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Aug 2, 2024The template is similar to that of their youngest selves. The knockout rock and roll riffs of guitarist Billy Zoom almost shrug at the lyrical company they’re required to keep.
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Aug 7, 2024The beauty of Smoke & Fiction as a “farewell record” is that, for the most part, it doesn’t feel like one.
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Sep 16, 2024While the material here is memorable, it doesn’t quite match the youthful urgency of their early work (though it comes close). That said, Zoom’s rockabilly-inspired guitar roars like Chuck Berry on speed, and drummer DJ
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MojoAug 2, 2024Smoke & Fiction is lean rock'n'roll that plays to the group's strengths. [Sep 2024, p.86]
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Aug 2, 2024If Smoke & Fiction proves to be X's final musical statement, they go out as they came in – unique, ferociously talented, and with plenty to say that's worth hearing, and they've stayed that way as the curtain falls.
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Aug 7, 2024Listening to Smoke & Fiction in the same sitting as Los Angeles or Wild Gift, the lasting impression isn’t how they’ve changed over the years, but how much of their original spark they’ve sustained.
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UncutAug 2, 2024There are further pointers to the record serving as a noisy epilogue, its energy and venom a reminder of when they, and their devoted following, were much younger souls. [Sep 2024, p.39]
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Aug 2, 2024In true punk tradition, Smoke & Fiction is brief, clocking in at just half an hour. But even if most of the album’s 10 tracks are uptempo, they recycle familiar sounds too conservatively to generate much momentum. In the end, X’s newfound reflectiveness comes at the expense of urgency.