Description
Debut album from Cigarettes After Sex available on White Vinyl LP
Cigarettes After Sex frontman Greg Gonzalez's ability to set a scene and sustain a
mood reels you in deeply. On album opener ‘K.’, a tale of blossoming love etched in
tiny details luxuriates over chiming guitars; on the hymn to romantic compulsion of
‘Each Time You Fall in Love’, the suspended animation of Angelo Badalamenti’s
heart-stopping Twin Peaks music is echoed. ‘Sunsetz’ and the gently lilting ‘Sweet’,
meanwhile, showcase Gonzalez’s ability to weave impressionistic snapshots of
romance into melodies that haunt like memories of past loves, all coalescing around
his melting vocals. Elsewhere, Gonzalez mounts movies in miniature with the
photographic references of ‘Flash’ and Fitzcarraldo echoes of ‘Opera House’, a song
so lovingly languid it could, conceivably, soundtrack a man hauling ships over
mountains for love. And, just as every good film-maker knows the need for a killer
finale, so Gonzalez closes the album with the retro-romantic swing and teasingly
filthy put-downs (the “sucking cock” lyric isn’t as barbed as it seems, just friendly
joshing) of ‘Young & Dumb’, which brings the album to a close with good, timeless
advice: “Drive your car to the beach with the song on repeat...”.
To mirror their woozy romanticism in music, Gonzalez rejected conventional studio
routes for his band, which numbers Randy Miller on bass, Jacob Tomsky on drums
and Phillip Tubbs on keyboards. Taking influence from The Cowboy Junkies’ The
Trinity Session (recorded in a church, single microphone), Cigarettes recorded most
of the album in three days at the Sweatshop rehearsal space, Bushwick. The
exception is ‘Each Time You Fall in Love’, which was recorded in the Beekman’s
stairway after hours, the ghosts of screen lovers channelled in every warm note.
Like the best movie, Cigarettes After Sex holds you in a hell of a spell.
