Cigarettes After Sex – Cry

Cry is the second studio album from Cigarettes After Sex. Containing the same themes of romance, relationships and sexuality, the album is not a total departure from the band’s self-titled debut. The love songs of Cigarettes After Sex still ache with the same sense of longing. Euphoric like a post-coital embrace, their songs are increasingly more intimate and the perfect soundtrack to slow dance to.

Recorded during night time sessions on the island of Mallorca, Cry has a warmth to it, reflected in the soothing tones and androgynous softness of Greg Gonzalez's vocals. The album is extraordinarily visual, almost cinematic in points. In Kiss It Off Me, the lyrics return to the image of 'drinking a slurpee in a peach baseball cap', which is repeated throughout the chorus. There's a narrative quality which is impressionistic and often poetic. The narrator plays this scene over and over in his mind’s eye, mimicking an infatuation. There's an adolescent quality to it, like falling in love for the first time. This vivid image appeals to the senses, the song as saccharine sweet as the aforementioned slurpee.

Tracks like Heavenly are more innocent-sounding, with a purity and dreamlike air that is reflected through use of discordant synths and guitar echoing the melody. The lyrics are simple yet repetitive like a classic pop song, sung with the same fervour as a 1960s girl group.

If the first album was sex 'with no strings attached' (as on opener K.), Cigarettes After Sex's second album has fallen head over heels in love. It's often said that love is better the second time around; whilst this remains to be seen, Cry is a grower and we look forward to love’s next incarnation.

Listen to: Kiss It Off Me, Heavenly, Cry