American ambient pop group Cigarettes After Sex have released their surprise dream track "You're All I Want," their first song for the year, at exactly midnight, May 26.
The band has previously announced the release of their track via Twitter, posting the cover art for the song that featured a black-and-white image of a flaming flower. Their announcement was briefly captioned "new song 'You're All I Want' out everywhere at midnight..."
In the Cigarettes After Sex YouTube channel, where the audio-only track is also uploaded, band frontman Greg Gonzalez is tagged as the composer under their label Partisan Records. The song is a mellow, swirling piece of music created by its atmospheric guitars and keyboards. Its music weaves with Gonzalez's trademark vocals - a dreamy, almost androgynous voice in a whisper-like softness.
"You had used your songs to say/ The words you couldn't say/ And every word you say /Is about you and me," the ambient pop song began.
A standalone single or an upcoming album?
Awaiting further news, "You're All I Want" currently stands as a single. It remains to be seen whether it will be a part of an upcoming project. The band's latest work to date is the sophomore studio album "Cry," released in October last year. It was supported by the dreamy, bass-heavy track "Heavenly."
Their second album was released to positive reviews from critics. British music website NME described Cigarettes After Sex as "a shoegaze band for the Instagram generation" and their nine-song album summarized as "a headphones record of seductive grooves and slow-burning lust."
The Independent, the UK-based media outlet, noted that a lot of the music from the band's second album was improvised, followed by the lyrics. It lauded the sincerity pervading "Cry," even noting how the song "Hentai," which refers to the Japanese form of animated adult content, "feels like a meditation on love and sexuality in the 21st century."
Cigarettes After Sex, from El Paso to Brooklyn
The band was first founded by Greg Gonzalez in El Paso, Texas, back in 2008. They released their debut EP, titled "I.," in 2012. It contained the sleeper hit "Nothing's Gonna Hurt You Baby." The band soon relocated to Brooklyn, where they recorded. It released their single "Affection" and an ambient-pop cover of "Keep On Loving You," originally popularized by REO Speedwagon from their 1980 album "Hi Infidelity."
A 2016 feature written by Christina Cacouris for Noisey by Vice described Cigarette After Sex as having a sound that is "elemental, hazy, and romantic." The article also shared Gonzalez's experience with his favorite thing in their work: hearing people say that their music helps people with sleep anxiety. The Cigarette's frontman, despite all the failed relationships, expressed that he wanted his music to "have this love-glow to it, this love-buzz."
Their 2012 sleeper hit, together with their other tracks at the time, started gaining traction in their YouTube channel. In 2017, they released their self-titled debut album. "Cigarettes After Sex" received mostly positive reviews and peaked at No. 8 in the US Billboard Heatseekers Albums chart.
Watch Cigarette After Sex's "You're All I Want" below:
