Downtown Boys – Sirena
Downtown Boys are back. The Providence political punks have been quiet since 2017’s Cost of Living, their Sub Pop debut, and now they’re returning with Public Luxury, due June 26 on the same label. “Sirena” is the third single, following “No Me Jodas” (W13) and “You’re a Ghost” (W18), and it’s the most considered of the three.
The title translates from Spanish as “mermaid” or “mythical seductress”, but Victoria Marie reframes it as something interior: a compass, a guiding voice, the thing that pulls you toward a better world even when the present one is exhausting. The song’s other anchor is “Gema”, a bolero standard written by Los Dandys and recorded by Javier Solís and Vicente Fernández, among others. It was a favourite of Marie’s late grandmother, and that lineage runs through the track’s emotional core without the band leaning on it sentimentally.
The production, co-handled by guitarist Joey La Neve DeFrancesco and Seth Manchester (Lambrini Girls, Model/Actriz) at Machines With Magnets in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, gives the sax-and-punk attack room to breathe. The lyrics move between Spanish and English, treating both as equal carriers of meaning rather than switching for effect. The video is by Sarah Elawad, a Sudanese visual artist known for work responding to the war in Sudan and for the blooming-flower animation she made for Zohran Mamdani’s New York City mayoral campaign.
I find Downtown Boys most convincing when the politics are grounded in something specific, and “Sirena” is specific: about lineage, about grief, about what you carry forward. Nine years is a long gap and this single makes a strong case for the wait.
Tour Dates
North America
- Jun. 23 / Hamden, CT / Space Ballroom (with Gang of Four)
- Jun. 24 / Holyoke, MA / Holyoke Media (with Perennial)
- Jun. 25 / Woodstock, NY / Bearsville Theater (with Gang of Four)
- Jun. 26 / Willimantic, CT / St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
- Jun. 27 / Portland, ME / State Theater (with Gang of Four)
- Jun. 28 / East Greenwich, RI / Odeum (with Gang of Four)
- Jul. 15 / Columbus, OH / Spacebar (with Pop Music Fever Dream)
- Jul. 16 / Detroit, MI / Third Man Records (with Pop Music Fever Dream)
- Jul. 18 / Cleveland, OH / Happy Dog (with Pop Music Fever Dream)
- Jul. 19 / Pittsburgh, PA / Bottlerocket Social Hall (with Pop Music Fever Dream)
- Jul. 21 / Philadelphia, PA / Johnny Brenda’s (with Pop Music Fever Dream)
- Jul. 22 / Washington, DC / DC9 Nightclub (with Pop Music Fever Dream)
- Jul. 23 / Brooklyn, NY / Baby’s All Right (with Ratas en Zelo)
- Jul. 24 / Somerville, MA / NICE, A Fest
- Jul. 25 / Burlington, VT / Foam Brewers
- Sep. 25 / Buffalo, NY / Rec Room
- Sep. 26 / Mississauga, ON / Second Summer Festival
