Greg Gonzalez perfectly encapsulated his creative psyche with the moniker of Cigarettes After Sex. The smoke in that mental image can be seen to represent the band’s black and white aesthetic, both graphically and onstage, a visual language which accentuates their music – and that music plays the part of the post-coital pocket universe wherein people find themselves engaging with their deepest feelings in a state of pure clarity.
The Texas band, known for their dreamy, noir-pop love ballads, have just released their latest record, entitled simply: Cry. The final American show of that tour, one of only three to take place after the release of the album itself on October 25th via Partisan Records, saw the band take the stage at Boston’s House of Blues after a half-hour film entitled You’re The Only Good Thing In My Life, which shares its name with one of the album’s tracks.
Frontman Greg Gonzalez stood center-stage, far back, almost to the curtain where they’d projected the film. The only one of the four band members fully lit, it’s his voice that’s the star of the show, and what a voice it is. Soft and alluring, Gonzalez has the ability to write songs about seemingly anything that draw the listener into his world, and time seems to melt away as he sings. It’s one thing to hear this on a record; it’s even more impressive to feel it happening live. No matter how detailed or abstract the narrative, Gonzalez’s voice lends it a power, a weight, unlike any other – even though the timbre of his voice is unburdened and effortless.
Often labeled as “dream pop”, Cigarettes After Sex do recall some of the bands who share that designation. If Chromatics traded their bright colors and Hollywood panache for a black and white palette, one might have ended up with Cigarettes After Sex. Gonzalez’s faraway, often whispering voice and the unhurried pace of the music as are ethereal and deeply satisfying as any band that has created music of this nature before. Cigarettes After Sex have managed to take pop music and invert it in the most interesting way, preserving the saccharine of the lyrics while nesting them in the polar opposite of pop’s typical arena-ready sound. It’s easy to imagine them scoring a full-length feature film, or appearing on a future series of Twin Peaks as the denizens of the show’s otherworldly dive bar sway in attendance.
Perhaps the purest expression of Gonzalez’s talent is ‘Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You Baby’, a song from the band’s first EP. It has become one of the most sought-after songs for somber, moody moments of television, and through appearances in in high-profile programs like The Handmaid’s Tale its unmistakable bass line and understated drumming have drawn countless listeners in, and has become one of the most recognizable flagships of their sound. There’s good reason behind the song’s magnetism. Gonzalez shows three vignettes inside a relationship: a whispered joke, a night in at home, a karaoke scene. These are all intensely personal moments, uncontextualized aside from the chorus wherein he ties the tales together with the titular vow of commitment. And yet the lyrics are so emotive that anyone can imagine themselves in that relationship, feeling that love, that sense of security, and, above all, belonging. It’s the prestige of the ultimate lyricists’ magic trick: to write about one’s own life in a way that, through pure emotional resonance, becomes universal.
The band chose a carefully-curated setlist to augment their short film, opting for quality over quantity and pulling from all eras of their discography. ‘Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You Baby’ drew gasps from the audience when bassist Randall Miller began the iconic groove of the song, alone in the dim light. Drummer Jacob Tomsky joined a few measures later, delicate brushing on his snare contrasting with the heavier footfalls on his bass drum. And when it came time for that inimitable chorus, Gonzalez’s voice rose to meet Josh Marcus on keyboards, whose call-and-response chord pattern ties together the mental image of these two people in love.
The audience was equally excited for ‘Young & Dumb’, the final track from the band’s self-titled effort. It’s a self-effacing tale of mutual infidelity, and Gonzalez revels in the telling of the dissolution of relationships as much as he does the beginnings. ‘Falling in Love’ chronicles just that, while ‘K.’ pinpoints the moment a fling became much more in his heart as his guitar calls out from seemingly light years away, bridging a different kind of gap. ‘Dreaming of You’ finds the band ending the night with a song that is the very definition of a beginning, with the narrator being taken over by the allure of a new crush he’s only seen from afar. “You’re the one that’s calling me to heaven,” Gonzalez sings, as his guitar transforms into an extraterrestrial rocket engine, howling across the sky and out into the night.
Review and Photos by Collin Heroux
