The lead singer of Chvrches has hit back at online trolls who launched a stream of sexist abuse over the band’s latest music video.

Frontwoman Lauren Mayberry was threatened with rape and branded a “slut” and a “whore” following the release of the video to Leave A Trace, in which she wears a short black dress and has wet look hair.

The singer, 27, said she was horrified at the hate-filled tirades and said those responsible are “cavemen” who threaten sexual violence when they do not like what a woman is doing or saying.

Lauren Mayberry of the Chvrches performs on the MTV stage during day one of the V Festival, at Hylands Park in Chelmsford, Essex. (Nick Ansell/PA Wire/Press Association Images)
Lauren Mayberry of Chvrches performs at V Festival (Nick Ansell/PA)

She told Channel 4 News: “The response to the video, that to me just seemed ludicrous really.

“I am a 27-year-old woman wearing a mini dress with wet look hair. If you don’t like it that’s fine, but there is a difference between criticism and hatred.”

She added: “For me, it is sadly predictable, you fall back on the base argument.

“If you don’t like what a woman is wearing, you don’t like her opinion, you don’t like what it is she represents, then you fall back on the basic caveman arguments of threatening with physical and sexual violence because it is your trump card. Because that’s the way you get somebody to shut up.

“And I just think that is a very sad state of affairs.”

The singer said she had decided to speak out because many women have been subjected to the same kind of abuse, and “the ‘just ignore it and it will blow away’ argument is not working”.

She said: “This happens to women all the time anyway and I hate the idea that young girls who follow our band deal with stuff like that.

“I don’t want them to feel isolated, I don’t want them to feel like it is just happening to them, because it happens everywhere.”

Revealing the sickening abuse she has received, she said: “Somebody tweeted me the other day ‘if you can’t learn to deal with this sort of s*** stick a gun in your mouth before the record even comes out. I have one and I’ll give it to you.’

“Personally that’s horrifying, if somebody put that through your door you would go to the police with that.”

She conceded that by speaking out she might make herself more of a target because people think they will get a response.

But she said it was important to challenge those hiding behind the anonymity of the internet.

She said: “To me it is not necessarily you responding that trolls want, they want to scare, they want to intimidate and they want to silence people – so ignoring it doesn’t make a difference.”