Cigarettes After Sex

Cigarettes After Sex frontman Greg Gonzalez uses his music like a diary, each song framing a vivid, intimate memory of a lover or friend. They’re bracingly honest dispatches, recalling moments of helpless obsession (“Sweet”) and snarling at infidelity with dark, profane humor (“Young & Dumb”). Tethered by bittersweet melodies, the band’s slow, hazy pop-noir gives the joy and pain of Gonzalez’s tales time and space to sink in, and your heart might race and break as hard as his on “K” and “Apocalypse.”