and can no longer cause a riot. The opening song, “Alone in Hollywood on Acid,” hits like swallowing a tab of mysterious origins. However, it more accurately channels spiraling out in an amphetamine surge of guitar-ripping velocity rather than errantly picking at the threads in the carpet in a chill, hallucinogenic haze. Not only is the music of “Alone in Hollywood on Acid” an exhilarating burst of chemically induced energy, but the lyrics paint a hysterical scene: a pleasant yet unhinged psychedelic trip through the choking smog and grime of Hollywood Boulevard. Rather than an Inland Empire-style bad trip, the narrator scampers through Los Angeles, communing with sidewalk nature (“What if I climbed this tree?”) and effusively gushing about the universal connections between humanity and the universe (“You are the air, we are the sky”). It’s so manically exuberant, you can just imagine this wayward tripper getting nabbed, strung-out, on Cops.

“Alone in Hollywood on Acid” isn’t the only song with a sense of humor. “Wild Boys” is a zealous ode to both being and attracting a bad boy, the delinquent soulmate to the band’s Too Young to Be in Love-era “Bad Boy” (not to be confused with “Bad BOYS” from this album). While the plunked-in sample of rabid arena rock cheering adds a dash of stadium heartthrob swoon, the song’s standout element is Bogart’s “Hey, boy!” spoken section à la Elvis’s “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” and “Hurt.” Rather than expressing heartbreak, “Wild Boys” offers a permanent vacation on the wild side. I’ll take a ticket! “Top of the Punks,” too, got a laugh out of me, a satirical extended complaint about being recognized (“I can’t leave my house without someone asking me, ‘Hey, are you Hunx?’”), signing a scam contract at 14 years old, and having to sing those same damn hits (How sick are they of playing “You Don’t Like Rock n’ Roll,” a song for all those unlucky enough to suffer partners with lame listening choices?). Who knew Hunx and His Punx were such a paparazzi sensation?! Thankfully, even though fame can be a bitch, the band isn’t without mentors. The next song, “Little Richard,” is a worshipful, appreciative hymn to a preeminent filth elder, the god of internal organ-rattling power yelps, Tutti Frutti screams, and high hair. In his eponymous song, Little Richard is the “Vinyl Daddy” who taught them everything, but also, given some ambiguous lyrics, seems to have suffered for their (and maybe his own) sins.

More so than their other albums, Walk Out on This World is equal parts punch and pathos. Obviously, this has something to do with, well, everything at the moment. Unlike those halcyon days of the 2010s when you could more comfortably ignore the nefarious decisions coming out of D.C., like drone bombs or bailing out banks or nuking the public option in the ACA, this album was recorded through the Eddington years of the 2020s (lumping 2019 in here too when the band actually regrouped). These years saw a pandemic, mass psychosis, political upheaval, and rampant wildfires scorching their way through the band’s home base in L.A. while Karen Bass fucked off in Ghana. The band also suffered personal losses, mainly Shannon Shaw’s fiancé’s sudden death in a car accident, which is also the subject of Shannon and The Clams’ phenomenal psychedelic last album, The Moon Is in the Wrong Place. Understandably, it’s hard to produce an album of wall-to-wall frothy camp when confronting these individual and collective tragedies. The band reacts by slowing down the tempo while jacking up the pain. While Bogart leads a few apocalyptic anthems with the “Nowhere to Run” fatalism of “No Way Out,” and the cathartic party and cruise while the world is ending, “Grab Yr Pearls,” most of the pathos comes from Shaw, who moves forward as lead vocalist for a change in a handful of songs. Though the boppier tracks are irresistibly infectious, it’s Shaw’s songs that stand out with her husky power vocals that channel agony, anguish, and grief right up there with The Shangri-Las’ Mary Weiss, whether her throat-tearing yowl in the repeated “Since you went away…” verses on ‘Rainy Day in LA” or her wail of “Bad boys, what have you done?” on “Bad Boys.”

Nowhere is this more audible than on the title song, which also concludes the album. “Walk Out on This World” opens with a moseying beat, largely driven by girl group claps. The easy-breezy instrumentals collide with the rather grim lyrics, narrating contemplating sticking your thumb out and hitchhiking right out of existence because “my love is gone.” Don’t worry, it’s not just a ride to the beyond. Shaw lists a few reasons to stick it out—fuzzy pets, friends, love…becoming a tree? Granted, some of the surreal lyrics, a callback to the hallucinated fixation with trees from “Alone in Hollywood on Acid,” defy comprehension, yet just try to resist following Shaw as her voice hits a fevered pitch, pleading, “What was it for? What was it for?” As that pressing question fades into the abyss, the album finishes with mutually assured oblivion. The final noise, the last you hear on the album and maybe ever again, is the whistling whizz and the obliterating blast of a bomb. Kabloom! Rather than the seaside seagull squawks in “Remember (Walking in the Sand)” or the open road roar of the motorcycle in “Leader of the Pack,’ an explosive detonation seems like the proper atomic ending for our new nuclear age. Plus, it’s a hell of a way to end an album.