Another Trump presidency, another Downtown Boys album. The Rhode Island punk collective founded 15 years ago at a union meeting by two artists (Victoria Marie and Joey La Neve DeFrancesco) looking to make some noise about the dehumanizing working conditions they’d been subjected to made a big splash in 2017 with their album Cost of Living, with “Somos Chulas” in particular serving as a rallying cry in the midst of a particularly frightening moment in American history—one that obviously seems a bit quaint in comparison to everything we’ve had to endure over the past year.
The first taste of the band’s first album in nine years, Public Luxury, feels like a natural progression from the rowdy hardcore of its predecessor. “No Me Jodas” (which translates to “don’t fuck with me”) is a snarling rager and playful pit-starter simultaneously. The latter facet of the track inspired its official music video, set in an intimate Brooklyn club. “The video for ‘No Me Jodas’ is inspired by the aesthetic of ‘chicha’—a music culture out of Peru that is also about economics, work, partying, life, desire, and nightlife,” shared Marie. “The ethic, as put by one Chicha musician, Chacalón, is two words: chamba and vacilón (hard work and partying).”
Marie also noted in the album’s bio that the project continues to serve as a beacon of hope amid hard times. “I think it is such a pivotal, desperate, yet desirous moment that our music is simply for anyone and everyone who believes in the new future we can make together, a world that will be awkward, inconsistent, yet truly free when it comes to all that matters.”
Check out the clip below, and pre-order Public Luxury ahead of its June 26 release here.
