The Los Angeles punk legends X have announced their final studio album, “Smoke & Fiction”, arriving August 2nd via Fat Possum Records. Exene Cervenka assumes lead vocals for much of the track, with her lyrics recalling memories and vignettes from the early days.
The band also released the video for lead single “Big Black X,” a reflection of the band’s formative years in Hollywood. 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.
“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 humour. 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 old-school edits in the music video harken back to the excellent 1986 documentary about the band, “X: The Unheard Music”, and the clip was purposefully meant to evoke the old docs and videos of the classic punk rock era.
X will be supporting their final album with an extensive US farewell tour, X’s new single, “Big Black X,” is out now from the upcoming album ‘Smoke & Fiction’ out August 2nd on Fat Possum Records.
The Fat Angel Sings 