Cigarettes After Sex - Cigarettes After Sex (Clear Vinyl)

The debut album from Cigarettes After Sex - reissued on clear vinyl (released 12th August) and white vinyl (released 25th November) via Partisan Records.

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…”.

1. K.

2. Each Time You Fall In Love

3. Sunsetz

4. Apocalypse

5. Flash

6. Sweet

7. Opera House

8. Truly

9. John Wayne

10. Young & Dumb