{"id":76261,"date":"2026-07-17T08:00:26","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T08:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/?p=76261"},"modified":"2026-07-16T22:21:49","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T22:21:49","slug":"downtown-boys-album-review-a-wider-musical-palette-with-the-same-political-fury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/downtown-boys-album-review-a-wider-musical-palette-with-the-same-political-fury\/","title":{"rendered":"Downtown Boys\u2019 album review: A wider musical palette with the same political fury"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>By CARLOS SAPIR<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Following off of having put together the soundtrack for the movie <em>Miss Marx<\/em>, Downtown Boys\u2019 third album, <em>Public Luxury<\/em>, continues the band\u2019s unapologetically socialist, feminist, and Chicana brand of eclectic hardcore punk. Compared to their breakout <em>Full Communism <\/em>and their second album, <em>Cost of Living<\/em>, <em>Public Luxury <\/em>is more adventurous in terms of composition and instrumentation, while singer Victoria Marie is as indomitable and full of bilingual political rage as ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Downtown Boys\u2019 sound has always been rooted in an unorthodox combination of aggressive punk and metal influences that flits between a dozen different subgenres\u2019 worth of drumming styles beneath a no-frills guitar attack and a blaring saxophone that sounds less like \u201cCareless Whisper\u201d than it does an air raid siren. But this is pushed to new ground on <em>Public Luxury<\/em>. Opening with the overwhelming sludge riffs (blares?) at the beginning of \u201cNo Me Jodas\u201d [Don\u2019t Fuck With Me], the band soon cuts to the more familiar punk territory of high-tempo snare drums in 4\/4 time that still forms the album\u2019s through-line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But the genre deviations range further, much further. \u201cYellow Sun,\u201d a cryptic ode to resistance, features pop synths that wouldn\u2019t sound out of place in a song by Sabrina Carpenter or Sombr. \u201cViva La Rosa\u2019s\u201d opening guitar riff could have been lifted from The Kinks or Pat Benatar. \u201cYou\u2019re a Ghost,\u201d meanwhile, brings out KMFDM-style industrial dance beats and a hyperpop electronic overlay.\u201c Public Works\u201d features a Kraftwerk-esque dreamy bridge between thrash metal verses, which then transitions to an R&amp;B flute-and-piano groove for \u201cPublic Luxury.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As with other albums by the band, the lyrical delivery on <em>Public Luxury <\/em>is often difficult to parse. While the songs\u2019 topics range from sexism, racism, and the revolutionary love that runs through the most desperate struggles, many of the songs\u2019 lyrics are difficult to pin down beyond a raw sense of emotion. The clearer moments are in \u201cMi Concha\u201d [My Pussy], in the short repudiation of colonial beauty standards (a faithful cover of the original by fellow Rhode Island indie punk rockers Malportado Kids) and \u201cAlbuterol,\u201d which deals in personal heartbreak even as it likely notches the novelty of being the first song dedicated to the active chemical used in asthma inhalers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There\u2019s no doubt as to which side Downtown Boys are on, but unlike prior albums that made good use of pithy slogans for song titles like \u201c100% Inheritance Tax,\u201d <em>Public Luxury <\/em>is a bit more abstract and less forthcoming about its political program. As of this writing, most of the album\u2019s songs do not have lyrics available online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For better or for worse, <em>Public Luxury<\/em> is not a crystal-clear political manifesto. But it still brings an emotionally resonant battlecry against oppression and exploitation, and pairs it with a breadth of musical textures so vast that it\u2019s only the band\u2019s hardcore punk roots and ethics that keep the album under a tight 35 minutes. Whether or not the mystery contents of the album\u2019s muddier lyrics are ever brought to light, one thing is for certain: at Downtown Boys\u2019 revolution, the mosh pit is open.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Public Luxury continues the band\u2019s unapologetically socialist, feminist, and Chicana brand of eclectic hardcore punk. Compared to their breakout Full Communism and their second album, Cost of Living, Public Luxury is more adventurous in terms of composition and instrumentation, while singer Victoria Marie is as indomitable and full of bilingual political rage as ever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":76262,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"litci_post_political_author":"Carlos Sapir","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6229],"tags":[6282,6866,6857,6858,6865,6859,6860,6861,6283,6863,6284,6864,6169,4058,3831],"class_list":["post-76261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art-and-culture","tag-album","tag-boys","tag-chicana","tag-chicano","tag-downtown","tag-latina","tag-latino","tag-latinx","tag-music","tag-punk","tag-review","tag-rock","tag-u-s-2","tag-united-states","tag-us"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/litci.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Downtown-Boys.webp?fit=1446%2C964&ssl=1","fimg_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/litci.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Downtown-Boys.webp?fit=1446%2C964&ssl=1","categories_names":["Art and Culture"],"author_info":{"name":"Carlos S.","pic":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fdf3a2076204dbf848fa7838fc9e2787f3317262207b35e333f31316e39fce9c?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"political_author":"Carlos Sapir","tagline":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76261"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76263,"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76261\/revisions\/76263"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}