Cor De Lux - "Dream Life"

North Carolina’s Cor de Lux describes their unique sound as “shoegazi,” and by listening to their debut album, Dream Life, you can hear the keen intersection of these two influences that required the band to coin their own genre. Across its eight tracks, the guitars oscillate between serrated and lush, mixing the sharpness of the D.C. post-hardcore pioneers with the lush, reverberated sounds of the bands like Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine. There’s something quite stimulating about the mixture, as one second you're floating away on the tail of a meandering and reverberated riff until a cymbal crash blows it all to pieces and you’re left with jagged, piercing guitar tones.

The record begins with “Replacements,” a song that perfectly represents Cor De Lux’s sonic ethos. It kicks off quietly with the intoxicating lull of enveloping ocean sounds before slowly introducing some shimmering guitars that help to jump-start the track. The guitars manage to run the gamut on this first track, vacillating between celestial and chaotic as it inches towards the end. The loud/soft dynamic perfected by bands like Fugazi and the Pixies plays a big role throughout the record, most notably on “Atheroma,” which has a gargantuan, almost metal-like, riff that takes full control of an otherwise relatively mellow track. “Gravity Kills” and “Set Aside” center on some twinkling twin-guitar interplay that has Sonic Youth written all over it. The record gets considerably darker as it comes to a close, starting with the goth-styled vocals on the “Cold Summer” and the crawling basslines on “Rift” that lead to deep pools of swirling black distortion.

If you live in Brooklyn, you can grab a copy of Dream Life on vinyl at Rotten Island Records in Bushwick or Academy Records in Greenpoint.  The record is also available via Bandcamp and on all streaming platforms, including Spotify. Keep up with Cor De Lux by liking them on Facebook or following them on Instagram.