As I listened to Laufey sing Christmas songs on Apple Music, I was, again, impressed by how well she does everything. I was basking in her warm voice when another song came on that did not fit the feed. Since I don’t know much about music apps, I was surprised. I thought it might be Laufey, trying out “edgy.” But it turned out that Laufey’s deep alto and Greg Gonzalez’ tenor are closely matched, to me at least. I had run into Cigarettes After Sex (“CAS” in what follows).

I had never heard of CAS and , I admit, I asked in my head, “You named your band that?” When I found out more, I added, “Aren’t you from El Paso?” But, like so many people, I was intrigued by the song that showed up on my feed: Apocalypse (hear it here at a worship-like concert in London).  As of August, the song had two billion streams on Spotify, so you’d think I might have run into it. Gonzalez and the song have Wikipedia pages. Regardless, the line “Your lips, my lips, apocalypse” said so much, I needed to know more.

Background for Apocalypse

Apocalypse was on the first album the men put out in 2017 and it never got on any charts. But it went viral in 2022 when it was background music for a  TikTok trend in which people put up a photo from their childhood to remind them to be kinder to themselves.

I love how A.I. sums up their style: “Cigarettes After Sex is a dream pop, ambient pop, and indie rock band known for their ethereal, slow, and sensual sound, often described as ‘androgynous pop noir’ with hushed vocals, dreamy guitars, and romantic, melancholic themes. Their style draws from shoegaze and slowcore, creating a hazy, cinematic, and intimate atmosphere, perfect for winding down or late-night listening.” I needed a dictionary for that description, but it is apt. The NYT says CAS makes “woozy” music that Gen Z loves — and people all over the world do love it. 40something Gonzalez has a loyal — and notably young, fan base in Poland, India, Indonesia, and South America. The U.S. has only recently caught up to the rest of the world as one of their top markets.

About the song Apocalypse, Gonzales says, “The imagery is surreal, and it’s not something that could have happened. But the way I think about that song is, before I left my hometown, it was me and two different girls I’d dated and then kind of become friends with. It felt that we were like beautiful losers — stuck in our hometown with these big ambitions. At that time, it felt like it was impossible to get out of the city, and so when I left and moved to New York, I thought about them again.” You may relate.

He continued to recall the aspirations they all had, and while he escaped to follow his dreams, the friends remained where he had left them. “They wanted to be screenwriters, painters and actors. But they were still in my hometown, kind of like the song says, ‘sort of trapped there’.…Thus, the song at the end is really about being there for people, when you’re all alone.”

Trauma-informed dream pop

My interest in the song piqued when I went to YouTube and found a lyric video. I loved how the thought fragments referenced memories that are too personal to understand completely but universal enough to evoke some feelings. They showed an intuitive sense of how trauma locks people up emotionally and undermines the intimacy we all crave.

In some sense, the band may have been riding the wave of “trauma-informed” everything moving through psychotherapy studies and into society when the song came out in 2017. That wave may or may not have crested by now. I was riding it myself around then, teaching doctoral classes on trauma in 2019 and 20. Then the whole society experienced the trauma of Covid-19, George Floyd, Palestine, and now we have King Donald reorganizing Venezuela. We are all considering what to do with trauma. CAS is doing their part, providing gauzy, thoughtful, background music for us with some tenderness.

Here are 5 ways the song concisely hears us and comforts us where we are traumatized.

• Kisses on the foreheads of the lovers wrapped in your arms. You’ve been hiding them in hollowed-out pianos left in the dark.

Gonzalez acknowledges the deep emotional pain a new partner has suffered from previous relationships and heartbreak. In its gentle, supportive way, Apocalypse captures trauma not as a dramatic rupture, but as a quiet, lingering condition — a way of being emotionally stranded even in moments of intimacy. What makes the song psychologically insightful is its restraint: the singer never names trauma directly, yet the emotional patterns align closely with what clinicians recognize as post-traumatic attachment issues and dissociation.

Here is the song accompanying the troubles of an old love trying to reconnect with a past love in a new body(!) in The 100.

• You’ve been locked in here forever, and you just can’t say goodbye.

Being emotionally “stuck” is what we call it. Trauma can be an ongoing “reality.” One of the song’s central insights is how trauma distorts time. The emotional voice feels suspended between past and present, as if the relationship exists in a perpetual aftershock. Trauma often prevents experiences from being fully integrated into memory, leaving someone to relive emotional states rather than recall events. The song mirrors this by dwelling in atmosphere and repetition rather than progression. There is no narrative resolution — only a looping sense of longing — which reflects how trauma resists closure.

• Your lips, my lips, apocalypse.

The view of intimacy in the song is also psychologically precise. Closeness feels just out of reach. Any touch has to penetrate a veil of numbness and melancholy. When it does, it may feel dangerous. This aligns with trauma-related attachment patterns, where connection feels simultaneously necessary and unsafe — even like an apocalypse. Rather than joy, intimacy triggers vulnerability, and vulnerability recalls loss. The result is a muted, almost anesthetized form of love — tender, but distant.

The song accompanies such a twisted experience in  SnowPiercer

• You leapt from crumbling bridges, watching cityscapes turn to dust, Filming helicopters crashing in the ocean from way above.

The song begins with a dramatic scene of destruction. I often depict trauma like the shock of some unknown force blowing up one’s village — suddenly everything is rubble. In the song, the metaphor also describes the chaotic end of a tragic relationship — again. Such destruction seems inevitable, even expected. The subject is catastrophe, but the delivery is calm, almost resigned. Trauma survivors often normalize emotional devastation, treating it as the background condition of life rather than an exceptional event. Some therapists might feel this is more realistic than setting our sights on some ideal happiness — a goal line that might feel like it is always being moved back. By presenting emotional collapse in such a subdued tone, the song captures how trauma dulls one’s senses, even alarm systems — things are less likely to feel shocking anymore, even the end of the world.

A fan used the song to sum up an episode of  The Last of Us to that effect.

• Oh, please. Come out and haunt me, I know you want me.

The lyrics are a plea for the lover to let go of their fear and the emotional cycles that keep them “locked” in their past. The dreamlike music evokes a sense of dissociation. The vocals, production, and pacing feel submerged, as though we are all slightly removed from what we feel. This mirrors a common trauma response: staying emotionally present enough to function, but detached enough to avoid being overwhelmed. The listener senses feeling without having full access to it, which is how dissociation often manifests.

• Sleeping soundly with the locket that she gave you clutched in your fist.

Ultimately, the song is a comforting message of support, with the singer promising, “When you’re feeling low I will be there too.”  Its refusal to assign blame or seek meaning is itself psychologically astute — trauma doesn’t always come with clear villains or lessons. Often, what lingers is simply grief, confusion, and longing for something that can’t be restored. Apocalypse honors that ambiguity. It doesn’t try to heal the wound — it empathizes with what it’s like to live inside it. I think people sing along with this song at the concert because they love being seen and are passing on that good feeling to others. The whole arena is living inside the wound together, clutching what little comfort they have, but also hearing the hope that someone else is with with them and even for them.

CAS demonstrates an intuitive grasp of trauma psychology — not through explanation, but by creating a descriptive musical environment. The song feels the way trauma can feel –soft, repetitive, unresolved, and quietly devastating.

While not a direct narrative about PTSD from war or a specific traumatic event, the song deals with the themes of being haunted by the past, emotional turmoil, and the struggle to move forward in a new relationship, which all align with aspects of trauma recovery.

I think the whole song also aligns with Jesus walking with us in our “lowness.” Especially this week, during Epiphany, God’s message to the world is “When you’re feeling low, I will be there too.”