Cigarettes After Sex is stopping in the Alamo City as part of a tour to support its latest album. Credit: Instagram / Cigarettes After Sex

El Paso dreampop act Cigarettes After Sex is playing San Antonio’s Frost Bank Center Tuesday as it tours to promote its new album X’s.

Known for a dreamlike shoegaze sound and romantic lyrics, Cigarettes After Sex first rose to popularity with the 2012 sleeper hit “Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You Baby.”

The band gained traction thanks to commercial licensing and YouTube recommendations long before the 2017 release of its first studio album. Now, the band has 26.7 monthly listeners on Spotify, and its track “Apocalypse” has amassed more than 1.4 billion plays on the platform.

Frontman Greg Gonzalez, known for his androgynous vocals, formed the band while attending University of Texas at El Paso. The band’s other members have been replaced since its inception in 2008 but Gonzalez remains the one constant.

Cigarettes After Sex’s name, which originated during its UT-El Paso days, is one of the elements of noir the group incorporates into its sound and aesthetic. The act also posts only black-and-white photos on social media and uses only black-and-white images for its album artwork. Cigarettes After Sex released its third studio album X’s this February. Though Gonzalez relocated to Brooklyn in 2015, the album’s first single, “Tejano Blue,” harkens back to his formative years in El Paso. 

$34 and up, 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 17, Frost Bank Center, 1 Frost Bank Center Drive, (210) 440-5000, frostbankcenter.com.

Subscribe to SA Current newsletters.

Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed

Related Stories

This article appears in Sep 5-11, 2024.

Stephanie Koithan is the Digital Content Editor of the San Antonio Current. In her role, she writes about politics, music, art, culture and food. Send her a tip at skoithan@sacurrent.com.