Downtown Boys came storming out of Rhode Island in 2011, but it was with the release of 2015’s Full Communism that they started to turn heads en masse. It was an atypical, gripping, riotous sprint, hurdling at breakneck speed through a ten-track, 25-minute run time. Perhaps the most direct route to understanding them is how they’re often described in the press: bilingual, queer, collective.
On that debut LP, they furiously indicted an intersectional laundry list of systems of oppression (including tall males: “Fuck you, tall boy!” Victoria Ruiz bellows), and provided slogan-ready mantras of empowerment (on “Monstro”, Ruiz testifies bluntly, “She’s brown! She’s smart!”). Downtown Boys have dedicated their platform to speaking against systems that erase and subjugate marginalised communities, and their upcoming release, Cost of Living, promises to be just as battle-ready: “A wall is just a wall, and nothing more at all,” Ruiz affirms confidently on the bands single . It’s that rejection of division that fuels Downtown Boys’ calls to disruption and solidarity.
The Fat Angel Sings 