X: Smoke & Fiction

Fat Possum Records

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X, the original LA punks, call it quits 47 years after forming, releasing a farewell album and embarking on a lengthy tour with the original line-up. Can the new record hold up to their other classic releases? MK Bennett listens.

The members of X would no doubt give a long cold stare and the weary bronchial cough that is the mark of the well-travelled at the idea that they were some kind of symbolic totem, surviving LA punk as if death had stalked them and hellhounds were on their heels. And nobody wants to be the elder statesman/woman of anything, because you’re not Muddy Waters, you’re just another band playing smaller venues while millionaires call you an influence. X have always gotten by because their coolness was inextricably linked to their music, not their haircuts and designer drugs, and that’s why they’re still around.

Punk in LA between 1977 and 1980 was not an easy time for the bands and fans, a mix of working class kids trying to survive Reaganomics and stay sane, with music as a balm and sometimes an aggressor, and not everyone made it. That X made this their farewell album, with the original lineup of Exene Cervenka, John Doe, Billy Zoom and DJ Bonebrake, may be a small miracle in itself, as one disease or another has tried to weaken them, but they stand strong, survivors of these now decades-old class struggles, with a whole mass of culture to draw from.

One of the reasons for X’s enduring appeal is the evolution of the music. The punk they played, even at its peak, was always melodic and always a little off the leather core, so the move away from the purer and/or dirtier sound of standardized three-chord/one-chord punk to more accessible music was inevitable for their survival, much like The Replacements and various others.

Their ninth album is called Smoke And Fiction, which could be seen as a controversial thing. Is it a nod to almost fifty years in the music business, a succinct and damning indictment of the ever-changing structures of corporate power, lies and nonsense now that one company seems to own everything? Or to Spotify, the best reason, musically speaking, to read the Communist Manifesto on a cold summer night?

Ruby Church is a wonderful opener, old school, in your face, LA punk but with a hefty punch in the tail in terms of production, the vocal duo singing a song of the past and what is gone, the possibility of the album being an epitaph, a memento mori, a chance to set things right. Sweet ‘Til The Bitter End is faster, looser and crazier but still orderly, the timing perfect, the guitar like slicing off grey skin. A little bit rockabilly, a little bit 80s Iggy, a slightly off-kilter chorus. So far, so heavy.

The Way It Is, a mid-tempo rock song, is Tom Petty AND The Heartbreakers, even more beautiful guitar work and a yearning vocal melody, John Doe outdoes himself here, and the excellent accompaniment comes from Exene, their voices have never sounded more perfect together. It should be the theme of an up-and-coming show about rough-edged lawyers, but alas… Flipside, meanwhile, is another classic rockabilly affair, the production (by Rob Schnapf, Foo Fighters, Beck) is huge, stadium-sized and sprawling, cavernous in the best possible sense.

Big Black X is possibly a nod to their own Under The Big Black Sun (1982), another commemorative song of the final showdown, the album’s first single. It has parallels with Blondie’s Maria and will hopefully do the same for X’s career, a late phase of brilliant pop meets hard rock and roll. Smoke and Fiction rolls along beautifully, a reminder that the lyrics are often well-observed and beautifully written poetry, while the band are stirring up a storm behind the vocals.

Struggle, on the other hand, is full of Gene Vincent’s dirty-boy rock’n’roll, half a dozen lead fills from James Burton and Scotty Moore to soothe the soul, and then “Winding Up The Time,” a return to the roots that makes a lot of noise and sounds like the teenagers they once were, but with more life and regret.

Face In The Moon breaks the tempo for a small, thoughtful new wave gem, another song that could have been a hit at another time, another masterpiece on an album full of wonderful sounds. Baby And All ends the whole thing quickly, to the point, and without much fanfare. It’s a surprise if you were expecting a punk rock edition of the long Goodbye, because it ends as it began, with short, sharp bursts of social commentary and fine art poetry played by a band at the peak of their career, calling it quits on their terms.
If this is her elegy to the lost, to Darby, to Lorna, to the many who didn’t make it, then it is a beautiful and fine epitaph, and if you know nothing about her past, then it is a perfect testament to faith in yourself and in your music.

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All texts are by MK Bennett, you can find his author archive here as well as his Þjórsárden and Instagram