Downtown Boys: Deluxe Overview – A joyous explosion of bilingual political music | music

HeyOptimism may seem outdated, but the Downtown Boys are proud outliers. On Public Luxury, the Rhode Island band’s third and best album, they wear their politics proudly — while bringing ambiguity, strangeness and a new shade to their passionate, bilingual saxophone-driven punk. Opener No Me Jodas comes out loud, fists raised, but makes way for an upbeat bass line: a brutal, big-hearted reminder that there’s beauty in fighting for what you believe in.

In the nine years since the band’s last recording, they have served as public advocates and co-founded the United Musicians and Allied Workers Union, and the five-piece’s sound has been strengthened, and revitalized, by this work. Viva La Rosa kicks off like a punk dive, before morphing into something grander, with soaring electric guitar and darkly beautiful lyrics: “Todavía creo en un Future / Todavía veo nuestros muertos” (I still believe in the future / I still see our dead).

Serena boils with the heat that the Downtown Boys bring to their frenetic live shows, fueled by Victoria Marie’s gorgeous vocals, where she sounds as if she’s singing into a megaphone. A thumping drum machine and funky, bubbling synthesizer make “You’re Ghost” campy and industrial as it rails against state surveillance, while Yellow Sun finds a kind of calm in protest: Marie screams “I’m burdened with love!” On the warm vibraphone and hissing hi-hats.

Despite its ferocity, Public Luxury ends with a lighthearted score — muted house strings, a whistling melody and a not-so-subliminal message: “Take the fall with me,” they wave. The sarcasm has begun!