Album Review: Cigarettes After Sex - Cry (2019)

I can scarcely believe I loved the first Cigarettes After Sex album as much as I did. The 2017 debut held enough appeal for me to name it one of the blog’s best albums of that year, and it had enough going for it to convince me to travel all the way up to Auckland for the band’s Powerstation gig of early 2018. Two years on, after listening to the band’s follow-up album, Cry, I’m really struggling to recall what might have possessed me.

There’s no question that Cigarettes After Sex make fastidiously crafted, dark and dreamy pop music, with exquisite, immaculately presented melodies right at the core of everything. All things that usually appeal to your pop-loving blogger. But Cry feels like a pale replica of that debut, and there is very little to distinguish it from album number one, save for the fact that it’s not nearly as convincing, fresh, or clever in its intent or execution. 

Cry offers us the same old formula, the same old guitar effects, the same old melodies - albeit, admittedly, many of them are things of great beauty - and the once hauntingly unique androgynous vocals of Greg Gonzalez now just come across as being repetitive and tiresome. Even a little bit creepy in places. The songs deal with break up, longing, loss, sex, and unrequited love. Perfect fare for the angsty post-pubescent mass that accounts for a good portion of the band’s fanbase.

So perhaps that’s the problem I have with it? Not fitting the demographic for which its intended. Or perhaps something has changed with me over the past two years? I’ve become overly cynical … I’m certainly less tolerant of Cigarettes After Sex, and the only sense of longing I’m now feeling is a desire for the band to tone down the “mellow” and turn up the rock n roll. 

Or maybe I just wanted the band to show some sign, any sign, of innovation and progression on the follow-up? I don’t think that’s an unreasonable expectation, but the truth is, Cry holds very little appeal and it’s all a little bit too saccharine and sterile (musically) for my taste – even though some of its no-filter lyrics are the polar opposite of that description … see “a little bit creepy”, above. 

Not that Gonzalez and co would care less about what the likes of me think about their art. They’ve got their audience, and their formula. What worked last time out will just as likely work this time around, and they clearly have no need to turn things up beyond the tried and trusted. Suffice to say though, for all that the debut briefly appealed as something very special, very much for and of its time, the all-too-familiar younger sibling, Cry, won’t even get close to making this blog’s shortlist for album of the year in 2019.

Gig Review: Cigarettes After Sex, Powerstation, Auckland, 8 January 2018

Happy 2018. It’s been a while, and things have been a bit slow around here lately. But I’ve been on holiday. I’ve been permanently drunk. And I’ve been growing a beard. I’m prepared to apologise for only one of these things.

I’ve also been up in Auckland. As recently as last week, in fact. Primarily for the Cigarettes After Sex gig at the Powerstation, and to take a sneaky peek at the recently relocated Real Groovy Records. I had intended to write a timely review, but in truth, more than a week later, I’m still not really sure how I feel about the gig.

 

 

On one hand it was quite lovely – flawlessly crafted pop tunes, played to an almost full venue by an immaculately presented clad-in-black band at the absolute peak of its powers. Everything was note perfect, intimate, and the dark and rather solemn stage aesthetic – lighting included – generally matched the sparse emo-flecked nature of the music on offer. The band’s set was pretty much its entire discography – twelve songs, plus a one song encore. The whole thing was blissfully unhurried. An exercise in subtle slowly building intensity. Peaking with masterful take on ‘Apocalypse’.

On the other hand, an entire discography, in this instance, amounts to a gig lasting just a few ticks over an hour. One solitary hour. With no support band on offer. With no new tunes unveiled. With barely a word spoken throughout the set. And that post-‘Apocalypse’ encore turned out to be an anti-climactic ‘Dreaming of You’, from the lesser spotted 2012 EP release. Bar some gentle swaying, nobody danced, and it was the sort of night where I kept waiting for something else to happen. A harsher critic might be moved to describe the whole event as being a little sterile and lifeless, even.

Whatever the case, I left the venue with a sense of needing more. A little bit like how a recovering nicotine addict might feel after having unsatisfactory sex. At the same time, Cigarettes After Sex delivered everything I could realistically expect from an ambient dream-pop outfit specialising in the delicate art of seduction. I knew exactly what the El Paso popsters offered before I bought tickets. I just blindly hoped for something more, so it’s pointless grumbling about it now.

At the very least, it had me thinking about how conditioned I’ve become to expect a more raucous live music experience – be it bold and funky, or in terms of pure raw rock n roll. I guess I just need more energy from a live band, whatever the genre. Or perhaps it’s just that unrealistic expectation is, without question, the mother of all disappointment.

I remain a fan, the band’s self-titled album was one of my stick-on favourites from 2017, and I can scarcely wait for any new recorded material. But that doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll be in any great hurry to buy concert tickets next time they visit this part of the world.   

Albums of 2017

2017 has been a fairly quiet year for everythingsgonegreen. That’s not the result of some great master plan, or of any conscious decision to wind things down, it’s just the way life’s been. And while I’ve blogged a lot less than in previous years - managing around a post per week - I’ve still been listening to a lot of music, reading about music, and attending gigs. I’ve just been less inclined to write about that stuff. It’s not like I haven’t had the time to blog, and I even had a spell mid-year when I was more or less living alone for a month, so there’s no real excuse. The flip-side to that has been a mentally demanding year for the day job, and an early summer overseas break, which robbed me of some momentum just as I was starting to ramp things up a little.

All of that said, 2017 has been a bumper year for new music, and albums in particular, despite continual assertions from naysayers that the album format itself is a dying art-form. The following list refers to my “most played” albums of the year, which, by extension might be interpreted as “the best” albums of the year, but I’ve doubtlessly missed many others that perhaps should have made the cut. The only prerequisite for the list is that I own a copy (in any format other than Spotify, which remains a mystery to me):

10. Peter Perrett – How The West Was Won

Without question, How The West Was Won is the blog’s comeback album of the year. It couldn’t really be any other way. I suspect even Perrett himself could scarcely have anticipated the hugely positive response his solo debut has attracted. It’s a heartfelt, intimate body of work, which marks Perrett’s card as one of rock’s ultimate survivors. My review can be found here.

9. Aldous Harding – Party

Speaking of barely anticipated success stories, Aldous Harding will forever recall 2017 as the year she went global. The year she went stratospheric, even. And rightly so. Party is just nine songs in length but they’re all immaculately crafted dark hypnotic gems. Challenging, unsettling, and ultimately very rewarding. The real test for Aldous Harding will be to better it next time out. My review is here.

 

8. Bonobo – Migration

Every year, there’s always one album that reveals itself a lot more slowly than the rest, and this year, Bonobo’s Migration wins the highly coveted EGG gong for “creeper” of the year. As uncomplimentary as that label may seem, Migration is an album that just keeps on giving, with each and every listen revealing something new and previously unheard – be it a small or otherwise undecipherable bleep, a nagging loop, a flurry of keys, or perhaps something more obvious like an additional layer of bass. Because this album has a lot of bass. Whatever the case, it’s not an album to be absorbed entirely over the course of one listen. It requires patience and a keen ear, and since it was released as long ago as January, I’ve given this one a fair amount of ear time during 2017. Despite not actually getting around to giving it a full review on the blog. Just a quick summary then: aside from compilations, collaborations, and remix efforts, Migration is album number six for LA-based Englishman Simon Green as Bonobo, all of which are released on Ninja Tune, and it brings together a multitude of influences and instrumentation, from strong North African flavours, to jazzy hip hop vibes, to glitchy electronica, and all manner of bass-driven world music textures. Beautifully produced, and just over an hour in length, the two best tracks on the album involve elements of collaboration – ‘Break Apart’, featuring Rhye, and ‘No Reason’, featuring the vocals of Nick Murphy (aka Chet Faker). The way things are going, the way this one is continually rising in my estimation, by this time next year, Migration could well be this year’s number one. Or something like that.

7. Coldcut & On-U Sound – Outside The Echo Chamber

Regular blog readers and friends (which, let’s face it, is pretty much the same person) will have picked this one. They’ll know of my obsession with all things On-U Sound. The label could release an album of (producer) Adrian Sherwood passing wind and I’d probably still include it on my year-end list. Providing he applied some echo and other marvellous FX, of course. This one is different though, because it’s not actually an On-U label release, and it includes stalwart Ninja Tune duo Coldcut, plus a host of other rather terrific collaborators. My review is here.

6. Lord Echo – Harmonies

I’m not sure why this album doesn’t feature more prominently on other local year-end lists. I can’t help but wonder whether it would have gained more traction had it been made by a more high profile R’nB or funk producer … an overseas-based artist, say? Which is madness. My review can be found here.

 

5. Slowdive – Slowdive

This is another album that didn’t get a full review on the blog. And another one that arrived as far back as January. It’s also the runner-up in the comeback of the year poll (I polled myself, okay?). It could all have been so different. It could all have gone so horribly wrong. A quarter of a century ago, Slowdive were at the very heart of this thing, or genre, we call “shoegaze”. A band for its time, very much of its time. Yet, after years of inactivity the band returned in 2017 with this self-titled pearler of an album. And how. In fact, if you compiled a playlist of the ten most essential Slowdive tunes since the band first started releasing music back in 1990, then at least four of them could be lifted from the eight tracks found on this, the fourth album of four, and the Reading band’s first for 22 years. Main protagonists, vocalists Neil Halstead and Rachel Goswell, are key to its success, their chemistry being front and centre on the tracks with lyrics or those that include vocals. Not that those vocals are particularly orthodox, and if I have a slight criticism, it’s that too often their voices are a little muddy or buried too deeply within the mix. There’s obligatory walls of driving guitar, multiple layers of purposeful noise, and during lighter moments, ethereal keys and ambient interludes to die for. Production comes courtesy of Halstead himself. Ultimately it’s a wonderful concoction of dreamy pop, and an album full of lovely surprises. Check out: ‘Star Roving’, ‘Sugar for the Pill’, and ‘Falling Ashes’.

4. Cigarettes After Sex – Cigarettes After Sex

In my original review (go here), I beat myself up just a little for loving the music of Cigarettes After Sex. What, with the album being so unrepentantly emo and pubescent ‘n all. I figure I really should know better, or at least, I really should be over all of that angst and nonsense by now, at my advanced age. Etc. Well, it turns out I’m not, and just between us … (*whispers, looks around anxiously*) … I’m really looking forward to the band’s Auckland gig next month.

3. Fazerdaze – Morningside

With all of the fuss being made over Lorde, Aldous Harding, and Nadia Reid during 2017, Amelia Murray (aka Fazerdaze) may feel a touch hard-done-by in the local-girl-done-good stakes. But she shouldn’t, she has talent to burn, and Morningside is its own reward. It’s the best thing to emerge from these shores all year. My review can be found here.

 

2. Robert Plant – Carry Fire

Where to start with the phenomenon that is Robert Plant? In truth, I probably don’t need to add anything, his career speaks for itself. More specifically, the five albums he’s released over the past dozen years or so - starting with Mighty Rearranger in 2005 - have made a mockery of any ill-conceived (yet common) notion that he’s just another crusty old rocker going through the motions. Carry Fire is the eleventh Robert Plant “solo” album, a second successive outing with the Sensational Space Shifters, and what once worked for him way back at the dawn of time, still works for him today. More or less. Only now, there’s quite a lot more variation on that much loved formula. Plant is essentially the consummate roots artist, only for him, roots means everything from country, folk, and blues, to orthodox pop, Celtic rock, and African rhythms. Carry Fire presents a veritable potpourri of all of the above. His customary Rock God howl is no longer as prominent as it once was, but with that change comes a seasoned voice full of subtlety and nuance. A voice that remains a weapon, an instrument in itself, even, but one that’s evolved into a weapon of a very different nature. These days it’s seduction by one thousand soft kisses, as opposed to the full on “wham bam” approach of his rather enviable youth. There’s some great stuff on Carry Fire; the past-referencing opener ‘The May Queen’. The intoxicating duet with Chrissie Hynde, ‘Bluebirds over the Mountain’. The closer, ‘Heaven Sent’. And the title track itself. See? … all of that, without once mentioning Led Zeppelin. Oh, darn.

1. The National – Sleep Well Beast

A lot of people love to hate this band, but you’ll know I’m a big fan of The National. And if an ordinary effort like 2013’s Trouble Will Find Me could make that year’s year-end ten for the blog, then you’ll sure as hell know that this year’s monstrous Sleep Well Beast is going to cane it. My typically fawning review can be found here.

Five honourable mentions and other everythingsgonegreen year-end gongs (“the EGGs”):

The Horrors – V … I used to think the Horrors was a try-hard goth-wannabe novelty cartoon band. A pale imitation of that, even. Without ever really listening to the music. This year’s release helped me see the error of my ways and the folly of my ill-informed prejudice. V was a good mix of psychedelia, nostalgia, and synthpop: see the Numan-esque album opener, ‘Hologram’ (“are we Hologram, are we vision?”), for evidence of the latter.

The War on Drugs – A Deeper Understanding … following on from the huge promise of Lost in the Dream (2014), this one felt a tad disappointing at first. Which only goes to show how high the bar had been raised, and it’s probably unfair, because A Deeper Understanding is a thoroughly decent album in its own right.

Ryan Adams – The Prisoner … a sixteenth studio album from the prolific American singer/songwriter. This one was all about not ever really being able to escape from that pesky broken relationship. Hence the title, I suppose. By the way, is there ever any other type of relationship? It’s all about degrees of “broken”, I guess.

Alt-J – Relaxer … or technically, alt-J, but that makes me cringe a little. My teenage kids have mentioned this band in passing, separately, more than once. Which must mean they’re hugely popular. I had no idea just how weird and whacky Relaxer would turn out to be when I picked it up on the strength of early single, ‘3WW’, which features Wolf Alice chanteuse Ellie Rowsell. This week's Wellington show is a sell out.

The Trainspotting 2 soundtrack wins the EGG for compilation album of the year. Thanks mainly to the fact that I enjoyed the movie so much. And because I didn’t really hold onto many of the other compilation albums I picked up during the year. Reviewed here.

Five more … close but no cigar: Depeche Mode – Spirit, LCD Soundsystem – American Dream, Mogwai – Every Country’s Sun, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings – Soul of a Woman, Zola Jesus – Okovi. Each of these albums had an extended run of pod time during the year.

Speaking of movies, the local festival “hit”, Swagger of Thieves, Julian Boshier’s fly-on-the-wall documentary about the trials and tribulations of Wellington rockers Head Like A Hole just shades Lion as EGG’s film of the year. Yes, there’s a huge amount of local bias and personal connection in that selection. Reviewed here.

The short album or EP of the year bauble goes to Wellington masters of the dark arts, Dreams Are Like Water, with A Sea-Spell, a striking debut, featuring a handful of tunes packed full of texture and depth. My love for this was instant. My review is here.

 

2017 was a big year for re-releases, deluxe versions, and anniversary reissues, with the EGG going to Radiohead’s 20^th birthday celebration of OK Computer, OKNOTOK, which included not only the band’s original masterpiece, but the added value of an entire new album of unreleased, previously discarded material from the same period. The “throwaway” material was superb, and proof, if it was needed, that Radiohead remain one of rock’s most important bands of the past 25 years. I had a real soft spot for Bob Marley’s ridiculously good Exodus reissue (40^th anniversary), and thought R.E.M.’s Automatic For The People (25^th anniversary deluxe) had a nice mix of live material and early demos to supplement the original. So good, you can trace the album’s evolution from start to finish when listening to those demos.

My gig of the year was Lord Echo's funk-fest at Wellington’s San Fran in early November, on the occasion of his Harmonies album release tour. With so many co-conspirators involved in the making of the album, I was curious as to how it might translate in a live environment, but he pulled it off with some aplomb. Ensuring that vocalists Lisa Tomlins and Mara TK were a big part of the show was key, obviously, but props to the entire band, which was sensational all night. As was support act Julien Dyne, who offered a virtuoso live drumming performance. That Saturday night gig just shaded the two Wellington Fazerdaze gigs I caught during 2017, the first at Caroline (reviewed here), right at the start of the year, and then much later on, in September, at Meow, which turned out to be even better. At each gig, Amelia Murray fronted an entirely different band. No mean feat in itself.

 

Which just about covers it. Obligatory year-end wrap completed. All in less than 2,500 words (yawn). Well done for making it this far. I nearly didn’t. If you don’t catch me here again before the silly season, dear reader, have a great festive period.

 

Albums of 2013

 

Albums of 2014

 

Albums of 2015

 

Albums of 2016

Album Review: Cigarettes After Sex - Cigarettes After Sex (2017)

The truth is, a grizzly middle-aged man of my disposition really has no business digging the music of Cigarettes After Sex quite as much as I do. A fact more or less confirmed when it was announced earlier this week that the band’s one-off New Zealand show at the Powerstation in Auckland in January of 2018 is going to be an “all ages” affair*.

(* postscript: the first press release announcing the gig indicated it was an "all ages" show but a later listing confirmed it as R18. Which makes more sense, for the Powerstation. The band has also been confirmed for the Rhythm & Alps festival near Wanaka at the New Year.)

On the other hand, as a fellow similarly-aged less grizzly friend recently tried to reassure me, “it’s all just pop music, you're allowed to like it, so don't over analyse it" ... which is a school of thought I can also buy into.

That said, it’s unlikely to be him that I’m standing next to at the aforementioned gig, surrounded by hundreds of spotty pre and post-pubescent teenagers intent on singing every last emotionally-charged lyric in the band’s melodrama-drenched repertoire.

But to hell with it, I love the band’s music all the same, and this year’s self-titled debut album has become a stick-on certainty to be one of this blog’s albums of the year … purely on the basis that it’s one of your pop-loving blogger’s most played albums of 2017. Which makes sense, right?

In fact, I’ve gone further back and picked up a copy of the El Paso four-piece’s debut EP, I, from 2012, and the breakthrough single from 2015, ‘Affection’, which includes an impressive super dark version of Reo Speedwagon’s yacht rock classic, ‘Keep On Loving You’, on the flip side.

The album itself amounts to ten dreamy tracks, clocking in at a very digestible 47 minutes. Everything about it is gentle and subdued, nothing is too hurried or boisterous, and it feels like a genuine masterclass in the art of creating ambient pop music, albeit pop with a slightly darker than usual hue. Echo and reverb effects are applied to guitars, the synths caress and pamper, the drumming/percussion reveals a lightness of touch, and the production has a very hazy, almost ethereal, quality to it.

Cigarettes After Sex ... the world's oldest teenagers

And then there’s the otherworldly, rather androgynous, vocals of Greg Gonzalez, which sit right at the forefront of everything. If the music is designed to partially melt into the background, the casual beauty of Gonzalez’s voice begs for the listener’s full engagement. Which is both a blessing and a curse, because where the melodies are strong and immaculately crafted, the songwriting itself proves less reliable in places.

There are a couple of quite cringeworthy moments, best forgotten about, interspersed with flashes of pure brilliance. I’m still undecided about the “your lips, my lips, apocalypse” wordplay in ‘Apocalypse’ … it’s either terribly inspired, or just plain terrible, depending on where I am, and who I’m with, when I’m listening to the tune.

There are other junctures too, where the naïve 15-year-old boy inside of me grins from ear to ear, while the cynical old man of the present day feels slightly creeped out, and shakes his head dismissively. On a couple of occasions, it’s a mixture of both reactions simultaneously – see the “patron saint of sucking cock” reference in the closer, ‘Young and Dumb’ … anyway, that might just be me, and it’s probably not worth dwelling on too much. Or as another bright spark once said, “don’t over analyse it” …

The three singles, ‘K’, ‘Apocalypse’, and ‘Each Time You Fall in Love’ are all highlights, but ‘John Wayne’ also pulls me in close when it has absolutely no right to, and more generally – save the odd moment – there’s not a bad track on a thoroughly absorbing full-length debut.

Although the album – released on the Partisan label back in June – has made little impact in the band’s home country, it reached number two on the UK Independent album charts, and peaked at number three on the New Zealand “heatseeker” album chart, presumably on the back of simmering ongoing YouTube/online exposure.

Here’s ‘Apocalypse’ …