Cor de Lux - Year Of The Horse (Black Vinyl)

Standard Black Vinyl LP

This is the standard black vinyl pressing of Year Of The Horse, the first album Cor de Lux have made for Ipecac Recordings, catalog number IPC299. The nine songs sit on a single LP, five on side A and four on side B. Ipecac also issued the album on colored vinyl variants, cassette, CD and digital.

Cor de Lux are a quartet from Kill Devil Hills on North Carolina's Outer Banks: Dawn Moraga and Tim Lusk on guitars and vocals, John Bliven on bass and Jacob Richardson on drums. According to the label's notes, the band chose to build a scene of their own at home rather than relocate to an established music city, and self-recorded two albums there; the second, Media, came out in February 2023. Ipecac's announcement places Year Of The Horse between "post-hardcore urgency, shoegaze bliss, and guitar-driven catharsis," names Fugazi and Blonde Redhead among the band's cues, and notes stages shared with Superchunk and Archers Of Loaf.

The album was produced by J. Robbins, whose production credits include War On Women and Mary Timony, and mastered by Dan Coutant at Sun Room Audio. Two of its songs come with stories from the band. Bliven has said the title "Blind Smile" comes from filming a fishing tournament for visually impaired anglers, where he saw "the most joy filled smile I've ever encountered"; Moraga ties the same song to her deaf cousin's unguarded laugh. On "The Cringe," Moraga draws on her time living in Nicaragua: "Living in a developing country really engraved in my heart about knowing what is important and what is not." Bliven describes the song as a critique of how wealth is concentrated and taxed.

Tracklist

Side A

1. Blind Smile
2. The Cringe
3. Ping Pong
4. Cannibals
5. The Western

Side B

6. Bread Bag
7. The Deli
8. Long Face People
9. Strawberries