Listen to Cigarettes After Sex’s “Apocalypse” Off of Their Self-Titled Debut Album

Cigarettes After Sex’s sound is one of absence.

On new song “Apocalypse,” lead singer Greg Gonzalez tenderly whispers about the inability to say “goodbye” and the meeting of lips being a sort-of physical and emotional and relational apocalypse. It’d be tempting to say that his hushed voice floating over muted drums and wispy guitar is “haunting,” if not for the fact that Gonzalez uses the word himself.

Such is the feeling that fraught relationships can conjure. It can feel like being suffocated by a ghost (as Waxahatchee once sang). There’s a false notion that reaching out is the best bet, when often that only further sinks things. Gonzalez himself whispers in the song’s subtle coda, “When you’re all alone, I reach for you,” despite sounding like he knows that might be a bad idea.

Relationships can be seen as spectral or spiritual or apocalyptic as Gonzalez suggests in the song, but they’re simply human. And all of the drama spirals outward from that plot point.

Cigarettes After Sex’s debut record is out June 9 on Partisan Records—you can preorder it here and listen to “Apocalypse” below. Beneath that, check out the tracklist and album art, and feast your eyes on photos from a February Cigarettes After Sex show here.

Cigarettes After Sex Tracklist:
01. K.
02. Each Time You Fall In Love
03. Sunsetz
04. Apocalypse
05. Flash
06. Sweet
07. Opera House
08. Truly
09. John Wayne
10. Young & Dumb

Cigarettes After Sex Album Art: