Downtown Boys turn Public Luxury into a polished riot with the teeth still showing

Downtown Boys return on 26 June with Public Luxury, and the nine-year gap has clearly not made them any less furious. Pitchfork describes the Providence punks’ new Sub Pop album as a punchier, newly polished record still dripping with righteous anger, which is exactly the balance a band like this needs. Their politics have never been decorative; the activism, worker solidarity and leftist rage are woven into the music’s bones. Public Luxury arrives in a world of corporate automation, gutted safety nets and worsening inequality, so the band hardly needed to invent new enemies. Victoria Marie’s voice still functions like a flare, while the songs reportedly move through sludge, dance-punk, climate dread, protest repression and tenderness for the victims of war. Downtown Boys are not back to relive a moment. They are back because the moment got worse.

Source: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/downtown-boys-public-luxury/