Cigarettes After Sex at Moda Center

Cigarettes After Sex announced the release of their new album - X's - which will be released this coming July. They likewise announced their upcoming world tour, which will include stops at some of the most famous locations in the world, including Madison Square Garden and London's O2. Additional dates for shows in Asia, South America, and the Middle East will be announced later.

Bandleader Greg Gonzalez encapsulates every feeling a romantic arc evokes with a collection of unvarnished, imagistic, occasionally sultry vignettes set to captivating, slowburn pop tunes. However, unlike earlier albums that drew inspiration from a variety of relationships, X's focuses mostly on a single, four-year romance.

Gonzalez says, “The record feels brutal. I could sit and talk about this loss to someone, but that wouldn’t scratch the surface. I have to really write about it, sing about it, have the music, and then I can start to analyze and learn from it. Or just relive it—in a good way. I don’t have that Eternal Sunshine-thing of wanting to forget.”

Gonzalez has evolved away from the earlier musical touchstones of the 1950s and 1960s, while he still adheres to classic pop song forms. Instead, he is now drawn to a slow dance from the 1970s and 1980s. These alterations may be subtle (in a typical Cigarettes way), but the cumulative effect is like disco ball-refracted tears on the dance floor.

The band also released the single "Tejano Blue," which pays homage to the music of bandleader Greg Gonzalez's Texas upbringing. With its lively speed, it's the most instantly memorable version of their love songs.

Gonzalez says - “I grew up in El Paso & Tejano music is huge there. You could go to a lot of the bars in the city & hear artists like Selena, Los Ángeles Azules & La Mafia playing over the speakers. It was in the atmosphere around me back then, but I always rejected it & gravitated towards anything else I was attracted to really. Years later when I was living in New York City I finally started listening to Selena’s ‘Como La Flor’ at the same time that I was also listening to a lot of Cocteau Twins. I had the idea then to try to combine both of their sounds somehow, which felt a bit strange, but also felt like it was coming from a genuine place of rediscovering & finally connecting with the music that I heard around me in my youth.”