From Fluxblog:
There’s a lot of songs that simulate an anxious twitchy feeling – I should know, as I have written about hundreds at this point! I remember back in the late 2000s a friend pointing out how often I wrote about anxiety songs and it being a real “wait…he’s right” moment because I’d simply not processed that as a recurring thing and I don’t think I’ve ever self-identified as a particularly anxious person.
But in the context of all those songs the twitchy angst of “Cigarette Packet” feels distinct, the throb of it sounds more like it’s signifying withdrawal tremors and strobe lights. Asha Lorenz sounds like her mind is racing but she’s totally bored by it, zooming through a bad night out in her head before it even happens. It’s a bad, sickly vibe but it’s so catchy that it’s a pleasure to hear, which I suppose is the exact right aesthetic for a song about a compulsive need to do something that you know won’t be good for you.