Dying Scene Album Review: X – “Smoke & Fiction”

Los Angeles punk rock pioneers, X, have released their album, Smoke & Fiction on Fat Possum Records. John Doe, Exene, D.J. Bonebrake and Billy Zoom have given us one last album to tie a bow on a career that highlights their early roots and ending the band on their own terms after forty-seven years. The result is nothing short of spectacular. 

A follow-up to 2020’s Alphabetland, Smoke & Fiction feels like a big thank you from X to their fans and supporters. Songs like “Ruby Church” and “Big Black X” give the band a chance to reflect on their time as pillars of the Los Angeles punk rock scene, including the success and problems that came with it. If there is one song that encapsulates the band’s love for their fans it would be “Sweet til the Bitter End”. If “Sweet til the Bitter End” is a thank you note, “The Way It Is”, is a Dear John letter, talking us down from the disappointment of why X can’t continue. There’s definitely a tint of melancholy to the track, as if the band is telling the fans, it’s not you, it’s us. “Smoke and Fiction” does this great job of reckoning the past and the memories associated with it as you continue to walk through a world you grew up in. This album acknowledges the past, but keeps it firmly in its place and does not apologize for it.  

The band itself sounds fantastic. There’s always this double-edged sword when older punk bands release albums later in their career. It’s no secret you get softer as you get older and your taste changes. That raw energy or feeling that you had isn’t the same as it was in your teens or twenties, which is what attracted a lot of us to punk to begin with. Look at the discographies for bands like Social Distortion and Offspring. It’s not to say their later work is horrible, but it’s a far cry from the entry points that made us take the ride. I never feel this is the case with X. While the members of X have dabbled in other genres, you always know what you are getting when it’s the four of them together. John Doe’s bass lines walk up and down this album only kept in line by D.J. Bonebrake’s beats on the drum and Billy Zoom’s rockabilly and surf-tinged buzzsaw guitar; melding this with Exene and John Doe’s duetted vocals makes an inadvertent system of checks and balances that made X special. 

It sounds weird to call this a retirement record, but being paired with their farewell tour, it’s essentially just that. The album is a celebration for many reasons. A celebration of the band, their longevity, and its amicable end. Smoke & Fire‘s ten songs clock in under thirty minutes, the way an old school punk rock album should. It delivers some of the strongest material they’ve put out in years. X is on an extensive farewell tour, giving their fans one last chance to see them before they officially call it a day, but with an album this strong you’ll wish you didn’t have to say goodbye.