The Rhode Island five-piece Downtown Boys have returned with Public Luxury, their third and best album, a ferocious rallying call to fight for your beliefs. The record blends bouncing basslines, muted house chords, and stomping drums, delivering a joyful blast of bilingual political punk.
A Big-Hearted Opener
Opener No Me Jodas (Don't Fuck With Me) comes out roaring, fists up, but gives way to a bouncing, joyous bassline: a brutal, big-hearted reminder that there's beauty in fighting for what you believe in. The band's politics are proudly worn, while new ambiguity, strangeness, and shadow enrich their passionate, sax-blasted punk.
Muscled-Up and Reinvigorated
In the nine years since the band's last record, members have served as public defenders and co-founded the United Musicians and Allied Workers union. The five-piece sound muscled-up and reinvigorated by this work. Viva La Rosa kicks off like dive-bar punk, before transforming into something grander, with soaring electric guitar and darkly beautiful lyrics: “Todavía creo en un future / Todavía veo nuestros muertos” (I still believe in a future / I still see our dead).
Frenzied Energy and Serenity
Sirena boils with the heat that Downtown Boys bring to their frenzied live shows, egged on by magnificently throaty vocals from Victoria Marie, sounding as if she's singing down a megaphone. Stomping drum machine and funky, bubbling synthesiser make You're a Ghost campy and industrial as it rails against state surveillance, while Yellow Sun finds a kind of serenity in protest: Marie yells “I'm so heavy with love!” over warm vibraphone and hissing hi-hats.
A Clubby Coda
For all its ferocity, Public Luxury ends on a lightly clubby coda – muted house chords, a whistling melody and a not-very-subliminal message: “Take the fall with me,” they beckon. Cynicism begone!
