Frontman Greg Gonzalez said: "We made [Cry] to just be a snapshot of a moment, to capture the feeling of something. And it's flawed, but the fact that it's flawed means that it's an honest portrayal. And that's what is perfect about it to me."[5] Gonzalez also remarked that he views the album as a "film" as it was "shot in this stunning, exotic location Mallorca, and it stitches all these different characters and scenes together, but in the end is really about romance, beauty & sexuality."[4]
Elaborating on the band's style, Gonzalez said that after experiencing heartbreak, the music he needed was "very gentle" and "very peaceful, because internally I was going through such turmoil. The music that I make became a reaction to the life that happened."[5]
Gonzalez wrote "Falling in Love" over two years. He states, "I wrote the chorus in the middle of a bunch of tours, very far from love or real relationships, and trying to write that song would've felt dishonest. By the time we got into the studio, I was seeing my current girlfriend and wrote from a real perspective. It felt very strange, in a way, to finally have that."[6]
According to the review aggregator Metacritic, Cry received "generally favorable reviews" based on a weighted average score of 69 out of 100 from 14 critic scores.[7] Alisha Mughal of Exclaim! called the album a "gentler and more vulnerable" than the band's debut album, and writing that the album "will make you cry, because Gonzalez knows what he's doing. It's cathartic, stunning, it'll awaken your senses and it's not to be missed."[9] On the other hand Timothy Monger of AllMusic stated that "for a project based on amorous and sensual pleasures, Cigarettes After Sex feels a little too one-dimensional".[3]
^"Czech Albums – Top 100". ČNS IFPI. Note: On the chart page, select 46.Týden 2019 on the field besides the words "CZ – ALBUMS – TOP 100" to retrieve the correct chart. Retrieved November 19, 2019.