Heartbreak is the subject of so much music, so much great music, that it can feel like it’s all already been done. Yet just as people are still getting their hearts broken, so are musicians still making songs about it – and still finding new ways to make it great. Cigarettes After Sex bring the intimate beauty of a heart breaking on X’s.
All of X’s feels a little like the band’s name, confessing on a messed bed after intercourse, after a relationship, intimate confessional whose somewhat matter-of-fact air actually gives it more weight. Songs such as “Tejano Blue”, “Hideaway”, and having to give up the “Dreams From Bunker Hill” depict both the beauty of the relationship, and the loss of it all going away. Singer/songwriter Greg Gonzalez also still has vocals whose androgyny can make a new listener think it is a woman telling these sad stories.
It’s impressive that Cigarettes After Sex have gotten very big, with a stadium tour for X’s, but heartbreak is universal, was universal, and always will be.
