X have announced their final studio album, Smoke & Fiction, arriving August 2nd via Fat Possum Records. The L.A. punk legends also released the video for lead single “Big Black X,” a reflection of the band’s formative years in Hollywood. Exene Cervenka assumes lead vocals for much of the track, with her lyrics recalling memories and vignettes from the early days. Exene’s iconic harmonies with singer/bassist John Doe kick in during the chorus, as Billy Zoom holds down slick rockabilly riffs alongside the steady rhythms of drummer DJ Bonebrake.
On consequence.net, “X is a great band name; also a bad idea sometimes when it gets lost in print or on the marquee,” Exene said in the press announcement for the album. “Gotta have a sense of humor. We all did in the early days. Los Angeles was a carnival of weirdness back then, with left over traces of silent movie stars, long haired hippies, bikers, and brand new self-defined punks doing anything we wanted. When we started touring the country we found like-minded people everywhere, and somehow they all found us. Even if the X was lost on the old marquee.”
The band will be hitting the stage this summer to perform their new material for fans throughout the U.S. On mxdwn.com, LA punk legends X, have announced plans for a summer and fall tour where they will continue to play new music, they’ve been working on for a future Fat Possum album release along with their classic hits.
Smoke & Fiction Tracklist:
01. Ruby Church
02. Sweet Til The Bitter End
03. The Way It Is
04. Flipside
05. Big Black X
06. Smoke & Fiction
07. Struggle
08. Winding Up the Time
09. Face in the Moon
10. Baby & All
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