Two years ago, the Rhode Island-based sextet were dubbed “America’s most exciting punk band”. Since then, the queer, mixed-ethnicity, non-binary people who make this sax-fuelled squall have found a new sense of urgency. That’s not to say that this album has the same incessant, rapid-fire rage as 2015’s Full Communism. In fact, it could do with being a little more taut in places.
But the Trump administration – not to mention the bright production by Fugazi’s Guy Picciotto – has given them a sense of space and melody, something that allows vocalist and lyricist Victoria Ruiz’s righteous proclamations to rise. Lyrical grenades about intersectional politics are hurled throughout – “I want more!” demands Ruiz like Poly Styrene on I’m Enough, while The Wall reduces the concept of border control as mere bricks and mortar to something that can be knocked down by the force of will and compassion. Something Downtown Boys have no shortage of.
