RELEASED 25TH OCTOBER 2019

Favourite track: You’re the Only Good Thing In My Life

This album sounds like an 80s Pop album but then you listen to the lyrics, the melodies, the way it’s sung and soon realise it might be the most touching album you’ve heard in a while.

Cigarettes After Sex is a group I hadn’t come across before, so I was interested to hear their 9-track album Cry. The band is known to create intense emotional music with a strong focus on love. The band constructed their second album in just a week on the Spanish island of Mallorca, according to Spotify. The cover art is a black and white and displays when appears to be a dark cloud heavily raining into the ocean.

‘Don’t Let Me Go’ opens with gorgeous, atmospheric guitar and synth sounds. Then an 80s style slow beat comes in whilst the melody continues. The vocals are soft and deep. There is a very retro feel present as the bass guitar is plucking away in the background. This song is a plea for someone to “stay” and is full of nostalgia as the singer speaks about how “when I was young I thought the world of you”. It’s melancholic and reflective with a haunting chorus. ‘Kiss It Off Me’ opens with a slow rock kit beat with snares, a deep bass guitar and then electric guitar melody. The vocals remain consistently haunting but talks about “fuckboys” which is weird as it’s such a modern word but sung in such an old style which I really like.

More rock kit, guitar but this time with warm synth piano in the background in ‘Heavenly’ as the singer talks about how they are giving the person “all my love”. There is something that sounds like a cross between 80s Pop music and then Folk. I think it’s a genre that will mean emotions are always tied to the lyrics and you listen to it (and no matter what you think), you will be enchanted and fall into the meaning of their words. The guitar is more isolated and atmospheric (with a nice reverb) in ‘You’re the Only Good Thing In My Life’. Even the title is so sad. The way the opening line “you only fuck for love” is sung in the most beautiful way, as is the rest of the song. I am SHOOK. I am in love with this song and it belongs in a movie. The guitar is so damn stunning and the chorus is just another level.

‘Touch’ is more upbeat with a faster-paced drum-kit beat and then vocals that throw it back another twenty years to the 60s. I like the use of the strings in the background, the chords are minor which works with the overall tone of the album. Another slow beat used in ‘Hentai’ but a beautiful light piano-synth melody in the background. Each song tells a story and you really build an image in your head of two people generated by the lyrics. It’s a gorgeous song with lines like “I’ve been waiting for you to fall for me”. I am living for the melody. The song ‘Cry’ is up next (the title track!) and the plucked guitar and warm waves in the background partnered then with another slow rock-kit beat fits the mood. This one is an emotional look at two people which ties the rest of the messages from the other songs into one. I love the way the chorus is delivered in this one. The vocals across the album are sung to match the chords used so well.

More slow strings and rock-kit in ‘Falling In Love’. The way this one is sung is a bit different but it tells a story echoed in the other songs of how the singer is falling for this person in a way they haven’t before. The final song ‘Pure’ has more of a Jazz drum-kit beat and bass with one note of a synth cutting through. It fades out and the vocals are introduced which are soft and emotional, much like the rest of the songs.      

I would listen to this album in the car as you’re driving somewhere as a lot of it is consistent sounding and all of one deep, melancholic, beautiful tone.