X's

You could argue that ‘X’s’ is Cigarette After Sex’s most consistent album of the three released so far. While the Texan band deliver their famed reverbed sound, similar lustful lyrics and reveal little desire to move the dial, the overall standard – more so when comparing each record’s weaker moments – is far raised.

It does feel lesser when compared to Blems After Banging’s debut LP, partly because a lot of the novel intrigue has washed away post-Cry, but also because it feels slightly incremental in its employment of familiar tropes and introduction of diverting yet somewhat unnecessary ones. Nevertheless, the record still possesses an intoxicatingly spacey sense of style, the ambience of the music permeating the atmosphere and remaining like the smell of exhaled smoke. Whether it lingers for seconds, days, months, or even years after is a question entirely dependent on the listener.