X's

The lights are low, the radio’s playing the soft hits of yesteryear, and Greg Gonzalez has just been struck by a cartoon vixen in a Marvel comic from the early ’90s—that look on her face reminds him of someone. “I need that sweet life with its decadent ways,” sighs the lead singer of TikTok’s biggest dream-pop band on the woozy “Silver Sable”, a Cigarettes After Sex mission statement if there ever was one. Gonzalez formed the band in 2013, though he’d written songs under the evocative moniker since 2008: sultry songs that float along in a post-coital haze in the vein of ’90s bands like Mazzy Star or Cowboy Junkies, the kind of thing you play in headphones to feel like the main character in the noir film of your life. The band’s third full-length album, X’s, plays out like a dream you might have after a few hours of scrolling Tumblr. The title track is a pleasant blur of cinnamon and leopard print, candlelight and birthday cake, with a nod to Marilyn Monroe’s last photo shoot to fully set the mood, all sung like a horny lullaby as is Gonzalez’s trademark. “Hot” is all pink lemonade and backyard pools, while “Dark Vacay” reads like Eve Babitz at the Chateau: sleeping on the cool tile of the bathroom floor, drinking expensive bordeaux and listening to old voicemails. And on lead single “Tejano Blue”, El Paso native Gonzalez is the only guy at the beach in leather pants. The mood hardly deviates from the usual slow burn (though the muted disco pulse of “Holding you, Holding me” passes for upbeat in the Cigs’ catalogue), but who needs bangers when you can wallow instead?