Across nine songs, the Kill Devil Hills quartet balances post-hardcore urgency, shoegaze bliss, and guitar-driven catharsis. Recorded and produced by J. Robbins (War on Women, Mary Timony), Year of the Horse preserves the raw chemistry that defines the band while pushing their songwriting into sharper, more immediate territory.
‘Blind Smile’, the track described by Loud Women as “bright, melodic and eccentric” now has a music video. About the video, Dawn says, “The video is about someone stuck in a world of complacency. It’s her journey to break free and show color to the world around her. Much like the meaning of the song it’s about being your true self.”
“The blind man smile, the deaf laugh for all to hear, to be so brave, you can’t hear anyone.”
Their bio tells us that ‘Cor de Lux didn’t come out of a content pipeline, a shared folder, or an algorithmic moment. They came out of a rehearsal room,’ and their Bandcamp page describes them as ‘4 friends in a Post Punk-Noise Rock band. Melodic hints and synth tones that trickle into a garage angst progressive fury.’ These two snippets give an insight into what kind of band they are, and how they operate, but don’t really give the measure of Year of the Horse, an album which goes beyond both post-punk and noise-rock or any permutational crossover of the two to render something that’s varied, embraces experimentalism, and at times is quite off the wall.
Single cut ‘The Cringe’ is exemplary, crashing in on a lolloping rhythm and blistering squall of guitar by way of a backing to a dispassionate but nevertheless urgent-sounding dual vocals from Tim Lusk and Dawn Moraga, before suddenly pulling up and following a short but meandering moment of ponderous desert rock, swerves off in a vaguely trippy prog direction, with a swirling synth and strolling synth. In contrast, ‘Ping Pong’ – not a cover of the Stereolab classic – is a slice – and at six minutes long, a very generous one – of quintessential dream-pop. A laid-back, balmy indie song with a hint of C86 whimsy, gently melodic and evocative of dappled sunlight in woodlands in early summer, it’s neither post-punk nor noise-rock, but it’s easy on the ear – until the switch that lands around the four-minute mark when it unexpectedly takes off like a rocket. And it’s here that it becomes apparent why Ipecac would be interested in them. They’re a band unconstrained by genre boundaries: not necessarily weird, but different.
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‘Cannibal’ takes the chiming guitar and driving bass of the UK goth sound circa 1984 and spin them with slightly spiky vocals and a mid-80s indie twist – nothing that’s immediately specific to a band, but then not entirely generic either.
‘The Western’ whips up a choppy frenzy and is perhaps one of the most overtly post-punk-meets-noise-rock songs on the album, and it drives pretty hard, before ‘Bread Bag’ serves up a slice of mathy post-rock… but that’s not quite it. But I can’t think long enough to capture my thread because there’s a sudden explosion over overdrive, and then it’s off somewhere else again. As the album progresses, the harder it becomes to situate it in a way that feels in any way meaningful – but that doesn’t mean that Year of the Horse is in any way incoherent. The more wide-ranging and eclectic the songs are, the more the sound of Cor de Lux is defined.
‘The Deli’ is simultaneously motorik and noodly: Pavement might be an obvious touchstone, but it’s more obscure acts like Moderate Rebels that come to mind, and Rosa Mota, too, and as fast as can process and much faster than I can type, we’re into another post-rock noise burst and then some more breezy, jaunty indie rock. One thing that does stand out is just how un-American they sound, at least to my ear. Year of the Horse is quirky. It’s not a common American trait. It’s nuanced, and wile it’s by no means a flippant, inconsequential work – it’s anything but – it’s threaded with a kind of knowingness, a twinkle in the eye which hints at a certain humour. But more than anything, Year of the Horse is a work of genius, in that it brings together myriad incongruous elements and doesn’t just make them gel, but amalgamates them in a way which feels entirely natural. How do they do it? Magic, alchemy, or something, I guess.
So many acts strive to make hybridity work, and so many fail, because it feels forced, self-conscious, the segments don’t flow or connect up, and it sounds awkward, jarring. Not so with Cor de Lux, and Year of the Horse keeps it succinct with just nine songs and a run time of thirty-eight minutes, the majority of the songs sitting in the three-and-a-bit-minute bracket. It’s a rare beast, this: an album that will blow your mind, but subtly. It’s crazy, but it’s packed with tunes. Truly inspired.
Cor de Lux are getting closer to releasing their Ipecac Recordings debut album, YEAR OF THE HORSE, on 18th Sept, which captures their competing impulses: abrasion and melody. Across nine songs, the Kill Devil Hills quartet balances post-hardcore urgency, shoegaze bliss, and guitar-driven catharsis. Recorded and produced by J. Robbins (War on Women, Mary Timony), YEAR OF THE HORSE preserves the raw chemistry that defines the band while pushing their songwriting into sharper, more immediate territory.
Today the band share a final preview of the album with the release of ‘Blind Smile’, a track about the beauty in the complete freedom to be who you are.
“The blind man smile, the deaf laugh for all to hear, to be so brave, you can’t hear anyone”
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About the track, Dawn Moraga says, “My cousin is deaf and his true laugh that isn’t altered from what he thinks he should laugh like is one of the most joyous sounds. I think this song is about for me personally trying to find that freedom to not care about what people think of me and to dig deep to find the real. It came together with John and I talking about the beauty from a true smile.. the blind smile.”
John Bliven adds, “The title for ‘Blind Smile’ came about because I wanted to illustrate an event that inspired and humbled me when I was a videographer during a Visually Impaired Persons (VIP) Fishing Tournament, an event that brings hundreds of VIPs to the Outer Banks every year. I got to witness the most joy filled smiles I’ve ever encountered as they felt the scales of the fish and commented about the texture and sliminess as they saw with other senses.”
COR DE LUX LIVE:
Aug. 29, 2026 Raleigh, NC Lump Gallery
September 10 Raleigh, NC Hopscotch Festival @ Kings September 20 Durham, NC Stanczyks + October 7 Philadelphia, PA Ortlieb’s October 8 Brooklyn, NY The Broadway October 10 Toronto, ON Lee’s Palace * October 11 Detroit, MI El Club * October 13 Chicago, IL Outset * October 14 St. Paul, MN Turf Club * October 15 Davenport, IA Raccoon Motel October 17 Louisville, KY Whirling Tiger October 18 Asheville, NC Static Age
Cor de Lux, the unorthodox alt-rock foursome from North Carolina’s outerbanks, who recently announced their signing to Ipecac Recordings, release their label debut, the J. Robbins-produced YEAR OF THE HORSE, on 18th September.
A preview of the nine-song album arrives today with ‘The Cringe’ and its accompanying video. The snarling single charges forward at full blast before veering into an atmospheric passage where the intertwined guitars of Dawn Moraga and Tim Lusk drift into haunting territory.
Moraga says of the track: “Living in a developing country really engraved in my heart about knowing what is important and what is not,” referencing her time abroad in Nicaragua. “Materialism fades like bad jeans. The exploitation of the poor to make the rich richer makes my blood boil.”
Bass player John Bliven adds: “’The Cringe’ explains our disdain of the billionaire ‘elite’ and the system that keeps them rapidly gaining. ‘I make a dollar a day’ refers to CEOs giving themselves a tiny salary while obtaining massive share value. Those shares aren’t taxed unless sold, and even then, that tax rate is less than the income tax everyone else pays.”
Watch the video here:
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Produced by J. Robbins (War on Women, Mary Timony), YEAR OF THE HORSE captures Cor de Lux’s competing impulses: abrasion and melody. Atmosphere and momentum, chaos and control. Across nine songs, the Kill Devil Hills quartet balances post-hardcore urgency, shoegaze bliss, and guitar-driven catharsis. Recorded with Robbins, the album preserves the raw chemistry that defines the band while pushing their songwriting into sharper, more immediate territory.
YEAR OF THE HORSE is available for pre-order now with the album available on multiple limited vinyl variants (including a hyper-limited Bandcamp exclusive swirl vinyl and Ipecac/Cor de Lux orange effect vinyl), standard black vinyl, cassette, CD, and digitally.
Long before joining Ipecac Recordings, Cor de Lux was creating their own ecosystem in North Carolina’s Outer Banks, a place better known for wind, water, and distance than as an indie-rock launchpad. That outsider geography shaped them. There was no shortcut to visibility and no industry machine waiting nearby. So they did what bands do: they wrote songs, played hard, released music themselves, and kept going.
The group, Dawn Moraga (vocals/guitar), Tim Lusk (vocals/guitar), John Bliven (bass), and drummer Jacob Richardson, first introduced their sound on their self-titled 2020 release, followed by Mediain 2023. Across both records, Cor de Lux established a voice rooted in tension and movement: post-hardcore urgency, shoegaze atmosphere, guitar-centered unpredictability, and the chemistry that only comes from musicians learning each other in real time.
That chemistry is the band’s engine. Since their outset, the musicians have stayed true to their belief of creating art without ego. Preferring to arrive at rehearsals willing to chase ideas rather than dictating marching orders, their songs are born out of spontaneity letting each members’ skillset share equal space in the spotlight. As Moraga explains, the band will usually plug in and start jamming on a fresh idea before rehearsing their established set. Often, it will be a dead end road, but on special occasions it will cause them to scramble to get it recorded. “Usually once or twice a month we will hit on something and go ‘oh no, not another new song,’” says Moraga with a laugh.
YEAR OF THE HORSE sounds like a band that earned every inch of its growth. Cor de Lux has been building from the margins: hauling gear, making records on their own terms, and forging community one show at a time. Now, with the reach of Ipecac Recordings behind them, they arrive not as newcomers, but as something rarer: a fully formed band entering its next chapter.
Aural Aggravation 