CIGARETTES AFTER SEX TALK NEW ALBUM 'X'S' AND INDIA TOUR IN 2025

FOUNDER GREG GONZALEZ RELIVES MEMORIES FROM A PAST RELATIONSHIP IN HIS DISTINCTLY INTIMATE POP MANNER ON THE AMERICAN BAND'S THIRD FULL-LENGTH

- Anurag Tagat

The seductive, melancholy and dreamy sound of Cigarettes After Sex returns on their third album X’s, released Jul. 12, via Partisan Records.

More than a decade after the American band led by frontman Greg Gonzalez rose to fame for taking dream-pop to new places – and sometimes being derided for it – Cigarettes After Sex’s imprint on music is evident in just how many more artists have drawn from their easy-paced yet sometimes explicit storytelling around romance and all the feelings associated with it.

Speaking with Rolling Stone India, Gonzalez says it’s “the highest compliment” when there are other artists trying something similar. “Because music, to me, is a big circle.”

Is there something different about X’s compared to their breakout 2012 EP, the self-titled 2017 album and their 2019 follow-up full-length album Cry? To the hardcore fan, it doesn’t matter. To Gonzalez, there are of course things he’s done differently with bassist Randall Miller and drummer Jacob Tomsky.

X’s thematically centers around memories from Gonzalez’s relationship that lasted four years. He says about the songwriting, “There’s some stuff that’s a little more surreal at times, but then some of it’s very straightforward, too. My favorite stuff is if I can write super matter-of-fact, or where it’s like a memoir, kind of like a journal entry.”