Singapore – In this weekly column, The Straits Times curates the most buzz-worthy music you need to know about now.

Stream This Song: Cigarettes After Sex – Pistol

Tickets to American dream pop band Cigarettes After Sex’s concert at the Capitol Theatre on Feb 1 were so in demand that a second show was added, and they will play at the same venue on Jan 31.

Fans can be assured that there will be at least one new song to sing along to at the gigs. The Texas trio have released Pistol, their first new song in two years.

A track wrapped with their trademark gauzy atmospherics and anchored by frontman Greg Gonzalez’s soft-spoken lament on a love lost, it is not exactly groundbreaking.

It sounds like exactly what punters would expect, and they seem intent to stay with the same formula that has earned them a cult following.

Perhaps Cigarettes After Sex will expand their repertoire more if they were to release a follow-up to their 2019 album Cry. But, for now, Pistol is another addition to their growing list of break-up songs to get sad to. – Eddino Abdul Hadi

Ace Album: Phoenix – Alpha Zulu

French indie pop band Phoenix, which will perform at The Star Theatre on March 9, recorded their new album in one of their country’s most iconic locations – a museum within the Louvre.

The rich array of famed artworks housed there was so inspiring, the quartet – who won a Best Alternative Music Album Grammy for Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (2009) – finished writing all the tracks in a little over a week.

Phoenix have been around for 27 years, but the songs on Alpha Zulu display a viridity usually associated with fresh new acts.