Concert Announcements – Page 3 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond September 2024

**Future Islands perform at Mission Ballroom on September 24, photo by Frank Hamilton**

Dust City Opera, photo courtesy the artists

Saturday | 09.07
What: Dust City Opera’s Haunted Costume Ball w/The Constant Tourists
When: 7
Where: Swallow Hill
Why: Dust City Opera is a rock band from Albuquerque, New Mexico whose sound interweaves orchestral Americana, dark psychedelia and art pop into cinematic and literary songs filled with evocative tales of “sadness, madness and mayhem.” But within the group’s rich body of work there is a surreal sense of humor and humanity that reveals an empathy for the human condition and the characters and situations depicted in which listeners can identify aspects of their own experiences navigating our often physically and emotionally perilous world. Since it’s 2018 foundation, pick any of Dust City Opera’s albums from its 2019 debut album Heaven to 2022’s horror and science fiction themed Alien Summer record to the 2024 EP Cold Hands (released March 8 via Rexius Records) and you’ll hear imaginatively eclectic arrangements and vivid narratives from a band that seems fully realized even as it’s still relatively early in its career. There is a theatrical sensibility to the music that translates to the band’s live performances that fans of the likes of DeVotchKa and Beirut will appreciate. For this rescheduled show in Denver the band is encouraging attendees to come dressed up for their Haunted Costume Ball to help launch spooky season.

Sunday | 09.08
What: Midwife w/DBUK and Polly Urethane
When: 7
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Midwife just released a new album called No Depression in Heaven, which is a heavy enough title on its own, but for the new album the mood isn’t quite as downcast as the previous album but the tenderness and vulnerability is still there with the sensitivity tuned more sharply into examining and evoking where memory and dreams intersect and the role that plays in how we live our lives and our psychological orientation of identity and aspiration. The records are all great but Madeleine Johnston is even more powerful live though this will be a bigger stage than usual for the songwriter at least in Denver and you’ll have to go to see how the music translates. Denver Broncos UK is a more post-punk offshoot of Slim Cessna’s Auto Club but still plenty of the element of Gothic Americana in its music. Polly Urethane always does a different kind of show and you don’t really know what you’re in for except that it’ll be interesting, it’ll incorporate aspects of performance art and ambitious composition and often breaking the barrier between performer and audience.

Monday | 09.09
What: Keane w/Everything Everything
When: 6:30
Where: Temple Hoyne Buell Theater
Why: Keane technically existed in an earlier form for nearly a decade before its 2004 album Hopes and Fears was released on major label Island Records. But that album reflected years of development and refinement of songwriting craft and even though the band received criticism for being derivative the record went on to multi-Platinum status in sales. The piano-driven songwriting and singer Tim Rice-Oxley’s vocal melodies though polished convey earnest sentiments that have connected with an international audience. With this tour the group celebrates the record that launched its career coinciding with support behind the remastered 20 year anniversary edition of the album.

Wednesday | 09.11
What: Osees w/Timmy’s Organism
When: 7
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Osees is the ever evolving band led by John Dwyer and really you can check in anywhere in the band’s catalog and under any of its names and find records that are often radically different from the release that preceded it. The new record Sorcs 80 sounds like Butthole Surfers at its most manic mixed with Trans Am but delivered with the mutant stylings we’ve come to expect from the band. Motorik, psychedelic garage rock doesn’t quite cover the raw power and attitude of the album but it gives you an idea. Check out the live video of the performance of the album on YouTube. But best experienced in person as no YouTube video is an adequate surrogate for the vital, real thing unless you can’t be there.

Thursday | 09.12
What: Alphabeat Soup #75: Acidbat, DEBR4H, Melodies Never Lie, Yung Lurch, Furbie Cakes and Skyfloor
When: 9
Where: The Black Box
Why: The long-running showcase of some of Denver’s most daring and forward thinking experimental electronic music composers and performers this month features, among others, IDM/techno wizard Acidbat, Fort Collins-based synthwave/synthpop artist DEBR4H, the latest project from former Mehko and the Ocean Birds member Isaac Javier River as Melodies Never Lie and its fusion of dream pop and ethereal indie folk and ambient hip-hop producer Skyfloor aka Grant Blakeslee who some may know more as MYTHirst or in his collaborations with experimental pop genius Felix Fast4ward.

Thursday | 09.12
What: Kikuo
When: 7
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Kikuo is an acclaimed Vocaloid artist from Kanagawa Prefecture in Japan (basically suburban Tokyo but it’s a big urban sprawl in that part of the country). The artist is known for his highly detailed sound-design oriented dance pop songs that explore themes of trauma and suffering and the habits of self soothing that provide catharsis from both. For the uninitiated Kuko’s music sounds like music that reflects the moods and kinetic energy of anime and Japanese popular culture but expressed in a way that does honor to the underlying emotions that inform a lot of the best creative endeavors that have manifested out of Japan. And yet Kikuo’s music most often seems joyous and the live show like a high energy, live DJ set with samples and beats with vocals manipulated and processed into something that could only happen with technology, like the voices of a particularly upbeat, even kawaii, anime or video game characters but delivering heartfelt emotional content that contrasts with a conventional interpretation of that style of art.

Saturday | 09.14
What: Mortiis w/Brighter Death Now, Sombre Arcane, Malfet and Fogweaver
When: 6
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Probably the biggest dungeon synth show in Denver in maybe ever. Headlined by one of the genre’s pioneers, Mortiis who since 1993 has been crafting fantastical soundscapes that have exerted an influence on other practitioners of the music since. Brighter Death Now isn’t really a dungeon synth band but its industrial ambient noise seems to have been one of the foundations of what would become music in that style and its own industrial/power electronics style music evokes of the mysterious and otherworldly even as it can often be unsettling and confrontational. Colorado’s Fogweaver isn’t short on the fantasy elements of the music but its own synth compositions are well within the realm of ambient.

Saturday | 09.14
What: Deth Rali album release w/Hex Cassette, Church Fire and DJ Reed Fox
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Denver-based darkwave synth pop band Deth Rali is releasing its first album in three years with Ruby Castle Island. It’s a transporting and psychedelically inflected set of songs if early singles are any indication. Sharing the bill is one man industrial music death cult Hex Cassette. Okay, the death part is only a joke but part of the project’s aesthetic is going to the limit for one’s art and bringing the audience along for the ride to the darkwave industrial dance party or else. Church Fire has expanded its stage show with an even more robust light show to accompany its revolution darkwave and emotionally charged synth pop dance songs aimed at making resistance to the capitalist patriarchy fun.

Sunday | 09.15
What: Zheani w/The Buttress and ZAND
When: 7
Where: The Summit Music Hall
Why: Zheani is an electronic pop artist from Australia some of whose fans have dubbed her style of music “Fairy Trap.” What does this mean? Check out any of her music videos or live footage if you can find it and you’ll find music that mixes the ethereal and playful with hyper pop, trap beats and occult imagery and industrial-adjacent sonic intensity. Fans of Alice Glass both with Crystal Castles but especially solo will appreciate Zheani’s fantastical hybrid pop and visual aesthetic.

Tuesday | 09.17
What: Fabio Frizzi “Zombie” movie screening with live soundtrack performance
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Italian composer Fabio Frizzi will perform his iconic score as a live soundtrack to a screening of Lucio Fulci’s classic 1979 film Zombi 2 (aka Zombie), which was to have been a sequel to George A. Romer’s Dawn of the Dead (1978).

Tuesday | 09.17
What: Johnny Marr & James
When: 6:30
Where: Paramount Theatre
Why: Johnny Marr, the legendary guitarist of The Smiths and later of Modest Mouse, shares a bill with fellow Mancunians James. The Smiths and James started the same year (1982) and likely crossed paths during the course of their careers. James had hits in college and alternative rock radio throughout the 80s and 90s maintaining a cult following for its exuberant and inventive, idiosyncratic songwriting with hits that include “Laid,” “Born of Frustration” and “Come Home.” Marr’s solo albums of recent years revealed the guitarist as an artist in his own right capable of writing compelling songs and live being able to deliver favorites by The Smiths. So this show will be a celebration of the band’s catalogs and continued ability to deliver it with a sense of joy and catharsis.

Wednesday | 09.18
What: Public Memory w/Voight and DJ Niq V
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Public Memory is the solo project of Robert Toher who has been releasing albums of entrancing darkwave techno for around a decade. With layers of dub rhythm and texture and an otherworldy cast like the most haunted music that came out of 90s IDM, Public Memory pushes boundaries of modern electronic music and often has a quality like even moodier trip hop. Voight is more like a true fusion of techno, noisy shoegaze, post-punk and an emotional intensity that nearly tips the music over and all the better for not playing it safe.

Wednesday | 09.18
What: Ulrika Spacek w/Bluebook and Pale Sun
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Ulrika Spacek is a psychedelic post-punk shoegaze band from the UK whose intricate guitar work seems to weave layers of mood rather than come across as an unusual form of math rock. Its 2023 album Compact Trauma had the melodic and rhythmic complexity of something you’d expect from Women or Black Midi but with more melancholic sounds like an English cognate of something more like Deeper and its proclivity for conveying emotional rawness. Bluebook is an art rock and dream pop band from Denver but don’t be fooled by the delicacy of expression on some of the recorded music you can find because there is a dark yet inviting and intense energy to the live show that has made the group a favorite among fans and critics. Pale Sun has some of the most imaginative and deeply evocative guitar work of any band from Colorado or elsewhere. It’s like experiencing a weather anomaly in real time with ethereal melodies and a resonant emotional colorings in its arrangements of voice and instrumentation.

Friday | 09.20
What: Marc Ribot Quartet (Hilliard Green, Chad Taylor, Mary Halvorson)
When: 7
Where: Mercury Cafe
Why: Marc Ribot is one of the true guitar geniuses of the past few decades. His style and skill means he has fit in with some of the most demanding jazz groups and experimental musicians and pop and rock mavericks around including the likes of Tom Waits, John Zorn, Foetus, Marianne Faithfull, Allen Ginsberg, Arto Lindsay, Ikue Mori, Cibo Matto, David Sylvian and Elvis Costello. His style seems to be boundary-less yet distinctive. This quartet is like if a way out free jazz band teamed up with a bunch of weirdos from the 20th century classical avant-garde.

Friday | 09.20
What: Charly Bliss w/Raffaela
When: 7
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Charly Bliss has been described as a mix of 90s alternative rock and pop of various kinds. But the salient aspect of the group’s music since its 2017 debut album Guppy has been a a pairing of vulnerability and joy. That combination along with the band’s playful exuberance gives an uplifting quality to even its more melancholic songs. On its new record Forever (released August 16, 2024) the quartet embraces even more thoroughly the influence of modern pop music with the electronic production thoroughly threaded into the songwriting. Still very much in place is a likability and a knack for tasty indie pop hooks.

Beabadoobee, photo by Jules Moskovtchenko with creative direction by Patricia Villirillo

Friday | 09.20
What: Beabadoobee w/Hovvdy and Keni Titus
When: 6
Where: The Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Beabadoobee has established herself as a singer and songwriter of note over the past seven years with a diverse body of work that incorporates a blend of styles without getting stuck in a definitive genre, a quality that is a testament to the likely durability of her career. But the songs and their delicately heartfelt style speak for themselves. From early bedroom recordings to her currently new album This Is How Tomorrow Moves (2024), Beabadoobee’s expressive vocals are often confessional but always distinctive in their ability to tap into poignant emotional resonances that augment the songwriter’s vivid lyrics. The new record in particular showcases a real gift for borrowing elements of classic and lo-fi modern pop in an eclectic style that seems orchestral and spare at once.
Hovvdy is an Austin-based duo that has offering contemplative and emotionally rich slowcore pop songs since its 2014 self-titled debut EP. Its, self-titled full-length finds Hovvdy delivering some of its most finely crafted soundscapes to date. At times the music seems like experiments in sound design and experimental songwriting. Like Charlie Martin and Will Taylor hopped back to making demos on cassette and trying to capture some of that room ambiance and the analog warmth of it and translating the intimacy of that sound to a more high fidelity environment without losing the essential charm. With the storytelling on the album one imagines a box of Polaroids as a starting point for turning cherished memories into accessible songs. Whatever the methodology or inspiration or techniques it’s a long record that seems to also come out of wanting to write an album that would sound good for a road trip.

Gregory T.S. Walker, photo courtesy the artist

Saturday | 09.21
What: Minstrels and Minimoogs performed by Gregory T.S. Walker, Elena Camerin Young and Todd Reid celebrating the reissue of the cosmic medieval masterpiece w/Pete Swanson & Entrancer and Luke Leavitt
When: 8
Where: Glob ($15)
Why: Gregory T.S. Walker released Minstrels & Minimoogs in 1988 as a music for an immersive, multimedia performance that took place at the Fiske Planetarium on the University of Colorado Boulder campus. It was originally released as a one-sided 12” and was really only ever available at performances at Fiske. But the Freedom To Spend label co-owned by Pete Swanson of experimental music legends Yellow Swans is reissuing the record with a special performance this night including collaborative sets with Swanson and modular synth genius Entrancer as well as Luke Leavitt. It’ll be a unique live music experience showcasing idiosyncratic synth composition the likes of which may never happen again.

Saturday | 09.21
What: Why? w/NNAMDI
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf
Why: Yoni Wolf sounds particularly lost and yearning on the new Why? Record The Well I Fell Into (2024). The song’s have a more acoustic aspect in the instrumentation this time around and that lends it a different kind of sonic intimacy than some of the project’s previous music. It’s pastoral in its stories of growing older and feeling obsolete and unsure of what is left in life when those moments of existential crisis impact broad areas of your life and hit as so heartfelt it can sink your spirit. But Wolf offers no pat answers, just poignant expressions of the part of one’s life when you’re not sure what it all means and what felt like the directions and focus points of your life have disappeared or gone adrift and you’re left trying to sort through that emotional wreckage that can collapse upon you suddenly and make sense of where your life needs to be next. Also on the bill is experimental pop and rock weirdo NNAMDI whose energetic and eclectic, surreal pop songs expand notions of what a pop song can sound like and what it’s rhythms and structures can be.

Saturday | 09.21
What: Willie Watson w/Tanasi and The Sullivan Sisters at Wildflower Fallgrass ‘24: A Pavilion Pickin’ Party Night 2
When: 5:30
Where: Planet Bluegrass (Lyons)
Why: Former Old Crow Medicine Show singer/guitarist/banjo player Willie Watson released his latest, self-titled, solo album on September 13. The early singles promised a set of spare and intimate folk songs featuring Watson’s expressive vibrato delivering earnest portraits of life with a broad range of subjects and moods. Watson’s lyrics seem refreshingly free of tropes and rich with poignant turns of phrase that give his spare songwriting a rare dimensionality that reward a deep listen.

Sunday | 09.22
What: FM Skyline, Auragraph and Modern Devotion
When: 8
Where: Glob
Why: FM Skyline is a vaporwave composer and artist from Richmond, Virginia who a month ago released his album Images which sounds like a mix of the music for corporate training videos, The Art of Noise and New Wave New Age seminar soundtracks. Auragraph released his latest album New Standard on Dais Records in 2023 and its sounds brilliantly reconciled the aesthetics of techno, EBM and vaporwave. Opening the show is Denver’s Modern Devotion, the solo, industrial techno side project of Adam Rojo of shoegaze-infused post-punk greats Voight.

Sunday | 09.22
What: Everclear w/Marcy’s Playground and Jimmie’s Chicken Shack
When: 6
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Everclear is one of the few bands associated with the late era of alternative rock (although its roots date back to the beginning of that wave of music) whose music has aged well in spite of ubiquitous airplay in the 90s and on nostalgia playlists. In no small part that’s due to singer/guitarist Art Alexakis’ thoughtful and vulnerable lyrics and obvious authenticity. Sure he found a way to write songs with wide appeal but never sacrificed putting meaningful words into what he would sing on stage. In 2024 the band’s 2000 album Songs from an American Movie Vol. One: Learning How to Smile was released on vinyl for the first time on September 13 and there’s a better than average change the set will include material from that record as well as the band’s beloved hits.

Monday | 09.23
What: Leprous w/Earthside and Fight the Fight
When: 6
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Norwegian progressive metal band Leprous released its new album Melodies of Atonement on August 30, 2024 and demonstrated once again that its technical prowess and precision is a vehicle for ambitious songwriting. Passionate vocals and evocative synth-infused soundscapes and orchestrated, sweeping guitar create a layered effect like the band is thinking more cinematically than merely musically. In that way the group’s new record maybe more than its predecessors seems to bear the marks of the influence of the likes of Failure and Marillion. And though the songs are epic in scope each feels like they touch on the personal and the emotional resonance of the melodic vocals are akin to something from the better emo records of the late 90s.

Tuesday | 09.24
What: Future Islands w/Oh, Rose
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Since early in its existence Baltimore’s Future Islands has mastered the pairing of upbeat and gorgeously melodic synth pop with sad, melancholic lyrics delivered with a passionate soulfulness. The combination has made listening to its music feel like you’re sharing moments with people who won’t lie to you about how rough life can be but also encourage you to embrace what’s good and even great about it. Its 2024 record People Who Aren’t There Anymore was written and recorded during the early part of the pandemic and into the endemic era and has as its subject matter the slow breakdown of singer Samuel T. Herring’s long-distance relationship during the period of lockdowns. Sure it’s a deep exploration of loss, existential doubt, self-assessment and learning to let go. All of which can be challenging for anyone but these songs make it feel like it’s something that not only can you do but do so without linger rancor and the kind of emotional trauma that limits your future ability to connect with people. The shows are always cathartic and high energy and yet intimate and tender making Future Islands a special band that made the transition from DIY scene notables to indie rock stars without losing the core of their art.

Spectral Voice, photo from Encyclopedia Metallum

Thursday | 09.26
What: Spectral Voice, Polish, Nightshark and Mournful Ruin
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Spectral Voice is the black metal band from Denver three fourths of whom are also in psychedelic death metal group Blood Incantation. It released the album Sparagmos in February 2024 and thus unleashing even more of its spooky, sepulchral heavy compositions. The music sounds like the kind of music that should have been playing at the entrance to hell in Baskin. But this bill isn’t just a bunch of other death/black/doom metal bands and the like. Nightshark and its noisy free jazz freakouts will be on hand as well to offer its impassioned skronk and No Wave bop.

Friday | 09.27
What: NightWraith, Necropanther, Upon a Field’s Whisper and Lacerated
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Denver’-based melodic death metal heroes NightWraith just released their new record Divergence. This time around the synths lends an even more cinematic quality to the epic scale of the songwriting and personal struggles cast as those more eternal and the kinds of things heroes of myth and lore tangle with on the road to defeating the big bad. Also more than ever the band’s progressive rock leanings are present and in moments they sound like they’ve been listening to a lot of both Neurosis and early 80s Yes.

Peter Hook & The Light, photo courtesy the artist

Saturday | 09.28
What: Peter Hook & The Light w/DJ boyhollow
When: 7
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Peter Hook is a founding member of two of the most important post-punk bands of the early era as the bass player of both Joy Division and New Order. This tour the band will perform the Substance albums so you’ll get plenty of the early JD and vintage era New Order stuff including songs that never much appeared on anything but singles and those two compilations.

Mass of Fermenting Dregs, photo from Bandcamp

Saturday | 09.28
What: Mass of the Fermenting Dregs w/Cam Kahin and Blush
When: 6:30
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station
Why: Mass of the Fermenting Dregs is the Japanese dream pop band who seem to somehow have blended art rock leanings into the songwriting while sounding like they wouldn’t be out of place in the poppier end of the Austin, TX shoegaze scene. A fusion of the sublime and of the noisy.

Saturday | 09.28
What: Tassel w/Plague Garden and DJ Katastrophy
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Tassel is a Phoenix, AZ-based post-punk trio who didn’t seem to feel the need to differentiate between the sound palette one would use for industrial punk, deathrock and darkwave. Currently on tour supporting its new album A SACRIFICE: UNTO IDOLS. Opening is one of the current great post-punk/New Wave bandsw of the moment with Denver’s Plague Garden. Its own electronic side is richly imagined and evocative with the guitar work both beautiful and gritty and expressive basslines that elevate the band’s music beyond the current wave of post-punk.

Saturday | 09.28
What: The National w/The War on Drugs and Lucious
When: 6:30
Where: Fiddler’s Green
Why: The National is already one of the most popular and critically acclaimed of indie rock bands of the past two decades. And yet the band continues to surprise with offering finely crafted albums that actually offer more than the usual tropes of adolescent struggles projected into adult life. 2023’s Laugh Track may not have garnered the critical acclaim of some of the band’s earlier records but its melancholic and pastoral songs sound like they’re about getting through a period of your life that feels like offers nothing new to spark your brain into action and like you don’t have much left to say to anyone that feels authentic and vital. It’s again the kind of record that shows a path to doing something creative and different even well into middle age without having to look back to that mythical time of youth when everything felt new. It’s an album about discovering something new or at least reinventing oneself and discovering the kinds of things that can inspire you all over again and find a reason to not feel like you’re treading water until the end. Middle age can feel like that for a lot of people and this album is aimed at show how that’s not an inevitability and that experience and perspective matter and can illuminate your existence for the rest of your life.

Jonathan RIchman, photo by Driely S from Bandcamp

Sunday | 09.29
What: Jonathan Richman w/Tommy Larkins on drums
When: 6
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Jonathan Richman isn’t filling stadiums and never has but his charmingly idiosyncratic and oddly wise and no oddly creative songs have been influential on generations of musicians and non-musicians alike. The keyboard player for his old band Modern Lovers went on to be in Talking Heads and plenty of punkers and other musicians have covered “Roadrunner” because it is absolutely one of the spiritual ancestors of punk in its glorious simplicity and unforgettable energy. These days Richman with Tommy Larkin are a fantastic duo who deliver some of the finest American songs ever written with humor and charisma.

Sunday | 09.29
What: Chrissy Costanza w/Voilá
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Chrissy Costanza is currently on her first solo tour separate from doing shows with the band for whom she is perhaps most well known, Against the Current. The powerhouse singer is set to release her debut solo EP VII on October 9 so this is a chance to catch the artist perform those songs live prior to the album being available worldwide. The solo stuff is a bit of a break from the pop punk and alternative rock fusion of ATC and allows Costanza to stretch out into realms of vocal expression that might otherwise be out of place with the band.

Sunday | 09.29
What: NIKI w/Allison Ponthier
When: 6
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Nicole Zefanya was born in and raised in Jakarta, Indonesia and started playing and writing music from a young age. Good thing because at 15 she won a contest to be the opening act for Taylor Swift for Jakarta stop of The Red Tour. At eighteen she moved to Nashville to study music and began releasing music as Niki and was on the roster of the 88rising record label which specializes in putting out music by Asian American artists. Niki’s latest album is Buzz, a collection of jazz-inflected, bedroom-pop style songs with Zefanya’s tender and introspective vocals center stage. But in that tenderness you’ll hear some raw truth and attitude that can be as startling as it is welcome in separating Niki from other artists operating in a similar lane of modern indie pop.

The Spirit of the Beehive, photo from Bandcamp

Monday | 09.30
What: Spirit of the Beehive w/Winter
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station
Why: As usual, Philly’s The Spirit of the Beehive offer us a psychedelic pop and IDM album that sounds like they used a cut up method of songwriting with all members writing a different style of music and collaging it all together in ways that make their own strange kind of sense with 2024’s You’ll Have to Lose Something. And they’ll pull it off live and seem like a band that is changing radio stations throughout one song yet make it seem coherent and compelling in the way a psychotronic film can be. Like a kinder, gentler Butthole Surfers.

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond August 2024

**Bikini Kill performs at Mission Ballroom on August 27, photo by Debi Del Grande**

Brotherhood of Machines in 2016, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 08.02
What: Brotherhood of Machines (album release), Seance, Snowswept and Aloe Static
When: 8/8:30
Where: Glob
Why: Brotherhood of Machines is the project of Tyler Knapp who has been crafting haunted experimental electronic music for years in Denver alone. You wouldn’t call his music ambient though adjacent, not beat driven dance music though those influences are present and not noise though aspects of his compositions incorporate what often sound like field or otherwise repurposed recordings. In July 2024 he released two albums Loops From Temple Familiarity and Unknown Set and is releasing one or both at this show. Also on the bill are the ethereal melodies and ambient soundscapes of Snowswept and Aloe Staic’s more glitch and texture post-IDM environmental moods.

Friday | 08.02
What: SUMAC w/Portrayal of Guilt and Trigger Object
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station
Why: In June SUMAC released its latest set of moody, evocative and crawling, post-metal improv The Healer. The trio channels intense passages of rhythm and sound into expressive bursts that sound like a death metal band discovered doom and utilized those musical modes to make a heavy post-hardcore designed to embody the deconstruction of the world and shedding of old ways and habits in favor of those more nurturing and open. Even more psychedelic than previous records, The Healer finds SUMAC charting new territories of of how heavy music can seem more immersive than merely monolithic. Portrayal of Guilt is the kind of hardcore band that enjoys drenching its aggressive sounds in caustic moods like it explored to the roots of he music that built where it had been and found the connections with the likes of St. Vitus, Celtic Frost and Possessed.

Saturday | 08.03
What: Alejandro Escovedo w/James Mastro
When: doors/dinner 6, show 9
Where: Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox
Why: Although Alejandro Escovedo is now rightly known as one of the great artists in modern roots rock and alt-country, he cut his teeth as a member of pioneering punk band The Nuns who were one of the two bands (including The Avengers) that opened for the Sex Pistols at the final live performance at Winterland in San Francisco in January 1978. In subsequent decades and in various bands and under his own name Escovedo has maintained more than a bit of that spirited, early punk and counterculture attitude including on his 2024 record Echo Dancing. Opener James Mastro also his his own unique place in punk and Americana as a member of The Richard Lloyd Group in his teens and later with a variety of music activities including in bands like The Health & Happiness Show. Mastro has been a staple of the rich NYC and Hoboken, NJ scenes and for this show he will be playing double bass in Escovedo’s band but prior to that he will perform liberally from his own 2024 record Dawn of a New Error with graced by the singer/songwriter’s warmly husky voice, expansive spirit and bright and vivid production courtesy engineer and mixer James Frazee and mastering by Greg Calbi.

Saturday | 08.03
What: Listening Lawn IV: Cholla, Blood Out w/Silt, Glissline, Combat Sport & DJ Ursa, Yonbre Netz and Sunswept
When: 5-8 pm
Where: Carpio Sanquinette Park
Why: These events happen in a semi-hidden pocket in Denver at a public park with a setting like ruins of an older Denver long neglected. The perfect setting to witness innovative electronic music in the realms of techno, ambient, IDM and free jazz.

“Horsegirl” in 2021, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 08.03
What: A Rally For Worker’s Rights: Vegan Gore, F1sh1fty, “Horsegirl,” and Clayton Kenney
When: 6-10 pm
Where: Cheeseman Park Pavilion
Why: This is an event to draw attention to collective efforts at promoting the interests of workers in one of the more expensive cities in America with the sprawl of that income inequality spreading everywhere. The musical portion of the gathering includes performances by techno/glitch/IDM artist Vegan Gore and weirdo performance art dream pop band “Horsegirl.”

Wednesday | 08.07
What: Nox Novacula w/Church Fire and Weathered Statues
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Seattle deathrock band Nox Novacular is touring in support of its newly released latest album Feed the Fire. Its brooding atmospheres and impassioned performances have made the quartet a band of choice for discerning fans of post-punk like a commanding mix of Xmal Deutchland and the spookier end of The Cramps. Weathered Status from Denver is cut from a similar cloth with clear roots in punk with standout basslines and haunted synths. Church Fire while not a post-punk band plays its electronic darkwave with an electrifying conviction.

Thursday | 08.08
What: Orville Peck w/Jaime Wyatt and Gold Star
When: 6
Where: The Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Orville Peck performs his 70s cowboy country style music masked like a nod to The Lone Ranger. His songs about love and heartbreak are well within the storytelling tradition of classic country but with Peck infusing the songwriting with a queer perspective his songs have another dimension of potential resonance with fans. His latest album Stampede finds Peck collaborating with the likes of Willie Nelson, Beck and Nathaniel Rateliff among others.

Thursday | 08.08
What: Urban Heat w/Gvllow and Delores Galore
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Austin’s Urban Heat makes an appearance in Denver just over a week before the release of its latest album The Tower. The darkwave trio has mastered a reinvention of 80s moody synthpop into expansive darkwave with commanding and soulful vocals. The group’s 2023 cover of Q. Lazzarus’ classic single “Goodbye Horses” brought to the song a tonal richness and expressed the fiery intensity underneath the surface of the original. Urban Heat’s earlier releases showcased the band’s gift for EBM beatmaking akin to what TR/ST and Kontravoid have been doing by fusing techno sensibilities with emotionally-charged pop songcraft. The singles from The Tower thus far have revealed the band has been evolving its use of space to great evocative effect.

Friday | 08.09
What: Keytar Fest: The Jinjas and Claudzilla
When: 8pm doors/9pm show
Where: 715 Club
Why: Claudzilla returns for the most recent edition of Keytar Fest, an event that showcases artists that make use of that most visually iconic of 1980s synthesizer technology. Claudzilla is a little like a lo-fi weirdo outsider avant-pop performance artist that is part personae part a manifestation of inner space. Like if Klaus Nomi made indie pop. The Jinjas are a synth and drums-driven rock band that use bass synth and keytar to build a sound like a retro synth pop band with a songwriting style that’s more modern and akin to something like The Blow and Trans Am gone more pop.

Friday | 08.09
What: Magic Sword w/ESSENGER and Church Fire https://tickets.meowwolf.com/events/denver/magic-sword/
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station
Why: Magic Sword is the costumed space night synthwave band from Boise, Idaho who sure do have a gimmick but its music speaks for itself with its saturated tones and science fiction epic themes like if Giorgio Moroder had been convinced to score the music for The Terminator, Children of Men or the latest Dune movies. Fresh off opening for Nox Novacula, Church Fire will be in good company here too with their own epic, emotionally vibrant, electronic dance ragers.

Plack Blague in 2023, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 08.09
What: Plack Blague w/God Save the Queens and Hex Cassette
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Plack Blague is the by now legendary industrial techno and performance artist whose on stage personal is like a leather daddy delivering queer themed bangers in a darkwave mode. Reliably entertaining and charismatic. So it’s only appropriate that God Dave the Queens is part of this show as a drag show with Noveli, Heavenly Powers, Neurotika Killz and Belle Fegore. Opening is the one man, occult EBM freakout and heavy darkwave dance music Hex Cassette who excels at provoking the audience with good-natured ribbing.

Sunday | 08.11
What: Sluice w/Fust and The Milk Blossoms
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Sluice aka Justin Edward Morris is an indie folk artist from Winston-Salem, North Carolina whose songs have a textured moodiness and freshness to them that gives the songwriter’s more pastoral musical impulses a tangible presence. His 2023 album Radial Gate is a deeply reflective set of seemingly autobiographical vignettes like a kinder, gentler Bill Callahan. Also on the bill is Durham, NC’s Fust whose music is similarly-minded in the mining personal history for creative illumination of everyday human experiences but in a more country rock mode. Opening the show are The Milk Blossoms whose tenderly rendered indie pop songs have some roots in folk but whose songs and performances have both a raw vulnerability and emotional intensity that powerfully manifest the group’s creatively poetic lyrics.

Monday | 08.12
What: Brijean w/Colloboh
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Brijean Murphy is known for her time serving as a percussionist for Mitski, Poolside and Toro Y Moi but this project with multi-instrumentalist producer Doug Stuart has resulted in entrancing, dance-music adjacent art pop. The saturated synths, ethereal vocals and layers of textured polyrhythms sound like something from a retrofuturist disco if the music being played dipped liberally into 70s disco and 2010s deep house. The duo’s new album Macro introduces even more organic percussion and bass to great effect marking the record as one of the most fascinating electronic pop releases of the year alongside that of Mount Kimbie’s The Sunset Violent.

Thursday | 08.15
What: Mac Sabbath w/Tejon Street Corner Thieves
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Mac Sabbath is celebrating 10 years of its absurd concept of doing parody covers of Black Sabbath songs with fast food-themed lyrics and fully committed stage costumes of characters not unlike some of the most well-known of McDonald’s characters. It’s a gimmick that the band has been able to sustain for a decade without admitting to being people other than the stage personae which is an accomplishment in itself in the modern era.

Friday | 08.16
What: Atmosphere w/Method Man & Redman, Deltron 3030, NOFUN! and Skratch Basitd
When: 5:30
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Atmosphere is of course the hip-hop duo from Minneapolis that were foundational figures in early alternative hip-hop and advocates for other underground artists in that style. Its eclectic and atmospheric beats and introspective lyrics are a consistently effective counterpoint to the group’s energetic and extroverted stage performances and Slug’s crowd interaction. The subject matter of the lyrics from Atmosphere have evolved in content and nuance over the years but always informed by a reflective and empathic sensibility paired with a sense of personal exploration of psychological and social issues. All along Slug and Ant have created a body of work with music that speaks to the artists’ innate curiosity and willingness to expand beyond where they’ve already been.

The Green Typewriters, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 08.16
What: The Green Typewriters, A Strange Happening and Van Death
When: 8
Where: Goosetown Tavern
Why: The Green Typewriters have become a bit of a psychedelic glam rock/indiepop mutant with their music but all for the better. The songwriting is as accessible and its sounds comforting yet mysterious and its live show colorful and friendly. A Strange Happening has always been a high concept indie rock band but its music has more of a raw and ragged Neil Young flavor recently.

Sunny Day Real Estate, photo from Subpop.com

Saturday | 08.17
What: Sunny Day Real Estate – Diary 30 year anniversary w/Kevin Devine
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Sunny Day Real Estate’s 1994 debut album Diary is one of the blueprints of the Midwest emo sound with its post-hardcore grit, raw emotional vocal style, quiet-loud dynamics and gritty melodies. Though from Seattle the band’s sound then and now was out of step with the grunge bands its label Sub Pop was known for championing. But the live band and its earnest and intense performances resonated with that realm of music and has had a lasting impact on pretty much all emo since as well as modern sheogaze and a whole swath of punk adjacent music in a way that is obvious from the moment you play a song from that first record and this show will celebrate what SDRE accomplished on Diary.

Saturday | 08.17
What: King Dunn (King Buzzo & Trevor Dunn) w/JD Pinkus
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: For this show King Dunn will perform the solo work of Buzz Osborne, the renowned guitarist and singer of Melvins with Trevor Dunn of Mr. Bungle fame on hand to provide bass duties as he did when Melvins toured as Melvins Lite a handful of years back. It’s the kind of left field move that Osborne seems to favor with Melvins always trying to do their tours a little differently and pushing into new territory in performance and songwriting. Osborne didn’t get to tour behind his 2020 solo album Gift of Sacrifice and there’s a good chance a lot of people haven’t seen the music from 2014’s This Machine Kills Artists live and the more acoustic guitar-driven songwriting from an artist perhaps most well known for some of the heaviest guitar rock in the modern era.

Barns Courtney, photo courtesy the artist

Tuesday | 08.20
What: The Struts w/Barns Courtney
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: The Struts are a band from the UK that rode that wave of retro glam rock revival that began in the early 2010s and garnered hit singles along the way. Luke Spiller early on having done his level best to tap into that Freddy Mercury sound. More recently the band has pivoted in a more pop-oriented style of songwriting channeled through the lens of 80s glam metal. Barns Courtney started his career in bands SleeperCell and more professionally with Dive Bella Dive until that band was hamstrung by label contracts. But those didn’t limit Courtney as a solo artist whose early singles caught the attention of audiences and garnered a recording contract. Fast forward to 2024, Courtney released his third full length Supernatural on July 19 for a record that showcases the songwriter’s commanding vocals and knack for crafting sonically rich rock songs of broad stylistic touchstones fusing acoustic and electric sounds. There is the sort of blues rock foundation there but Courtney injects the classic sounds with modern pop song sensibilities.

Tuesday | 08.20
What: Sheppard w/Seth Beamer
When: 7
Where: Moon Room at Summit Music Hall
Why: Sheppard is an indie pop trio from Brisbane, Australia that formed as a duo of siblings George and Amy Sheppard in 2009 but expanded to a six-piece by 2012 including their sister Emma on bass. In 2014 the group released its debut full-length Bombs Away and the record’s second single “Geronimo” became something of an international hit for its undeniably uplifting melodies and the kinds of song elements that invite participation among listeners including choruses pretty much anyone can sing and clap along rhythms, a hallmark of Sheppard’s songwriting in general. In 2023 the group relocated to Nashville and a year later issued its latest record Zora named for the now trio’s grandmother. It’s sounds are more atmospheric but the album is the kind of life-affirming/celebrating work that could be cloying but the songwriting finds Sheppard growing beyond where it has been before and its melodies undeniably infectious.

Wednesday | 08.21
What: Roselit Bone w/George Cessna and Fly Janet
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Portland, Oregon’s Roselit Bone writes darkly dramatic songs like a noir version of country music with deep mood and a touch of psychedelia. So it’s a good pairing to have George Cessna on the bill with his own thought-provoking, dusky country in its own existential and cosmic mode. Denver’s Fly Janet will bring the spooky surf-spaghetti Western Americana.

Thursday | 08.22
What: Car Microwave, The Milk Blossoms and mLady
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Kansas City-based indie folk band Car Microwave released its latest record Photo Album in 2023. Its delicately rendered musicianship and vulnerable vocals have an underlying emotional strength that gives the music a charmingly earnest quality reminiscent somehow of both 10,000 Maniacs and one of Mary Timony’s bands or even in moments of Throwing Muses. One might be tempted to call The Milk Blossoms and indie folk band but with it too there is a poetry to the lyrics that more than hint at a more experimental creativity and there is a passionate delivery of the music that imbues even its most beautifully fragile moments with a vibrant emotionality.

Friday | 08.23
What: Acidbat album release w/Lanx Borealis and Church Fire at Glob
When: 8
Where: Glob
Why: Acidbat aka Seth Ogden celebrates the release of his latest album Empty Vial (out on Witchcat records) at this show feature other Denver luminaries of electronic and dance music. The new record is a further evolution of Ogden’s sonically rich and playful, psychedelic techno and ambient compositions using almost if not entirely analog synth sources. Lanx Borealis creates what might be described as ambient pop at least as far as her 2024 EP Released It seems to reveal. But think something darker with more grit but imbued with a sense of the fanciful. Church Fire is the now legendary industrial dance band with strong political content that while polemical doesn’t lack for creativity and a healthy sense of fun and humor. It is cathartic music that doesn’t skimp on the intellectual and socially critical element either.

Friday | 08.23
What: Ghost Canyon Fest Night 1: Noun, Lung, BleakHeart, Ex Everything and Cherry Spit
When: 6
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Every night of Ghost Canyon Fest features some of the best weird and experimental rock and not-rock bands/artists operating today. This night kicks off with post-hardcore, thorny shoegaze locals Cherry Spit. Ex Everything will provide scathing and thrilling critiques of the prevailing order of things with its angular noise rock. BleakHeart’s dark, epic dream pop will provide the paradoxical chill and vibrant emotional expressions for the night. Lung’s fusion of punk, blues and classical sensibilities delivered with its raw energy will be a good pairing to come on the stage before Noun closes the night as the vehicle for former Screaming Females frontwoman Marissa Paternoster’s solo songwriting. The project dates to before Screaming Females formed in 2005 and over the years the songwriter has released Noun albums including the gritty and entrancing dream pop of the 2021 album Peace Meter.

Saturday | 08.24
What: Ghost Canyon Fest Matinee Show: Flaming Tongues Above, Lake Mary and Matt Talbot
When: 1
Where: Mutiny Information Cafe
Why: Flaming Tongues Above is the solo project of Amos Helvey who has been in various local bands over the years including American Culture, Destiny Bond and Angel Band. This is more a kind of cosmic bluegrass thing with exquisitely intricate musicianship. Lake Mary is the long-running project of Chaz Prymek whose compositions solo or with various collaborators is an embodiment of the spirit of improvisation and the pastoral sides of the American landscape and consciousness. Matt Talbot’s introspective, ambient slowcore minimalism is elegantly composed slices of tranquility in practice. Some may know him better as the lead singer and guitarist of Hum.

Saturday | 08.24
What: Ghost Canon Fest: Replica City, Stress Palace, Nightosphere, Ghostlike, Aseethe, Jaye Jayle, Wolf Eyes
When: 6
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Replica City is an angular post-punk band from Denver whose atmospheric shimmer contains as much urgency and menace. Stress Palace is a noise rock band from Kansas City, the kind with caustic and desperate vocals and seething, suspended guitar when it’s not gouging the air alongside pummeling percussion. Nightosphere also from KC is a darkly slowcore project that some may be tempted to call dream pop but it’s a little too gloomy and noisy for that and more for fans of the likes of Flooding and Unwound’s more atmospheric moments. Ghostlike hails from Lincoln, Nebraska and its dense drifts of tone are in the region of shoegaze but more slow-moving like a post-metal band with unconventional melodies. Aseethe’s brooding, crushing doom metal sounds like colossal weather patterns struggling with each other until the vocals come in and then it’s like a possessed person for an effect akin to Neurosis gone more grindcore. Its 2024 album The Cost is brimming with the purge of negative emotions transformed into transcendent heaviness. Jaye Jayle is the solo project of Young Widows’ Evan Patterson who brings to this project a sensibility of mystical, experimental, tribal folk. Wolf Eyes is of course the legendary noise improv band from Detroit who have been prolifically exploring the possibilities of the use of sound since 1996. Now a duo of Nate Young and John Olson Wolf Eyes has always bucked the perception of noise being just harsh noise and mere chaos for the sake of putting off normies. There is an odd accessibility to the work of Wolf Eyes that is more like an unpretentious art that live has always been compelling and unlike anything much else even of previous performances and thus more in the vein of early Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle.

Saturday | 08.24
What: Alvvays w/The Beths
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Something about Canadian pop band Alvvays has always set it apart from being just an indie pop band or shoegaze or psychedelic. Its melodies drift and warp in sometimes unpredictable directions off so that Alvvays consistently has a quality of unpredictability and inspired imperfection though its tone is coherent and entrancing. Out the gates with its self-titled debut the band started garnering a bit of a cult following for its emotionally rich vocals and layered, atmospheric guitar and poetic and sharply observed lyrics. The most recent Alvvays album Blue Rev proved that the quartet is as capable of captivating twee sounds as robust guitar rock and live something about the band seems to exude a kind of mystique most bands can’t muster.

Saturday | 08.24
What: Dad Bod w/Oruã and Totem Pocket
When: 5
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Dad Bod is a psychedelic pop band from Salt Lake City that seems steeped on folk rock of the 70s. Oruã is like if a great modern jazz band decided to start doing a garage rock version of krautrock and came off a little like a bedroom version of a psychedelic rock band from Texas but just a little weirder. Totem Pocket rides the line well between 2010’s psych rock and shoegaze.

Nina Nastasia, photo courtesy the artist

Sunday | 08.25
What: Ghost Canyon Fest: Animal Bite, Fainting Dreams, Bear Claw, Missouri Executive Order 44, Nina Nastasia and Young Widows
When: 6
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: The final night of Ghost Canyon Fest begins with a set from Casper, Wyoming’s mutant, heavy, psychedelic noise rock quartet Animal Bite. Fainting Dreams is now like the opposite image of its more dream pop beginnings, more thorny, more sonically pointed yet also moody and an intense release of tangled emotions. Bear Claw is a two bass and one drum set outfit from Chicago whose jagged and clipped dynamics range widely and akin to the likes of Mclusky and yet one gets the impression that at least one person in the band is into Failure. Missouri Executive Order 44 may or may not be based out of the Missouri side of Kansas City. But its post-hardcore, math-y riffs and mischievously surreal song titles suggest metalcore roots before the members discovered the Butthole Surfers.

Nina Nastasia is the critically acclaimed songwriter currently based in Seattle who grew up in Hollywood but moved to New York before making a name for herself as a gifted musical artist who worked throughout much of her career recording with Steve Albini. Due to years of abuse by her then partner, Nastasia left music in 2010 before returning to writing and releasing songs Her return to releasing music was the 2022 album Riderless Horse, an album or tender sounds and textures but whose subjects are a rich tapestry of the evocation of love, despair, loss, and finding moments of joy and humor in the great sprawl of life especially when you’ve been suppressing your creative gifts and now finding your vehicle of expression once again free of former limitations. The album charts the aftermath of the death of Nastasia’s former partner in 2020 and her own rediscovery of being able to write music with integrity after around a decade of finding herself unable to do so. It’s a record of rare beauty and deep personal insight that while bearing the hallmarks of going through periods of personal darkness ends up being an uplifting record and a declaration of self-empowerment. While writing and recording that record, Nastasia was simultaneously crafting the songs that would comprise the 2023 self-titled debut album by Jolie Laide, a duo with Nastasia and Jeff MacLeod. Both records have a noir quality in the nuance of emotional expression and entrancing moods that have a cinematic quality that one might compare favorably to Lana Del Rey and Cat Power.

Young Widows from Louisville, Kentucky formed following the dissolution of influential post-hardcore band Breather Resist. Young Widows’ own music was in a post-hardcore vein with roaring guitar sounds and crushing rhythms. But its musical ideas stretch out the sounds into unpredictable shapes a little more and its lyrics often depict the world as we know it, not inaccurately, as a place of great perils and challenges.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday | 08.26, 08.27 and 08.28
What: Khruangbin
When: 7 (each night)
Where: Mission Ballroom (08.26) and Red Rocks (08.27 and 08.28)
Why: Houston’s Khruangbin is a trio that may have absorbed the surf and garage psych influences that were shaping a good swath of rock music in the 2010s but all along the group also employed non-standard rhythms and elements of dub, funk and non-western musical forms into its sound. Its latest album A La Sala (2024) is more mellow than one might have expected and yet it’s perfectly in line with the energy Khruangbin has tapping into for years with the mood of a chill disco lounge in a retrofuturist cosmopolitan city near the beach.

Monday | 08.26
What: HIDE w/Mirrored Fatality, Bent and aeonexit
When: 7
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: HIDE is the industrial noise punk duo from Chicago that has been releasing some of the most pointed and cathartic music of the past several years critical of the worst aspects of our culture and civilization. Its live performances are confrontational and not for the faint of heart or the easily spooked. And just from the raw intensity of the the band especially vocalist Heather Gabel’s seeming embodiment of the collective outrage of the oppressed and of the abused world challenging the foundations of power. Bent is an industrial noise project from Colorado Springs with a similar aesthetic and ethos. Mirrored Fatality is a brilliant, darkwave industrial hyperpop duo that produces scathing yet danceable critiques of late capitalism and its corrosive effects on us all. And aeonexit has long been producing experimental electronic music in forms that are as cohesive as they are eclectic, as structured and as coherent as they are intuitive and amorphous. Its in the realm of noisy ambient but even at its most darkly menacing has a gentleness that renders the music inviting rather than forbidding.

Bikini Kill circa 1995-1996, photo by Lisa Darms

Tuesday | 08.27
What: Bikini Kill w/Sweeping Promises
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Bikini Kill is the legendary feminist punk band originally from Olympia, Washington that in part inspired the riot grrrl movement and a branch of third wave feminism. The group was part of a community of like-minded artists of various types and not just musical and often lost in the projected hype is how Bikini Kill’s music while a vehicle for an important perspective was also thrilling and exciting with performances that helped show other women how you could be a member of a powerful band or something else cool and important and reclaim and own your power regardless of your role in life without having it be contingent upon what a man would have to say or the conventional social mores of mainstream society with its baked in misogyny. That was an important message and example to set even when the band split in 1998 but oddly just as relevant when the band reconvened in 2019 at a time when the then president’s influence on society seemed to expose deep currents of American racism, misogyny and xenophobia. Bikini Kill had to cancel its 2020 tour for obvious reasons but making up for it at a time that feels like yet another too soon cultural crossroads for the USA.

Thursday | 08.29
What: Lamb of God & Mastodon w/Kerry King and Malevolence
When: 7
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Lamb of God formed in 1994 and Mastodon in 2000 in Richmond, Virginia and Atlanta, Georgia respectively. That was a time when metal other than Metallica and “nü metal” was largely relegated to the underground. But both groups evolved and built up a strong following that has all but broken into the mainstream. Lamb of God has generally written music in a groove metal vein but its 2022 album Omens leans into the harder-edged and at times sounds like its members have been influenced by crossover thrash with lyrics reflecting the state of the world seemingly on the edge of environmental collapse and the rise of global authoritarianism. The band has teased the release of a new album and you may hear some of the new material at this show. Mastodon tends to be more psychedelic and melodic in its sound with progressive rock structures and diversity in rhythms. Its own most recent album Hushed and Grim is like a anthology of haunted and spooky stories utilized to discuss personal struggle in a way accessible and more creative than something more straightforward. Kerry King is one of the former guitarists of Slayer who released his debut solo album From Hell I Rise in 2024.

Friday | 08.30
What: Alternative TentaclesFEST hosted by Jello Biafra: Tsunami Bomb, Kultur Shock, Wheelchair Sports Camp and Dead Pioneers
When: 6
Where: Levitt Pavilion
Why: Legendary record label Alternative Tentacles headed by former Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra is having a festival in Colorado featuring various acts on the label. Tsunami Bomb from Petaluma, California is a pop punk band with keyboards so it’s sound is decidedly different from other bands in that vein. Seattle’s Kultur Shock is a self-styled gypsy punk band that sounds more like Grazhdanskaya Oborona and its eclectic and experimental leanings than Gogol Bordello. Wheelchair Sports Camp is the great hip-hop group from Denver with the charismatic Kalyn Heffernan as the MC and contributors who are most often musicians with serious jazz chops. Dead Pioneers is a heavily political punk band from Denver but with a wry sense of humor that keeps the music from feeling didactic.

Friday | 08.30
What: Daniel Rachel Appearance Promoting Too Much Too Young: The 2Tone Records Story
When: 6 (start time)
Where: Tattered Cover (Colfax)
Why: Acclaimed and prolific writer and journalist Daniel Rachel saw the 2024 US publication of his 2023 book Too Much Too Young: The 2Tone Records Story, a non-fiction history of the influential but relatively short lived record label that helped launch modern ska into international consciousness and the careers of the likes of founders The Specials as well as The Selecter, Madness, The Beat and others. It is part oral history and part narrative and a compelling read particularly since Rachel was able to interview or find quotes from almost all of the major figures in the history of that music and movement. This event will be hosted by Queen City Sounds and Art writer and editor Tom Murphy whose own work has appeared in publications such as Westword, The Onion A.V. Club, Dagger Zine, Birdy, Denverse and Tidal HIFI.

Daniel Rachel, photo courtesy the author

Friday | 08.30
What: X
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Influential Los Angeles punk band X is doing one final tour in conjunction with the release of one final album so if you’ve ever wanted to see the pioneering poetry, punk and Americana band definitely make it to this show. They may swing back through before retiring the band but maybe not.

Friday | 08.30
What: Isadora Eden, Pill Joy and May Be Fern
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Dark dream pop band Isadora Eden has a rare headlining show at the Hi-Dive ahead of taking some time off to work on its next record. Also on the bill are all non-male funk band May Be Fern and the excellent slacker pop shoegaze group Pill Joy.

Pleasure Prince, photo courtesy the artists

Saturday | 8.31
What: Pleasure Prince w/Sunstoney, DeEt ta Jain
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Pleasure Prince is releasing its new album General Pallor at this show. The project is the duo of Lilly Scott and William Duncan whose eclectic background and musical chops prior to this project has yielded a strong body of creative work that blurs the line between avant-garde electronic music and ambient, techno, hip-hop, jazz, downtempo and dream pop. The new record further reveals the band’s knack for innovative songwriting with hazy atmospheres layered with those more vivid. As vocalists both Scott and Duncan complement each other well in delivering thoughtful lyrics and a deep sense of tranquility. The songs from the new album is like a fusion of neo soul and krautrock-flavored chillwave and a welcome respite from living in interesting times.

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond July 2024

Monday | 07.01
What: Blushing w/Wave Decay and Cherished
When: 7
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Austin-based shoegaze band Blushing recently released its latest album Sugarcoat with its blast of melodiously gritty and ethereal pop. Its flares of tone and anchored rhythms lend the group a dynamic that has an undeniable power on its recordings but even more so in the live setting where the band seems to have a an expansively friendly energy. Opening the show are krautrock/shoegaze band Wave Decay from Denver and the emotionally charged dream pop of Cherished also from the Mile High City.

Tuesday | 07.02
What: The Church and The Afghan Whigs w/Ed Harcourt
When: 6
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Both The Church and The Afghan Whigs could headline a tour of their own. The Church made its initial splash in the 80s with records that infused post-punk with psychedelic guitar rock color and thoughtful lyrics anticipating in its songcraft dream pop and shoegaze. Fortunately The Church continued to evolve as artists with records going into its later era that are among its most creatively fascinating including the twin albums The Hypnogogue (2023) and Eros Zeta and the Perfumed Guitars (2024), concept albums about a future not so far in which the struggle to find meaning persists in human society and the psyche despite developments in technology and the evolution of human culture in an age of techno-globalism. The Afghan Whigs seamlessly melded R&B and post-punk for a hybrid sound that predated and helped to define alternative rock in the 90s but with a sound and songwriting style that has aged better than a lot of music of the era. Greg Dulli has seemed able to write songs about love and relationships and his own inner turmoil with passion and poetic insight since the band’s early days. Live both bands seem very capable of bringing you into a heightened emotional space shakes off the regular world for the duration. Listen to our interview with The Church’s Ian Haug here.

Winnetka Bowling League, photo by Paige Sara

Tuesday | 07.02
What: Winnetka Bowling League w/Emi Grace
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf
Why: Winnetka Bowling League recently released its debut full-length Sha La La. Nevermind that for some listeners will be reminded immediately of The War on Drugs’ sweeping Americana psychedelia and the warm low end and ethereal melodies of first wave chillwave it’s a set of songs that has some poignant commentary on life in America with vivid set pieces in the lyrics that will be familiar to anyone that has lived through America since the 2010s and paid attention either because you were growing up in that time or observant and aware of the psychological climate of the time. It’s sonically rich indiepop for the time we’re in and its nostalgia-tinged lyrics honor both a flickering yet irrepressible sense of hope for the future and the wry acknowledgment that we could all be doomed given the political, ecological and cultural climate of the world.

Thursday | 07.04
What: King Rat 30 Year Anniversary w/Black Dots, These Kids Today, Anti-Formula and Terror Attack
When: 5
Where: EastFax Tap
Why: King Rat has had a bit of a storied existence across its three decades as a band and its melodic punk and dabbling with roots rock has remained consistently worthwhile with well crafted lyrics and a compelling live show. They play at 10 so all the “adults” in attendance can make it to the show after family obligations and home early enough in case they have to work one of those jobs that don’t give adults the day after a national holiday falling on a Thursday, Friday off.

Thursday | 07.04
What: TV Star, Angel Band, Cherry Spit and DJ Ryan Wong
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: TV Star is a jangle psych pop band from Seattle that sounds like it is tapping into 70s power pop and late 80s college rock like the later period of Paisley Underground acts like Game Theory, Let’s Active and Opal. Angel Band is coming from a similar sonic cauldron and indie pop. Cherry Spit, though, is a gouge the lightning from the skies noise rock outfit that includes former members of Quits and Endless, Nameless.

Friday | 07.05
What: Glass Spells w/Hex Cassette
When: 8
Where: HQ
Why: Glass Spells is a darkwave synthpop band from San Diego that has been making music with a clear leg in 80s New Wave and post-punk but more the modern approach bringing together influences, direct or indirect, from electroclash and Nu Disco/Italo disco as well as touches of Latin music rhythms. Opening is the synthwave deathcult performance art act Hex Cassette whose high energy shows make you part of the proceedings with some friendly but intense cajoling. And it all wouldn’t matter too much if his songs weren’t also worthwhile on their own separate from the stagecraft.

Saturday | 07.06
What: The Picture Tour, CELICA, Up Yours People
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: The Denver Goth scene hasn’t embraced The Picture Tour yet but it should because Billy Armijo and his bandmates have crafted the perfect fusion of shoegaze and moody post-punk. It has too much grit to be the kind of sadcore dad rock you might expect from Denver music scene veterans including Armijo who is the former lead guitarist of Emerald Siam. The guitar tones are searing and soaring yet imbued with enough melancholic melody and atmosphere to sound like a soundtrack to autumn. Up Yours People includes former members of Boss 302 and it is a mutant version of garage punk but noisier and more grimy and aggressive than one might expect even from past projects of the members of the band.

Sarah Shook & The Disarmers, photo by Harvey Robinson

Wednesday | 07.10
What: Sarah Shook & The Disarmers w/Alana Mars and DJ Jake Luna
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Sarah Shook & The Disarmers have been one of the more acclaimed bands in the broad realm of Americana of the past several years. On March 29, 2024 the group released its latest album Revelations on Thirty Tigers. The record isn’t short on the charm and warmth that has made the band’s previous releases so accessible and inviting and this time there seems to be a defiant spirit to the lyrics rejecting being defined by others and engaging in active self-discovery while finding some meaning in establishing healthy boundaries.

Diles Que No Me Maten, photo from Bandcamp

Friday | 07.12
What: Diles Que No Me Maten w/Wave Decay and Pink Lady Monster
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Presumably named after Juan Rulfo’s 1951 story of the same name Diles Que No Me Maten (which means “Tell Them Not to Kill Me”), this Mexico City-based band on the surface is a psychedelic folk group but he further one delves into its body of work you hear elements of dub and art rock with an ear for ambient soundscapes. More akin to the like of The Legendary Pink Dots than a modern psych rock band. Its most recent album Obrigaggi (2023) is a hushed and entrancing listening journey. Wave Decay is the Denver-based shoegaze/psychedelic rock band with far better than average tonal richness. Pink Lady Monster might be described as a No Wave-esque art rock and performance art band and a can’t miss act from Denver for the discerning music fan.

Saturday | 07.13
What: Pallbearer w/Inter Arma and The Keening
When: 7
Where: The Gothic Theatre
Why: Pallbearer’s 2024 album Mind Burns Alive has been a long time coming and its first since 2020’s Forgotten Days. The doom metal band from Little Rock, Arkansas has always been a cut above and more interesting than many of its peers because its music has had complex melodic arrangements and particularly on the new record a widely dynamic vocal harmonies. The new album apparently represented the group being together in the same city after a prolonged time apart. The heaviness of the album taps into concept that the themes and emotional content are what makes for the heaviest of moods and its sometimes psychedelic guitar excursions resonate with what peers like Amenra have been up to of late. Opening the show is former SubRosa guitarist/vocalist Rebecca Vernon and her The Keening project and her own flavor of transcendent, ambient doom.

Saturday | 07.13
What: Kontravoid w/French Kettle Station, Modern Devotion and Kill You Club DJs
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: For over a decade Cameron Findlay has been writing and release music as Kontravoid. With heavy, pulsating, industrial beats and dense and murky synths the project with Findlay performing in a white mask in theater style Kontravoid has offered a kind of dance music that draws upon the likes of classic EBM, the creative production style of Meat Beat Manifesto and techno. The latest album Detachment includes vocal contributions from Nuovo Testamento singer Chelsey Crowley. Opening the show are Denver acts French Kettle Station and his own fusion of glitch, electronic dance pop and performance art and Modern Devotion’s minimal techno.

Thursday | 07.18
What: Quasi w/Jeffrey Lewis
When: 7
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: Quasi is the rock duo comprised of Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss. The former some may know from his time in Heatmiser with Elliott Smith. The latter was the long time drummer of Sleater-Kinney and Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks and one of the truly great live drummers of the current era. After years of being inactive Quasi released Breaking the Balls of History in 2023 on Sub Pop and a set of songs that showcase the band’s gift for fusing punk and bombastic art rock. Jeffrey Lewis is the eccentric punk musician and visual artist whose songs are punk in spirit but not in the predictable way musically—just a disregard for convention of genre and expectation of subject matter like a one man They Might Be Giants.

Th and S | 07.18 and 07.20
What: AJR w/mxmtoon and Dean Lewis
When: 6
Where: Ball Arena
Why: AJR is the trio from NYC comprised of Adam Met, Jack Met and Ryan Met (thus the name, the last name truncated from Metzger) who are all vocalists and multi-instrumentalists and all are involved in the songwriting that’s a hybrid of hip-hop, indie pop and some elements of hyper pop and Americana. Opening the show is multi-media artist and folk bedroom pop artist mxmtoon who propelled herself into the public eye with her use of social media from a young age sharing her visual art and early songwriting with ukulele on a YouTube channel she started at age 13. Her soulful vocals help to set her music apart from what some may assume to be her natural peers and her songwriting demonstrates a poetically thoughtful perspective that takes on the usual subjects of the struggles of youth and looming adulthood with creativity. Add her imaginative production and free association of musical styles into a coherent one of her own and mxmtoon is easily one of the most interesting pop artists now more than flirting with mainstream success.

A Strange Happening in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 07.19
What: A Strange Happening, Plague Pitted Moon, Penny Auction
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Plague Pitted Moon is a psychedelic doom band from Rapid City that recently released its 2024 self-titled EP. Its dark, distorted drones are like a grittier, more metal-inspired shoegaze band. Penny Auction from Casper, Wyoming is similarly minded but generally more noisy and menacing like if someone that listened to a lot of Sonic Youth, Big Black and My Dad Is Dead decided to start a band that was more lo-fi than even all of that. A Strange Happening is basically an indie rock band if its members were all nerds for old radio serial programming and psychedelic garage rock but skipped on the 2010s version of that sort of thing and essentially a weird band that writes accessible music.

Saturday | 07.20
What: The Roots w/Digable Planets
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: The Roots are a band that early on adopted using live jazz instrumentation into its brand of hip-hop setting it apart from most of its peers especially when it launched in 1987. Stylistically Digable Planets shared eclectic and jazz and R&B rooted sensibilities when it too formed in 1987. Both projects have roots in Philadelphia though Digable Planets first came to prominence when it was based in Brooklyn. Both outfits released their respective debut albums in 1993 on major record labels with a follow up in 1995. Digable Planets split for a decade after the release of that album, the deep mood jazz psychedelia-infused Blowout Comb, while The Roots continued to build its cult following into relative mainstream success even before it became the official house band for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon in 2009. Big ups for the 2011 Michele Bachman incident. Although it hasn’t released a new album in nearly 30 years Digable Planets began its latest run as a live band in 2015 and The Roots for its own part hasn’t offered a new record since 2014 but both have proven themselves as vital live bands whose sounds and ideas have helped to shape the aesthetics of much of the modern hip-hop that dares to break the mold of standard and well worn ideas with imagination and a willingness to think of their own music beyond tradition and established style.

Saturday and Sunday | 07.20 and 07.21
What: Daikaiju and TripLip w/Pink Lady Monster (07.20) and Big Canned Ham (07.21)
When: 7pm both nights
Where: The Matchbox (07.20) and The Squire Lounge (07.21)
Why: Daikaiju is the legendary psychedelic surf rock band with truly exciting live shows with fire and breaking the audience and performer wall by making an entire venue a potential stage. TripLip could be described as a progressive surf rock punk band but really art rock in the more playful 90s vein and truly not easily put into any genre box though a perfect band to play with Daikaiju. Pink Lady Monster is the charismatic and enigmatic No Wave post-punk/art rock band from Denver. Big Canned Ham is sort of a psychedelic art rock funk band that apparently didn’t see some reason not to fuse Pink Floyd, Primus and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum.

Tuesday | 07.23
What: The Decemberists w/Ratboys
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: The Decemberists have long been one of the quintessential indie rock bands of the 2000s and beyond with its penchant for eclectic instrumentation, folkloric, literary lyrics and a sound that dips into Americana and chamber pop. Plenty of shade has been thrown the band’s way for being pretentious in its theatrical presentation, its often somewhat nerdy subject matter and the baroque aesthetic of its cover art yet it’s refreshing to see a band put that much effort into the small details of its music from its performances to the way its music greets the world separate from the live context. Not to mention the creative ambition to pull it all off and to establish a body of work with layers of meaning and nuance. The band’s latest album As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again (2024) sounds like a descendant of jangle rock and 80s indiepop as embodied by groups out of the Paisley Underground and the southeastern part of the USA like The Windbreakers, Let’s Active and The db’s.

Tuesday | 07.23
What: Facet, Moon Pussy, Abandons and Wingwalker
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Facet is the Oakland-based, noisy post-hardcore band whose self-titled 2023 album is half Amphetamine-Reptile-artist-esque atonal madness and DC post-punk. Fitting Denver’s own noise rock weirdo geniuses Moon Pussy are sharing the bill along with instrumental art doom trio Abandons and heavy, angular post-punk trio Wingwalker.

Tuesday | 07.23
What: Ben Howard w/John Francis Flynn
When: 7
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: You don’t need any kind of background on the artist or the making of the album to get something out of Ben Howard’s 2023 album Is It? The singer-songwriter whose career stretches back to the late 2000s suffered two mini-strokes in 2022 which initiated some lifestyle changes and the subsequent album which in some ways charts his creative coming to terms with and working through his life changes isn’t just introspective in expected ways the music is richly detailed and flows with a seemingly organic flow of electronic and not so electronic elements that is instantly engaging and is resonant with recent offerings from Mount Kimbie. The songs are illuminating and tender, emotionally vivid and Howard’s vocals, processed or otherwise, shine with a gentle warmth. The record is the artists magnum opus.

Wednesday | 07.24
What: Easy Honey w/Sex Wacks and Welcome Back
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Charleston, South Carolina-based Easy Honey originally started in Sewanee, Tennessee and have cultivated a sound one more often associates with the mood and energy of a psychedelic pop band from the opposite side of the country. But in its songwriting one hears threads of influence beyond obvious touchstones. There is a power pop sensibility crossed with the storytelling mode of The Kinks and the way the latter ties its captivating choruses with big, melodic hooks. There is an easygoing aspect of the music even though its wit and exuberance inform the songwriting and the performances. On July 19, 2024 the band released its new album Cupidity Unlimited and is currently on a wide touring leg in Colorado alone that began on July 7 in Buena Vista and continues through July 27 in Colorado Springs.

Friday and Saturday | 07.26 and 07.27
What: Mark Farina
When: 8
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station
Why: Mark Farina is the legendary DJ who fused house, jazz and downtempo with elements of other styles in an almost free association of beats and sounds to produce his trademark sound “mushroom jazz.” The latter hit like acid jazz mutated by left field hip-hop beats. Farina explored the inner and outer edges of that aesthetic across several releases in the Mushroom Jazz series. Farina’s eclectic, mellow but vivid production has influenced at least one generation of house and electronic dance music creatives Farina performs sets Friday and Saturday at Meow Wolf’s Convergence Station where the room’s spacious and spare accommodations seem like the right place to experience music provided by one of modern house music’s most significant artists/mixologists.

Tuesday | 07.30
What: Street Fever w/MDX View, Palace Guard, Dream Compartment
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Street Fever is the performance artist and industrial techno/EBM darkwave artist from Boise, Idaho who has a bit of an underground cult following dating back around a decade when he was a completely mysterious figure whose sets were in the realm of gritty darkwave before that became more of a thing within a few years. But more recent Street Fever shows have been more intense, seemingly more focused and heavier, harder beats perhaps heard in the most realized form on the 2024 album Absolution. The record whose themes seem to explore working through religious trauma and life under late capitalism is refreshingly not stylistically monolithic and start and has moments of sublime, melodic beauty and emotionally vibrant vocals. Live, Street Fever often brings the stage into the audience and involves those who show up in his personal catharsis.

To Be Continued…

The Milk Blossoms Release The Milk Blossoms’ New Avant Indie Pop Single “Teenager” is an Inducement to Reconnect With Your Life’s Vitality

Cover art for “Teenager” by Katie Langley

The Milk Blossoms will release its third album Open Portal on October 4, 2024 on vinyl, streaming and digital download. Open Portal is the first album to feature the band’s new lineup including Harmony Rose (vocals, ukulele, lyrics), William Overton (keys, synth), David Samuelson (electric bass) and Tyler Lindgren (drums). For the recording Zac Greenberg plays upright bass with Lindgren producing, recording, mixing and mastering the songs. Ahead of the record drop the group just released its second single “Teenager.”

The Milk Blossoms, photo courtesy the artists

“Teenager” begins with delicate textures and rhythms with ukulele and minimal percussion while Rose doesn’t reminisce so much as offers observations and thought provoking confessions with her words. The song accelerates in pace and ukulele seems to distort apace with the increasing urgency of the vocals toward the end of the song. All without losing what might be described as a vital vulnerability. Rose’s paces aren’t the standard meter of lyrics in a pop song. They seem more free verse and more intuitive in expressing the feeling and mood of the song even as she repeats the line “living like a teenager in the summer” at the end of the song after uttering the line once in the beginning. It hits like a mantra of intent, a reminder to oneself that just because you’ve gotten used to living on someone else’s schedule and according to the demands of living in the “adult” world doesn’t mean you can’t tap into what it felt like, even if naively and with the ignorance of a lack of life experience, to see the future as a place to make your fun and to dream of what to do and then do it and not be burdened by supposed practical considerations. Further if you could act without thinking overmuch about making a minor mistake or anchored by arbitrary social rules. Living like a teenager in the summer often meant for many people an open invitation to adventures and making your own fun without it having take a certain shape or be a certain way or ritualized. The lines “Glamor chandelier I’ve got a mind to escape to/what do you know about an open portal?” suggest that imagination and creativity is free to everyone who wants to escape mundane existence if they’re willing to act on it.

Growing into adulthood seems to be largely about increasing limitations that are largely arbitrary. This song appears to be an invitation, a challenge, to living outside those bounds at least once in awhile to feel alive and vital. It’s a rebel song without being try hard and thus more effective for it. Listen to “Teenager” on YouTube and follow The Milk Blossoms at the links below. Catch the band live at MCA Denver on July 19, 2024 with Dogtags, at The Skylark Lounge on August 22 with Car Microwave and mlady and at the album release show for Open Portal at the Hi-Dive on October 5 with George Cessna and Wheelchair Sports Camp.

The Milk Blossoms LinkTree

The Milk Blossoms, image courtesy the artists

Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E22: Becky Otárola of bellhoss

bellhoss, photo courtesy the artists and taken at JCPenney

Bellhoss is an indie rock band from Denver, Colorado that began in 2017 as the solo act of Becky Otárola that grew to a full band within a couple of years. The songwriter came up in Southern California immersed in folk and bluegrass and underground music of the 90s and 2000s. Otárola moved to Denver in the first half of the 2010s and in the early days of the project she played open mics at Syntax Physic Opera and as perhaps a natural progression from there fell in with the local indie scene and as the band developed so did the songwriting and by the time of the release of the 2019 EP Geraniums bellhoss its sound had taken on aspects of slowcore with delicately rendered melodies and a warmth of expression reminiscent of Waxahatchee and Jay Som. With the release of the 2024 EP A Rose, a Thorn, bellhoss revealed a knack for blending vulnerable and thoughtfully observant songwriting with luminous dream pop and a bit of musical edge. 2024 also sees Otárola organizing the inaugural SarahFest, an all ages music festival designed to give a platform to female and female-fronted bands along Colorado’s Front Range taking place at The Mercury Cafe on Saturday, June 15.

Listen to our interview with Otárola on Bandcamp and follow bellhoss at the links below. Also linked is the ticket link for SarahFest.

SarahFest featuring Bellhoss, The Milk Blossoms, Luna Nuñez, Dream of Time, Gartener, Summer Bedhead, Tammy Shine, Nina De Freitas and Demigod (DJ set) at Mercury Cafe, June 15, 2024, all ages $20
6PM.

bellhoss.com

bellhoss on Facebook

bellhoss on Instagram

bellhoss on Twitter

bellhoss on YouTube

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond June 2024

**Miki Berenyi Trio perform at The Bluebird Theater on June 6, 2024, photo by V. Arbelet**

The Damned in 2018, photo by Steve Gullick

Tuesday | 06.04
What: The Damned with The Mañanas
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: The Damned were one of the foundational UK punk bands in the mid-1970s releasing that scene’s earliest single with the iconic “New Rose.” In subsequent decades the group managed to evolve and still remain a powerful and entertaining live band with a sense of theater. Though part of the first wave of punk The Damned’s raucous live show proved an enduring influence on hardcore. After numerous lineup changes the current band includes founding members Dave Vanian and Rat Scabies and Captain Sensible.

Wednesday | 06.05
What: Wand w/Supreme Joy
When: 7 PM
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Wand guitarist Cory Hanson is widely considered one of the great talents of 2010’s psychedelic rock whose solo recordings are as fascinating as anything he’s done in anyone else’s band (Ty Segall, Mikal Cronin, Meatbodies etc). But Wand is the musical vehicle that has perhaps rightfully garnered Hanson and his bandmates much deserved attention for actually making modern psychedelic rock that is more than simply adding trippy sounds and pedals to fairly standard indie rock songwriting. Its forthcoming record Vertigo (due out July 26, 2024 via Drag City) and its lead single “Smile” has all the gorgeously warm melodies and winding momentum you’d expect from Wand as well as the mind-warping soundscapes but its music video is a surreal journey from intense highs to transcendent tranquility akin to the best of Flaming Lips tracks. Though the record doesn’t come out for over a month this show will surely feature plenty of that new material as well as mind-melting classics on Wand records past. Opening the show is psychedelic post-punk Denver band Supreme Joy who opened for Cory Hanson’s solo trek through Colorado this past year.

Wednesday | 06.05
What: Abstract & Dylan Owen w/Jake Luke, FLWRS and Merch
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Rappers Abstract (Nashville) and Dylan Owens (New York) bring their tour to Lost Lake. Both artists deal in heartfelt, confessional lyrics seemingly inspired in part by 2000s alternative rap but with more modern production style. Owens’ lyrics in particular seem clearly informed by a deep exploration of music and ideas beyond what one might expect. In his song “LA FREESTYLE” he references Philip Glass and that doesn’t happen much in hip-hop.

Miki Berenyi Trio, photo courtesy V. Arbelet

Thursday | 06.06
What: Miki Berenyi Trio w/Lol Tolhurst X Budgie
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Miki Berenyi is one of the founding members of influential early shoegaze band Lush. Her unique and melodious vocals and unorthodox guitar style helped to shape the sound of the genre. With this current band Berenyi tapped an old comrade in guitarist Kevin McKillop formerly of shoegaze legends Moose to be in the lineup as well as Oliver Cherer (Gilroy Mere, Aircooled). Its early recorded music and live performances promise plenty of immersive soundscapes and otherworldly melodies. Opening the show are Lol Tolhurst who, you know, was in The Cure for years as a drummer/synth player during that band’s key years of development and Budgie, the drummer of Siouxsie & the Banshees and The Creatures and the duo has been collaborating with various musicians on a string of singles and performances so who can say what to expect this night.

Friday | 06/07
What: Takipnik, Meet the Giant, Falcon Haptics and Saint Somebody
When: 7:30
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Takipnik is a synthrock band that sounds like it draws a bit of influence from modern prog/art rock bands like Tool. Falcon Haptics are a black metal band from Fort Collins with some stoner rock leanings. Saint Somebody is an Americana band from Denver with some chamber pop flavor. Meet the Giant is a trio that completely blurs the line between downtempo, shoegaze and fiery alternative rock with imaginative soundscapes and top shelf electronic production fully integrated into its live sound.

Friday | 06/07
What: Ghostly Kisses w/Kroy and Mon Cher
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Margaux Sauvé is a singer-songwriter from Québec, Canada who releases music and performs under the moniker Ghostly Kisses. Her songs combine a sublime synthpop sound and orchestral indie rock. Her newly released full-length Darkroom (May 17, 2024 via Akira Records) features her beautifully breathy vocals and ethereal yet warmly executed soundscapes tied together with techno production-rooted beats and an almost classical music sensibility that at times waxes into similar realms of organic-electronic pop populated in the 90s by the likes of Everything But the Girl and other luminaries of sophistipop. Also on hand for this tour is Montreal-based, experimental pop/downtempo artist KROY and Denver’s Mon Cher which is the synth-driven musical project of producer and multi-instrumentalist Meghan Holton.

Cris Jacobs, photo by Joshua Black Wilkins

Friday and Saturday | 06.07 and 06.08
What: The Bluegrass Generals featuring Chris Pandolfi & Andy Hall, Jarrod Walker, Cris Jacobs, Emma Rose w/Twisted Pine
When: 7 both nights
Where: Cervantes’ Mastrerpiece Ballroom
Why: The Bluegrass Generals aka Chris Pandolfii & Andy Hall are putting on this even of some of the more gifted practitioners of the modern version of that style of music suggested by their shared moniker. For this edition of the event Baltimore-based roots rocker Cris Jacobs who is touring in support of his new album One Of These Days (Soundly Music). The songwriter’s expressive vocals and vivid storytelling and gift for expanding upon his stylistic foundations with imaginative arrangements has made him a favorite in his hometown and well beyond as evidenced by the invite to be part of this event with some of his more talented peers.

Saturday | 06.08
What: Dry Wedding,. Snakes, Quits and Moon Pussy
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Dry Wedding is a dark, Americana flavored post-punk band from Portland, Oregon. Its gloomy and brooding moods are shot through with bursts of nervy energy like purgings of anxiety and desperation. Ready comparisons to The Birthday Party and other Nick Cave projects are valid because it has a touch of that surreal, dark and harrowing carnival murder punk vibe. But fans of Love Life and Bambara will appreciate the band too. Snakes is a band whose music is Americana adjacent but its sound is almost as much spooky surf garage with expansive energy. Quits’ portraits of a conflicted and desperation-wracked American life are as inherently Americana as anything dubbed so even if its distorted, discordant sonic gyrations and burns are noise rock gold. Moon Pussy should be mandatory listening for anyone wanting a quick and thrilling escape from Mile High City Yuppie Normie bullshit.

American Culture in 2018, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 06.08
What: American Culture album release w/Wave Decay, Cherry Spit, Dirt Filled and Flaming Tongues Above
When: 7
Where: D3 Arts
Why: American Culture’s latest, and greatest, album Hey Brother, It’s Been Awhile is a self-redemption arc fable not just on a personal level but for a society that has lost its way more than most individuals ever will. The music is a step away from the inspired and earnest indiepop of some of the group’s earlier efforts and has all the hallmarks of 90s Britpop, modern dream-pop-adjacent shoegaze and production driven dub. It’s a unique record in a time of many imitators and vibe hoppers. Wave Decay is a shoegaze act with foundations in krautrock and noise rock. Cherry Spit splits the difference between post-hardcore, noise rock and aggressive shoegaze and shapes it into electrifying live performances. Flaming Tongues Above is the solo, singer-songwriter project of former American Culture and current Destiny Bond guitarist Amos Helvey.

Death to All, photo courtesy the artists

Saturday | 06.08
What: Death to All (Scream Bloody Gore in its entirety) w/Cryptopsy
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Death is one of the most influential bands in all of heavy metal and one of the earliest death metal bands. The group split for the final time in 2001 with the untimely passing of guitar wizard and frontman Chuck Schuldiner. Death to All is a tribute to the legacy of the group and includes former members of the like drummer Gene Hoglan (who has been one of the most important musicians in modern metal), bassist Steve DiGiorgio and guitarist Bobby Koelble joined by Max Phelps who some may know from his time in Obscura and Cynic. So the line-up is solid and filled with gifted musicians in the artform. For this tour the group will perform two nights. This first night it will play the entire 1987 debut album Scream Bloody Gore with some choice classics from Leprosy and Spiritual Healing.

Saturday | 06.08
What: PVRIS w/Pale Waves and Sizzy Rocket
When: 6
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: PVRIS is the electro-pop band from Lowell, Massachusetts that has come a long way since its early metalcore days as Operation Guillotine. And for the better. Its uplifting and triumphant songs about life and love delivered with no small degree of emotionally charged vocals and ethereal melodies has struck an enduring chord with fans. Sizzy Rocket seems to produce pop songs with undeniable hooks but about being very accepting of what other people might perceive as your flaws especially if you’re really just not a polite society conformist. Pale Waves is a pop rock band from Manchester, UK that’s a little challenging to pin down to some simple subgenre. Its bright melodies and rich arrangements somehow tie in a bit of post-punk grit and style with modern indie pop. Its visual presence and attitude bears all the marks of a darkwave band but one that isn’t ashamed of embracing a love for mainstream pop without giving up lyrics that aim for emotional authenticity.

Sunday | 06.09
What: Death to All (The Sound of Perseverance in its entirety) w/Cryptopsy
When: 6
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: This second night of Death to All will be a performance of the final Death album 1998’s progressive death metal masterpiece The Sound of Perseverance along with favorites from Human, Individual Thought Patterns and Symbolic.

Quintron and Miss Pussycat in 2015, photo by Tom Murphy

Tuesday | 06/11
What: Quintron & Miss Pussycat w/Mr. Pacman
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Going to a Quintron and Miss Pussycat show is a bit like going to an adult version of a weekday kids’ show with the surreal sounds and imagery and often an elaborate live puppet show as part of the act. The music bridges the gap of psychedelic garage rock and the avant-garde/noise. Mr. Pacman similarly preserves a mystique of the weird with its members in costume like a band from a long lost video game show of the 90s but with music that is synth punk with actual edge and intensity.

Wednesday | 06.12
What: The Chameleons perform Strange Times w/Missing and FashionNation DJ Eli
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: The legendary, Manchester post-punk band The Chameleons will perform its 1986 classic Strange Times in its entirety. The band’s perfect fusion of electronic and rock aesthetics with emotionally charged and existential lyrics as well as its masterful guitar work anticipating the sound of shoegaze in the 90s has proven influential across decades and this incarnation of the band includes original singer Mark Burgess and guitarist Reg Smithies so expect more than a little of the magic of the group’s classic material.

Friday | 06.14
What: LABRYS w/Tiny Tomboy and Isadora Eden
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: LABRYS is the songwriting vehicle for Oklahoma City-based Penny Pitchlynn and the sounds heard on the project’s 2024 album 10:10 has a brooding grit like PJ Harvey gone psychedelic blues garage. Tiny Tomboy is a Denver based indie band whose delicate songwriting is reminiscent of Soccer Mommy’s brash vulnerability and ear for finely sculpted guitar melodies. Isadora Eden’s introspective and soulful dream pop has a gentle feel even as the lyrics often give voice to intrusive thoughts and dark musings captured in imaginative songwriting.

Saturday | 06.15
What: SarahFest
When: 5 doors, 6 show
Where: The Mercury Cafe
Why: This inaugural edition of SarahFest showcases some of the most noteworthy female or female fronted acts from Colorado’s Front Range including bellhoss, The Milk Blossoms, Luna Nuñez, Dream of Time, Gartener, Nina de Freitas, Summer Bedhead, Tammy Shine and DJ Demigod (Demi Harvey). Listen to our interview with organizer Becky Otárola of bellhoss here.

Saturday | 06.15
What: Morgan Garrett, Purity LP tour w/Many Blessings, Fossil Fuel and Head Slug
When: 8
Where: Glob
Why: Morgan Garrett recently released the new album Purity through Orange Milk Records and further cemented the artist’s reputation for genre bursting weirdness that happen to form into coherent songs with a unique and haunting emotional resonance whether it’s the abstract industrial noise metal or organically flowing anti-folk acoustic ambient. Also on hand are Denver noiseniks including Many Blessings, the harsh noise side project of Ethan McCarthy who many may know from his being in legendary doom death grind trio Primitive Man.

Sunday | 06.16
What: DIIV w/Sasami and Glixen
When: 7
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: DIIV is the New York City band that helped to re-popularize shoegaze in the early 2010s with the release of its 2012 album Oshin. It wasn’t merely imitative but its own take and sound in an established genre which is something not nearly enough bands accomplish. And so DIIV has never seemed simply derivative. Its new album Frog In Boiling Water is a deep commentary on what if feels like to live in the end stages of capitalism and how sometimes the despair at what we could have done as a civilization but seem to continue to fail to do to alleviate the inevitable destruction and suffering ahead of us in terms of the environment, economic collapse and political collapse can be deeply dispiriting. But the gentle energy of the record and its richly atmospheric songwriting makes the album a standout from the group and something to witness live. Also on the bill is Sasami whose inspired genre bending songwriting has manifested as garage-y dreampop and alternative metal.

Friday | 06.21
What: Shwarma w/Cloud Catcher and Kaepora
When: 7
Where: Cervantes’ Other Side
Why: Denver’s Shwarma might be best described as a psychedelic space rock band whose players all got into Frank Zappa and Melvins along the way as well as perhaps Hawkwind. The group is celebrating the release of its new album Best Cerv’d Shwarm with this show and sharing the stage with doom metal group Cloud Catcher and prog jazz fusion bluegrass band Kaepora.

Friday | 06.21
What: d4vd – My House is Not a Home Tour w/Scott James
When: 6
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: David Anthony Burke aka d4vd has been building an audience since his earliest singles came out when he was a mere 16 years of age. But from early on the singer-songwriter’s songs demonstrated an ear for soulful melodies and freely associating a wide array of influences, not all musical, into sonically rich songs that don’t fit neatly into even broad categories of R&B, hip-hop, pop and rock. 2022’s “Romantic Homicide” and its J-horror-themed music video was a beautifully haunting song about heartbreak. His live shows proved the artist had real command of the stage and audience interaction. 2024 saw d4vd release his the single “Feel It” as part of the soundtrack season two of the animated adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s (Walking Dead), dystopian super hero comic series Invincible.

Friday | 06.21
What: Nighdrator w/Evan Kallas, Water on the Thirsty Ground, RMO and Fainting Dreams
When: 7
Where: Squirm Gallery
Why: Nighdrator is a psychedelic shoegaze doom band from Hattiesburg, Mississippi that shares membership with the great post-punk band MSPAINT. Its epic and nuanced soundscapes are cinematic in scope yet intimate in its expressions of personal challenges. Fans of SubRosa and the more shoegazey of Chelsea Wolfe’s songwriting will find much to like in Nighdrator’s arresting compositions. And so it’s only fitting that doomy shoegaze post-dream pop band Fainting Dreams is also on the bill with its thrillingly gritty soundscapes and raw catharsis.

Friday | 06.21
What: Colorado Goth Fest Pre-Party
When: 9pm-2am
Where: 715 Club
Why: This event inaugurates Colorado Goth Fest with some of the DJs who have been very much part of the local Goth scene in Denver in its more post-punk, death rock and darkwave manifestations with Precious Blood, Lord Charon, DJ BatBoy and DJ Mal Toxisk.

Plague Garden, photo courtesy the artists

Saturday | 06.22
What: Colorado Goth Fest Featuring Calabrese and Scary Black w/WitchHands, Plague Garden, Opaque Shades, Funeral Process, Thee Coroners, Redwing Blackbird and Devoratus
When: 3 doors, 4 show
Where: HQ
Why: Colorado Goth Fest returns after a long hiatus but finally in Denver. This edition puts the focus on post-punk, death rock and horror punk. The out of town headliners include Arizona-based horror punk act Calabrese and Louisville, Kentucky’s Scary Black, a one man Goth rock act like a post-punk Alabama 3. And the local line-up includes notable veterans of local darkwave and post-punk like WitchHands, Plague Garden and Redwing Blackbird and newer acts like Devoratus and its Spanish-language darkwave pop.

Saturday | 06.22
What: Ex Lover w/Twin Ion Engine, Pill Joy, Sell Farm and Kill You Club DJs
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Omaha-based Ex Lover stops in Denver for a night for a performance of her hyperpop infused darkwave dance songs. Her 2023 album Devotion mixes English and Spanish lyrics but all threaded through with soaring guitar melody and upbeat vocals. Fans of Nuovo Testamento should check out Ex Lover.

Hawthorne Heights, photo by Courtney Kiara

Monday| 06.24
What: 20 Years of Tears: Hawthorne Heights, I See Stars, Anberlin, Armor for Sleep, Emery, This Wild Life
When: 5
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: This package tour features some of the stars of 2000s and 2010s post-hardcore and emo. The latter is a genre that earned plenty of ridicule with the scene kids and their signature style of dress and hair cuts nevermind the controversies with various bands in later years. Hawthorne Heights took on that moniker in 2004 before which it operated as A Day in the Life. Even if you weren’t into emo at least Hawthorne Heights had interesting guitar work, expressive vocals (and not mostly shouting and easily parodied screaming) and a dramatic flair in its arrangements. Is it easy to trace the band’s influences? Certainly. But its music has aged better than that of many of its peers.

Tuesday | 06.25
What: The Alarm w/Jay Aston’s Gene Loves Jezebel and Belouis Some
When: 6
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: The Alarm is a post-punk/New Wave band from Wales lead since its formation by Mike Peters. The group’s lyrics and musical style bore the influence of Welsh literature and cultural tradition that it translated into songs that caught on with a much wider public than simple local cult band status. Early on the group played shows with The Fall and U2 going on to support the latter for its US War Tour in 1983. The Alarm became popular on college radio throughout the 80s while also enjoying a degree of commercial popularity as well that landed them a support slot with Bob Dylan by the end of the decade. The band’s buoyant melodies and poetic lyrics sustained a following while it was broken up between 1991 and 1999 and since the group has reconvened it has been more prolific than its first chapter in existence. Also on this bill other than Jay Aston’s Gene Loves Jezebel and its own blend of psychedelia and post-punk is New Wave artist Belouis Some aka Neville Keighley. The latter garnered some popularity for hits “Some People,” “Imagination” and cinematic fame with “Round, Round” featured on the soundtrack to the 1986 John Hughes film Pretty in Pink. Though mostly known for his 80s heyday Keighley has remained active in music on and off since that time and this is a rare chance to see him live in Denver.

Adrianne Lenker, photo by Germaine Dunes

Wednesday | 06.26
What: Adrianne Lenker w/Twain
When: 6
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Adrianne Lenker has firmly established herself as both a member of one of the more acclaimed bands of recent years and as an equally respected solo artist. Lenker had already garnered critical accolades before Big Thief got going in 2015. Her second album Hours Were the Birds was released on Saddle Creek in 2014 already revealing Lenker’s gift for articulating personal insight with spareness of composition and vulnerable minimalism. A decade later Lenker offers her latest record Bright Future which while offering more orchestral arrangements still comes across as Lenker finding the poetic essence of solitary revelations that flash into your mind fully formed. The cover art to the record give you a clue into the vibe a bit of late evening drives on the road with enough time to sort out the important thoughts from the distractions. Lenker’s voice intoning with a tender slight warble like the songs were worked out around a campfire with friends.

Wednesday | 06.26
What: French Cassettes w/Body and Barbara
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: French Cassettes is touring in support of its latest album Benzene. The latter is frontman Lorenzo Scott Herta’s family nickname given without the usual connotations. It’s a gentle set of songs with rich melodies like an indie rock psychedelic band with an ear for lushly orchestral arrangements reminiscent of art pop bands like The Magnetic Fields and Belle & Sebastian. It’s a record about miscommunication and reconnecting on a better basis while owning up to shortcomings and coming together to sort out the barriers to mutual comprehension and coming to terms with how we’ve been, how we are and how we will be.

Wednesday | 06.26
What: Third Eye Blind w/Yellowcard and Arizona
When: 5
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Third Eye Blind wrote one of the iconic songs of late 90s, late alternative rock with “Semi-Charmed Life.” The band’s upbeat music and wry humor has since garnered a cult following enough to be able to headline Red Rocks Yellowcard might have been forgotten as yet another pop punk band at a time when the world seemed awash in multiple generic versions of that sound. But its fourth album, 2003’s Ocean Avenue, somehow fused sunny pop punk with lyrics about struggling with what you want to do with your life, complicated relationships with the people in your life and the nature of relationships beyond those teen and high school romances that are the subject matter of a lot of rock, pop and certainly pop punk and emo. And hey Sean Mackin, the only original member left in the band, doesn’t just do lead vocals he plays violin and it actually adds an atmospheric element that doesn’t just sound like a gimmick in a punk band.

Steven Lee Lawson, photo courtesy the artist

Thursday | 06.27
What: Steven Lee Lawson + The Archers EP release w/Blacktop Musical
When: 7
Where: Roxy on Broadway in the Speakeasy Downstairs
Why: Steven Lee Lawson is a singer-songwriter from Denver whose musical exploits date back to the late 90s and early 2000s when as a fledgling musician he was involved in a variety of styles of music including the experimental/krautrock of Zubabi before finding his lane at the edges of Denver’s indie rock scene in the mid-2000s with the more classic pop and Americana-inflected projects like Oblio Duo and its multiple incarnations with then songwriting partner Will Duncan (now of Pleasure Prince). Lawson’s poetic lyrics shed a light on his attempts to come to terms with life challenges and struggles with a society and culture seemingly stuck on boosting dull and crass commercialism and anti-human systems of politics and economy. Lawson also spent some time as a sideman in bands like Ross Etherton and the Chariots of Judah before dropping out of actively being involved in music for a handful of years and then getting back into the joy of creating music again in recent years. Obvious touchstones like Harry Nilsson, Townes Van Zandt, Sparklehorse and Neil Young can be heard in Lawson’s musical DNA but his songs have always seemed deeply personal and idiosyncratic including his new EP Help Is On the Way due out June 27, 2024. Listen to our interview with Lawson here.

Saturday | 06.29
What: Omni w/Fake Fruit and Tender Object
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Atlanta’s Omni has been one of the more interesting post-punk bands out of the past decade and more with intricate and angular rhythms and structures like a missing link between jangly college rock sounds and Wire’s art punk minimalism and ferocity. Its latest record Souvenir was borne out of creating during a time of immense change in the world during the course of the 2020 pandemic and how that has played out and necessitated some reflection and reassessment of one’s life and priorities but this time Omni does so with no small amount of wry humor and and vulnerability. Oakland’s Fake Fruit seems to share some similar musical DNA but with more jagged edges and noisy outbursts that bear the potential influence of arty guitar bands like Women and Lithics. With its forthcoming album Mucho Mistrust Fake Fruit has a wonderfully discordant fervor like The Pretenders gone unhinged and with the cathartic vitriol aimed at the anxieties of living under late capitalism and its trickle down inhumanity and has and continues to warp hearts and minds.

Saturday | 06.29
What: Red Fang w/Spoon Benders and Quits
When: 8
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Portland-based sludge rock band Red Fang makes a stop in Denver on its current tour. Frontman and bassist Aaron Beam grew up in Fort Collins and still has family in the Mile High City so it’s sort of a hometown show for the musician. Also on the tour is psychedelic doom prog band Spoon Benders and opening is one of Denver’s greatest noise rock bands Quits and its own mind-altering sonic assault and emotionally harrowing lyrics.

To Be Continued…

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond March 2024

**The Dandy Warhols perform at The Gothic Theatre on March 18, 2024**

Saturday | 03.02
What: Thor w/Joecephus and the George Jonestown Massacre, Chamber Mage, DJ Eagle Wing
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: THOR is the legendary, early heavy metal band from Vancouver, British Columbia. Founded and fronted by Jon Mikl Thor, a body building champion who among other titles won the designations of being Mr. USA and Mr. World Canada. When forming the band in 1973 Thor brought together his status as a body builder with music with his physical appearance and presence lending itself well to incorporating an early Viking warrior and gladiator image. In the mid-70s the band toured throughout the Eastern USA and Canada before gaining the attention of Merv Griffin who had the group perform on the Merv Griffin Show when it was broadcasting from Caesars Palace. That appearance garnered the group a record deal with RCA. With a new band lineup in 1977 and regular touring along with some releases under its belt, THOR made it over to England following a distribution deal where it signed with Motörhead manager Douglas Smith and relocated to London in 1984. Two records and three years later, the band called it quits in 1987 with Jon Mikl trying his hand at further his acting career. But that wasn’t the end of the road for THOR and a cult following lead to enough renewed interest that the group re-formed in 1997. The band has since become more active and musically prolific than it ever was in its first run and THOR continues to tour and evolve its performance concept, these days with THOR as a cowboy more in that heroic Roy Rogers and maybe even The Lone Ranger vein. In 2024 THOR will release its latest album Ride of the Iron Horse on March 15, 2024 and this may be an opportunity to catch those songs live. Give a listen to our interview with Jon Mikl Thor here.

Sunday | 03.03
What: Voivod and Prong w/Cobranoid
When: 6
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Voivod is the visionary early thrash band from Canada whose sound embraced elements beyond heavy metal and as the years have progressed Voivod could sometimes sound like a strange post-punk or industrial band and its own progressive metal/thrash roots have always been more imaginative than many of its peers. Its latest album Morgöth Tales (2023) is vintage Voivod with the spiraling twists and turns in its guitar leads and both gritty and haunted vocals with science fiction themed lyrics that clearly comment with great clarity and poignancy about the state of the world and with some nice Easter Eggs in the music and lyrics referencing earlier Voivod albums like Dimension Hatröss (1988). Live be prepared for a band that performs more like a hardcore band than one might expect from its art rock leanings. Prong also early on from its 1986 inception more than flirted with electronic sounds, industrial beats and what might be described as thrash psychedelia in its songwriting. And now the veteran band is touring in support of its 2023 album State of Emergency. An ideal double bill in classic heavy music.

Monday | 03.04
What: Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert
When: 7
Where: Paramount Theatre
Why: In 2023 Cat Power released the ambitious live cover album Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert (she knows it was at Manchester Free Free Trade Hall, but the legend differs). It’s a faithful recreation of the concert wherein Dylan switches halfway through from acoustic to electric instrumentation and someone in the audience yelled “Judas!” because how dare one of the darlings of folk music betray the tradition so callously and publicly. Quainter times but Cat Power’s performance, now recreated live on stage, is powerful and brilliantly rendered in exquisite detail in a way that is both ironic and sincere as an act of cultural and creative time travel and trying on a classic outfit for size in a musical sense in the way only Chan Marshall can. Why did she do this? Marshall has long made other people’s music her own as a tribute to their influence and impact and this was just the next level and taking on an absolute classic performance traded as bootlegs for years, a move that perhaps Dylan would have approved and who knows, maybe did behind the scenes. Whatever the origins of this effort Cat Power is a commanding live performer with undeniable mystique and emotional range and this will probably be the only time she tours this show.

Otoboke Beaver, photo courtesy the artists

Tuesday | 03.05
What: Otoboke Beaver w/Drinking Boys and Girls Choir
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Otoboke Beaver is the hyperkinetic hardcore/post-punk/garage rock band from Kyoto that seemed to leap from very underground status in America before 2022 to a bit of a cult phenomenon following the release of that year’s ferocious, culturally and politically incisive and sharply humorous album Super Champon. The group toured extensively behind the record including a stop at Globe Hall in Denver where it sold out the show and with relentless energy and raw charisma more than earned its growing popularity followed by a return show at The Bluebird and now The Gothic. The group deftly uses media and cultural references in deconstructing consumerism and misogyny in almost a parody of Japanese television and its phantasmagorical reality TV shows and advertising. There is a nuanced awareness in what the band is doing while also making it all fun and exciting and to any extent that it’s kitschy it is a knowing employment of tropes that also embraces the uniqueness of Japanese popular culture and its widely varied manifestations.

Wednesday | 03.06
What: Real Estate w/Florry
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Real Estate is a veteran band of 2000s and 2010s indie rock that survived changing tastes and the whole period when blogs and online music journalism made and sometimes unmade bands. And the pandemic which has been rough on the world of music generally. Its early sound may have been more shaped by jangle pop and surf rock with a drift toward dream pop in the 2010s. But with the release of its 2024 album Daniel it seems that Real Estate is firmly comfortable in embracing the entirety of its musical development with a soft melodicism that lends itself well to observational songs of adult introspection and assessment of what makes living meaningful and resonant after the rush of youth has long burned out but one’s desire to do more than just go along with being a cog in society’s machine. The record speaks to how none of us really wants to just plug in and go along with being a passive consumer when there’s so much of life left to live yet and so much of it is more than just going to work, doing some menial thing for 8-10 hours and commuting home and watching TV and maybe on the weekend do some shopping or engage in some light local tourism or super premeditated and marketed “adulting” amusement. The songs on Daniel are more reflective and speak to more going on than what we’ve been lead to believe means what it looks like to “grow up.”

Wednesday | 03.06
What: Cherry Glazerr w/Wombo
When: 7
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Clementine Creevy has been doing Cherry Glazerr since she was a teenager in 2013 and the project has evolved in always sonically interesting and ambitious directions. Early on the music might have been described as dream pop and shoegaze and that has been a consistent sound that runs through the band’s music through to today. But the 2023 album I Don’t Want You Anymore seems more gritty and raw and with more distorted, jagged edges and orchestrated moments of poignant dramatic flourishes alongside the masterful fusion of electronic composition and moody guitar rock. It sounds like the kind of album that serves as a way to write out coming to terms with the downbeats of one’s own life with daring honesty and arguably the trio’s finest record. Opening the show is the arty post-punk band Wombo from Louisville, Kentucky who for many is one of the great underground bands of the last several years. Its records are all inventive exercises in threading together psychedelic rock and whatever it was Pere Ubu was doing in its early days yet making it oddly immediately accessible with a startlingly commanding live performance.

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, photo by Olivia Oyama

Thursday | 03.07
What: Sleepytime Gorilla Museum w/Dreadnought, Surplus 1980
When: 7
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Sleepytime Gorilla Museum established itself as one of the great cult bands out of the 90s and 2000s with its utterly unique melange of theater, heavy art rock and psychedelia. Safe to say it would be challenging to compare the band’s music to that of any of its contemporaries except maybe something Mike Patton might be doing around the same time and in fact Matthias Bossi and Patton worked together for a live score for the 1924 film Waxworks. Its records are all fascinating pieces that at times seem industrial, others the kind of industrial noise rock one might expect from Cop Shoot Cop with the cathartic flourishes heard more often in the music of Swans—Frank Zappa gone fully jazz punk. When SGM split in 2011 probably no one was expecting a reunion but that’s what happened in 2023 and now the legendary experimental band is touring behind the release of its new album of the Last Human Being and yes it’s as wonderfully weird and as challenging and rewarding as one might hope to hear. Opening are Denver psychedelic doom band Dreadnought and Surplus 1980, a group headed by SGM’s Moe Staiano and in a what might be described as an avant-garde post-punk dub vein.

Thursday | 03.07
What: Ryan Beatty
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Ryan Beatty got started in his musical career by posting videos on his YouTube channel beginning in 2011 and while still a teen embarked touring but with his image and thus to some extent his music and personal expression limited by adhering to a supposedly palatable media image for mainstream consumption. So he fired his management team leading to his not being able to actually put out his own music until he was around 20 years old. But Beatty’s warmly expressive vocals and ear for evocative arrangements meant he has been able to find success on his own terms. His 2023 album Calico with its wide open yet intimate sounds and production that lets the songs sound like they might be recorded at home minus the rich vocal sounds and orchestral touches that contrast well with sound design that capture background sounds to give the more pristine elements a human context.

Thursday | 03.07
What: Clayton Dexter’s Country Backwash w/Body and Ryan Wong Band
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Clayton Dexter’s Country Backwash is sort of a psychedelic country band from Denver that includes of course Clayton Dexter and at least for the 2023 self-titled album Paul Dehaven (Paper Bird, Eye & the Arrow, Heavy Diamond Ring). But of course the music stylistically ranges far from that sometimes limiting format and at times the band sounds like some sort of glam rock-flavored synth pop band with guitar twang. Body is a synth pop band that includes former members of Ned Garthe Explosion and Hindershot that though a trio seems to produce a massive and immersive panoply of sound. Ryan Wong Band is refreshingly a fairly straight forward country band from Denver that seems to draw its roots from a time when country didn’t need to stay on some narrow brand for a sound palette and dips into the realm of cosmic country as well.

Replica City in June 2023, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 03.08
What: Replica City w/Quits and Supreme Joy
When: 6:30
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: Replica City is a post-punk band from Denver that is more informed by the likes of Dinosaur Jr than Joy Division and it will release its new EP Gift of Knives on March 5, 2024 for which this show is a celebration. Quits is the great Denver noise rock institution whose own album Feeling It released in September 2023 with a support tour in 2024. Supreme Joy is an angular post-punk band from Denver that has more than a leg in jangly psychedelic rock but think more in the vein of something like JOHN, Women or Swell Maps.

Black Flag, photo courtesy Artists World Wide

Saturday | 03.09
What: Black Flag – 40th Anniversary of My War
When: 7:30
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Black Flag’s 1984, second album My War introduced fans of the group’s ferocious and technically proficient hardcore to sludgier, heavy sounds and grinding tempos in a way that proved influential on the genre and crossover bands. Apparently, Black Flag had already done the accelerated punk thing for years and simply had to do something different. And for this show you’ll probably get to see the album in its entirety as well as other Black Flag classics. Greg Ginn is the only original member but getting to see Ginn unleash those crazy Black Flag riffs is still something impressive to behold.

Saturday | 03.09
What: Laetitia Sadier w/Susan James
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Laetitia Sadier is the charismatic and soulful singer and songwriter who is perhaps best known for being a lead singer in experimental rock band Stereolab. But Sadier has long had projects outside the latter including a reliably fascinating solo career consisting of five albums since 2010 including Rooting for Love which dropped on February 23, 2024. In the album’s songs one years the lush, downtempo, jazz and Bossa Nova inflected art pop that has been Sadier’s signature musical flavor for decades. But there is a spaciousness in Sadier’s solo work that is inviting and soothing without being soporific. Her warm and expressive vocals sit solidly in the mix of drifting atmospheres as well as grounding the more energetic passages. The album sounds like a conversation about weighty subjects in French and English but in a manner that invites imagination and compassion to combine to look toward a world that is moving beyond the petty and incredibly destructive civilizational patterns, a death spiral really, in which our species now seems stuck. Sadier looks toward a time past that psychological gridlock honoring the complexities of human existence and habits that got us there. Susan James is a renowned singer-songwriter whose experimental, psychedelic folk also seems to draw bit from 60s French pop as well and whose 2015 album Sea Glass marked a shift in the artist’s songwriting to more incorporation of her influences among minimalist composers. It was also produced by Sean O’Hagan of High Llamas fame, an artist who in his own music fused psychedelic pop and the avant-garde.

Sunday | 03.10
What: Kendra Morris w/Rootbeer Richie & The Reveille and The Milk Blossoms
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Kendra Morris is a singer-songwriter from NYC whose sound is clearly rooted in soul, R&B and the neo-soul end of hip-hop. And there’s a touch of psychedelia at the edges of her lush arrangements and a general sense that Morris is writing her music driven by imagining unusual short stories that themselves inspire creativity and giving her songs their own personality so that her records while having some consistency of quality and imbued with a style that is uniquely Morris’ own are refreshingly varied and mysterious because there are no hackneyed premises and if there are playful uses of common subject fodder for pop music it’s all surround by unusual, often moody and deeply evocative music and Morris’ commanding vocals. Opening the show are two Denver bands in the rock and soul theater of Rootbeer Richie & the Reveille and The Milk Blossoms. The latter is more in line with Morris in the eclectic and emotionally rich songwriting and soundscapes and some roots in hip-hop, R&B, left field psychedelia and indiepop.

Friday | 03.15
What: RAREBYRD$, Sell Farm, Baby Baby and Doll
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Witch Cat Records is a record label based in Colorado that has been a home to some of the more experimental and forward thinking electronic and psychedelic music out now. While its roster is small its releases include offerings from Edward Ka-Spel of The Legendary Pink Dots fame, LPD reissues, Thanatoloop, Church Fire, Mourning Cloaks, Acidbat and Orbit Service. This is a showcase for acts whose own aesthetics align with the Witch Cat aesthetic and a now infrequent appearance by hip-hop greats RAREBYRD$, industrial/EBM auteur Sell Farm, left field pop artist Baby Baby and Doll.

Friday | 03.15
What: Eyedress
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Eyedress has been a notable figure in modern pop/indie rock/psychedelia and hybrid forms of each with some hip-hop production and glitchcore thrown into the mix. Originally from the Philippines Eyedress now calls Los Angeles home and his most recent releases read like a modern hip-hop joints with multiple collaborators that Eyedress has brought in to expand his own sound palette and range as an artist.

The Brook & The Bluff, photo by Noah Tidmore

Friday | 03.15
What: The Brook & The Bluff w/Teenage Dads
When: 7
Where: Boulder Theater
Why: The Brook & The Bluff formed in Birmingham, Alabama among two brothers and childhood friends around 2015 but has since relocated to Nashville. The group’s sound is in the realm of 1970s soft rock with a touch of psychedelia and Americana and its 2023 album Bluebeard highlighted the way the band can turn simple arrangements into intricate and lush soundscapes in which its stories take on an intimate quality that soothe as much as they take on subjects of everyday life and its usual struggles with a tender poignancy.

Sunday | 03.17
What: Deap Valley farewell tour w/Death Valley Girls
When: 7
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: Los Angeles-based blues-garage duo Deap Valley is taking one last run as a live band this spring through June before dissolving hopefully into other projects. Fans of Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The Kills will definitely appreciate the energy Deap Valley has been giving since its inception. Also on the bill is the great psychedelic shoegaze band Death Valley Girls. Also from Los Angeles. One hopes when the tour was being put together the two bands recognized the humor value of Deap Valley and Death Valley Girls touring together even though there’s nothing gimmicky about the music of each.

The Dandy Warhols, photo courtesy the artists

Monday | 03.18
What: The Dandy Warhols w/Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: The Dandy Warhols have been together since 1994 and from the beginning of their career the members of the group have pulled together an eclectic set of influences to synthesize into various styles of music yet not without a coherent sound. Early on its music seemed rooted in psychedelic garage rock, nascent Britpop and shoegaze soundscaping. As the group has evolved it has incorporated elements of electronic music and production to sculpt its songwriting into something compelling and unique even through times when perhaps some of its fans haven’t been as on board with the innovations and evolution of the Dandys’ songwriting experiments. But all along the quartet’s spirited and charismatic live show has remained worth witnessing. In 2024 the Dandys released the new album Rockmaker. In typical fashion the group has seemingly reinvented itself and indulged a kind of free association approach to its sonic elements so that the record is equally an electro rock and chill big beat affair and fuzzy, groovy psychedelia with a deep sense of play, an irreverent sense of humor and deft cultural and musical allusions. Hopefully the band plays liberally from the new album but it has always been good about giving fans a generous dose of its remarkable back catalog live.

Monday | 03.18
What: The Decibel Tour: Hulder, Devil Master, Worm and Necrofier
When: 6:30
Where: HQ
Why: Decibel Magazine is celebrating its twentieth anniversary with this tour featuring some of the more interesting bands in the broad realm of heavy music. Hulder is the transcendental black metal band from the Pacific Northwest, Devil Master is a Philadelphia-based, blackened crust/death rock group, Worm is the funeral doom project from Florida and Necrofier is the dark, death thrash outfit from Houston.

Monday | 03.18
What: The Schizophonics w/The Omens and Cleaner
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: The Schizophonics is a garage rock band from San Diego who have more than a touch of psychedelia in their sound and its nervy energy and widely expansive sound is reminiscent of MC5 and a more feral 13th Floor Elevators. So yes Denver’s The Omens are coming out of semi-retirement with their own brand of unhinged garage rock power alongside heavy psych rock band Cleaner from Denver fronted by Kim Phat (Dirty Few, Keef Duster) with musicianship from members of other noteworthy Denver bands like Arj Narayan (Black Acid Devil etc.) and Justin Sanderson (Muscle Beach, Colfax Speed Queen, Night Fishing etc.).

Monday | 03.18
What: Slow Hollows w/P.H.F.
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Slow Hollows split in 2020 but songwriter Austin Feinstein kept making music and relaunched the project himself in 2023. A year later the new Slow Hollows album Bullhead dropped on March 8, 2024 showcasing Feinstein’s gently intricate arrangements, evocatively thoughtful lyrics and eclectic style somewhere between indiepop and post-punk. Feinstein this time out sounds more confident and emotionally forward yet vulnerable and introspective. The drifts and bends in his melodies lend the song a disarming quality that makes you wonder if he’d been listening to a lot of My Bloody Valentine and Microphones for a few years but managed not to rip off their songwriting style while adopting some of their methods of crafting tone.

Monday | 03.18
What: The Kooks, The Vaccines and Daisy the Great
When: 6
Where: The Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Crazy to think The Kooks have been around for twenty years at this point but the group based out of Brighton, England has evolved beyond its early sound rooted in 60s mod and turn of the century post-punk and its most recent album, 2022’s 10 Tracks to Echo in the Dark, is almost like a Britpop revival sound but one that might have happened had The Verve embraced electro-funk and some hip-hop production and chillwave soundscaping. The Vaccines came along in the wake of The Kooks out of West London with its own brash stage show and fusion of surf rock and melodic punk. It’s 2024 album Pick-Up Full of Pink Carnations sounds like one of those triumphant New Wave power pop records of the 80s but without the cheese and just the soaring melodies and touch of nostalgia for one’s younger days as fuel for your present existence. Opening this leg of the tour is Daisy the Great. The indie pop duo of Kelley Dugan and Mina Walker started when the two were acting students at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts who were writing a musical about a fictional band and then made that band into a real life thing. The group’s 2017 debut composition “The Record Player Song” was hit with to date over a quarter billion streams. Two albums and three EPs later including 2023’s Tough Kid Daisy the Great has garnered a bit of a following for its folk and R&B-inflected pop songs informed by a wry self-awareness and sense of humor. It’s charmingly spare live performances will definitely be an interesting counterpoint to the headliners for the night in some ways but Daisy The Great is also known to put in a lively set of its own.

Tuesday | 03.19
What: Madi Diaz w/Daniel Nunnelee
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Madi Diaz is an acclaimed songwriter who got her start playing shows in NYC in 2007, the same year of the release of her debut album Skin And Bones. Her observant and emotionally refined lyrics and gift for building textures into her melodies and rhythms has helped set her songwriting apart from many of her peers. Her 2024 album Weird Faith centers Diaz’s vocals in music that is at once orchestral and minimalist with rich yet unobtrusive production that showcases the songwriter’s immediately relatable lyrics about relationships with self, others and the universe we all try to navigate as best we can.

Tuesday and Wednesday | 0 3 .19 and 03.20
What: K.Flay w/Cam Kahin
When: 7
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Kristine Flaherty aka K.Flay is a songwriter very much of the current vintage whose music isn’t bond by strict genres and whose music is eclectic yet coherently stylized. She began writing music in her late teens as a reaction against some of the popular music of the time writing a parody song only to realize she enjoyed the process of doing so and over twenty years later Flaherty has released multiple albums and collaborated with the likes FIDLAR, Tom Morello, Danny Brown, Matt and Kim, MC Lars and countless others, a testament to her gift for genre-bending. These two nights at The Marquis are part of of K.Flay’s MONO: Live in Stereo tour which are a series of intimate shows in just seven major cities in the USA.

Wednesday | 03.20
What: Torres w/Liza Anne
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Torres pushed her songwriting envelope much further than her already unorthodox pop songwriting with the 2024 release of her new album What an Enormous Room. The album cover makes one wonder if the absurdity of the image as a concept made Torres both laugh and take as a challenge to reach beyond where she’d been before as an artist. The songwriter has of course been no stranger to crafting arty synth pop but the new record will probably alienate some people expecting her to give us more of what they’ve been expecting. Torres is embracing the strange and the experimental with this set of songs without sacrificing songcraft and thoughtful lyrics of an emotionally refined vintage. Could Torres take this impulse creative further? Of course but the new album is a welcome expansion of sounds and creative ideas one might compare to when Cat Power released her 2012 electronic pop/glam rock record Sun.

Wednesday and Thursday | 03.20 and 03.21
What: Night Cap w/Savanna Leigh
When: 7pm doors both nights
Where: The Coast (03.20) and Lost Lake (03.21)
Why: Night Cap is an indie rock band from Austin, Texas whose eclectic sound merges acoustic songwriting, rock and synth pop. Opener Savanna Leigh is a Nashville-based songwriter whose style synthesizes acoustic indie pop and electronic production. Her string of singles over the past year have revealed an artist whose vulnerability and sensitivity informs songs that are insightful examinations of the inner life and how when we take the time to listen to our often unspoken emotional turmoil and trauma we can attempt to unravel the control of past experience has over our present. Her evocative vocals and lush production combine a cinematic songwriting style with an intimate delivery of the music.

My Blue Heart, photo by AlyssaPerkins of Captivating Visions Photography

Th – S | 03.21-03.23
What: My Blue Heart Tour (3.21 with VALDEZ, 03.22 w/The Patient Zeros, SweetStreak and Rocky Burning and 3.23 w/Get the Axe and Gatehouse
When: 7 (3.21 and 03.23) and 8 (03.22)
Where: Magic Rat (03.21), Goosetown Tavern (03.22) and Vulture’s (03.23)
Why: Art pop My Blue Heart from Denver is celebrating the March 15, 2024 release of its new album Masquerade with a mini-tour along the front range. The album genre bends and seems to discard standard song structures and rhythm schemes. It’s musical roots seem to borrow heavily from blues and funk but mutated by the influence of art rock bands like Hamster Theater and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and channeled into people songs that aren’t much like what anyone else in Denver is putting out at the moment unless you’re into weirdo music territory like TripLip and Bolonium.

Thursday | 03.21
What: Autoheart w/Pigeon Pit and RAEGAN
When: 6
Where: Meow Wolf
Why: Autoheart is a sophisti-pop band from the UK that has been perfecting its emotionally vibrant synth pop songs that don’t sit neatly in a stylistic box as the group draws on inspiration from disparate sources. In its sound you can hear a touch of R&B, soul and chillwave. The group recently dropped its Punch Demos compilation which includes eighteen demos including remasters of songs from the 2023 10th anniversary edition of the debut Autoheart album Punch. Fans of Erasure and Perfume Genius will definitely find a lot to like about Autoheart. Pigeon Pit is the well known folk punk band from Olympia, Washington. RAEGAN is a pop artist from NYC whose songs are sonically creative, insightful commentaries on popular culture, social dynamics and identity. She combines glitchcore beats, trap production, dub, strings and unconventional textures in rhythms that give her music a distinctive sound that cuts through the familiar trappings of modern alt-pop. Her forthcoming debut EP FUCK RAEGAN promises an expansion on the artist’s sound and the video for the lead single “Waltz” is a sort of queer re-telling of Romeo & Juliet with a music video with visuals like something out of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

Vatican Vamps, photo courtesy the artists

Friday | 03.22
What: Vatican Vamps album release w/Knuckle Pups and Wildcat
When: 7
Where: The Black Buzzard
Why: Vatican Vamps is celebrating the release of its self-titled album for this show. The record is filled with urgent and gritty songs brimming with brooding atmospheres and a sense of menace. A lot of post-punk and darkwave bands seem to be following sonic trends lately but Vatican Vamps seems to have carved its own path with seeming influences from the post-punk revival of the turn of the century, Britpop and 1980s deathrock. The vinyl edition of the album can be pre-ordered on the Vatican Vamps’ Bandcamp and should be out in April. Also on the bill is one of the great, modern indiepop bands Knuckle Pups.

Cellista, photo by Yellow Bubbles Photography

Saturday | 03.23
What: Cellista and prologue by The Drood and Dustin Schultz (Skinny Puppy) and Hilary Whitmore
When: 7:30-9:30
Where: Dairy Center for the Arts
Why: Cellista is a Los Angeles-based performance artist with roots in the Bay Area and Colorado and over the past several years she has created what she calls stage poems which are narrative multimedia works after those of artist, filmmaker and writer Jean Coctea drawing together seemingly disparate thematic elements and modes of expression. In 2021 she performed at Lincoln Center and she has worked with Tanya Donelly, John Vanderslice, Troyboy, Don McLean, Casey Crescenzo of The Dear Hunter, Van Dyke Parks, Toni! Toni! Toné and Pam the Funkstress. Her work has been heard and scene on film and television and she has appeared as an extra on the TV shows Better Things and Will & Grace playing cello. In fall 2021 her stage poem Pariah explored themes of othering and exile within communities and it featured a companion book by philosopher Frank Seeburger. In 2024 Cellista is unveiling her latest stage poem Élégie. Directed and performed by the artist, Élégie is a one-woman show for cello, static trapeze and cinema. Choreographed by Cellista, Kennedy Kabasares and Joel Baker with film editing by Jennifer Gigantino and cinematography by Bryan Gibel, the one hour piece stars Cellista as the titular figure, a blackbird who shape shifts into human form and back. According to the press release for the stage poem, “Élégie awakens one day in her magical tree outside the walled off city of Cloture to find its entire population has disappeared. In their departure, the citizens have left behind a city of altars, decorated with unlit candles; each containing the memories and mementos of the banished citizens. Élégie shape shifts into human form to find out what happened to Cloture’s disappeared. In her journey she finds serenity.” As with Cellista’s previous stage poem the performance will be a uniquely evocative experience that brings those in attendance deeply into the story with visuals, music, spoken word, the choreography and the event’s baked in literary dimensions that blur the lines between all mediums involved. This Colorado date includes opening performances by ambient-industrial, psychedelic post-punk group The Drood which released its latest album The Book of Drood on March 1, 2024 and Dustin Schultz (Skinny Puppy) and Hilary Whitmore. Listen to our interview with Cellista here.

Monday | 03.25
What: Chew w/Moon Pussy and Church Fire
When: 7:30
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Chew is a band from Atlanta, Georgia whose music defies simple categorization. Until late 2023 Chew had been a trio is now a duo comprised of Brett Reagan who plays sampler, synth bass and guitar while running strobe lights and Sarah Wilson who plays drums and bass lines with a drum sample pad. The project has toured the US and Canada extensively with three European tours under its belt. Because the outfit’s music is so unorthodox it’s music spans and often in the same song the realms of psychedelic and noise rock, ambient, noise, industrial and electronic dance music. Fans of the likes of fellow travelers of eclectic weirdness like Guerilla Toss, Black Moth Super Rainbow and The Spirit of the Beehive will find an immediate connection with the music Chew has been crafting since its inception. Its 2022 album Horses resonates with recent releases by Jockstrap and Sextile without the inspiration of either to feed into its stream of inspiration and influences. In addition to the music Chew’s surreal album covers and inspired song titles suggest more than a passing familiarity with esoteric knowledge and other obscure and niche realms of knowledge as well as a knack for clever wordplay. It all adds up to an uncommon depth of creative development that rewards anyone taking in the music and its presentation beyond the surface level. Also on the bill are local noise rock phenoms Moon Pussy and legendary industrial dance trio Church Fire.

Monday | 03.25
What: Midwife w/Vyva Melinkolya and Body Negative
When: 7
Where: Squirm Gallery
Why: Midwife brings her style of ambient folk soundscapes and vulnerable lyrics that she calls “heaven metal” back to Denver for a tour with artists operating in their own realms of music resonant with the vulnerable energies of Midwife’s textural soundscapes. Vyva Malinkolya and Midwife collaborated on an album recently with the 2023 release of Orbweaving and its fusion of gauzy shoegaze and emotional deep diving as a path to processing trauma and grief. Body Negative is an artist with whom Madeline Johnston aka Midwife has worked as a producer on the the newly released album everett that blurs the line between melancholic ambient and dream pop.

Monday | 03.25
What: HEALTH w/Pixelgrip and King Yosef
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: With the December release of RAT WARS, industrial noise/electronic punk band HEALTH has shown itself capable of reinvention on a deep level with a gritty, melancholic yet cathartic album that combines well with its glitchy and more experimental electronic impulses. And so bringing along the great industrial pop group Pixelgrip along for this tour will only make for a great evening of music with talented producer and recording engineer King Yosef opening the show with his industrial hardcore.

Sleater-Kinney, photo by Chris Hornbecker

Tuesday | 03.26
What: Sleater-Kinney w/Palehound
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Sleater-Kinney released its eleventh and latest album Little Rope in Jaunary 2024. The record with its grit and bombast matched with an experimentation with the band’s core sound is a welcome reinvention that finds Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker infusing what might be described as a more cinematic form of songwriting with raw and earnest emotion and the sharply and poignantly observed personal reflection and thoughtful social commentary one would hope for with a set of songs from this band. In moments it feels more like a glam rock album fortified by punk spirit. No one needs a band whose members are over 25 years of age to sing from a place informed by lingering teen angst and tapping into that mindset with a lack of irony. Fortunately Sleater-Kinney has never been stunted that way and this new album is filled with songs written by people plugging into their own sources of personal vitality and offering perspectives that seem to have zeroed in on clear and present concerns and the feelings we all share in navigating the conflicted world in which we find ourselves living right now. And if all tours since the group reconvened in 2014 are any indication, Sleater-Kinney is still one of the great live rock bands everyone should get to see at least once.

Thursday | 03.28
What: Jenny Haniver, Ethan Lee McCarthy and Fainting Dreams
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: A Jenny Haniver is the carcass of a ray or skate that has been modified and dried into a mummy made to resemble a fictional creature of folklore like a sort of a demon, angel or dragon and in various cultures is said to possess magical powers or otherwise used for ritualistic purposes. The Jenny Haniver in this case is an industrial noise post-hardcore duo from Portland, Oregon whose detailed soundscapes are imbued with a melancholic mood. Ethan Lee McCarthy under his own name will likely perform one of his noise sets but one more steeped in atmospheric compositions and gritty gloom. Fainting Dreams has migrated its sound from its early dream pop songwriting to something more like darkly tribal noise rock.

Friday | 03.29
What: Gothsta, Witch Baby, SORROWS, Ak’chamel, Hypnotic Turtle Radio
When: 8
Where: Goosetown Tavern
Why: Gothsta is making a rare live appearance with their style of witchy, experimental, glitchy electronic weirdo pop. Think something more akin to the likes of The Space Lady and Renaldo and the Loaf and you’ll be on the right track. Don’t bother looking online for too much of Gothsta’s music because most of it you’ll have to acquire at the show or at Wax Trax. SORROWS is a downtempo electronic dance duo that combines moody melancholic melodies with a robust low end, orchestrated rhythms with a spontaneous energy and emotionally vibrant and operatic vocals. Witch Baby is a spontaneous composition, avant-garde improvisational group with drums, saxophone, synth, drums, guitar and bass. Ak’chamel, or with the full name of Ak’chamel, The Crazed and Sunchalked Bones of the Vanished Herds, is one of the choice musical entities for appreciators of genre bursting/synthesizing artists who employ their aesthetic as a deconstruction of cultures and a commentary on the impact of industrialized societies on those not as technocratically embedded. Its subversive and surreal song titles are an inspired example of the latter. Fans of African psychedelic artists like Mdou Moctar and esotericist psych post-punkers Savage Republic will appreciate the music and fans of theatrical, ritualistic performances should definitely seek out this psychedelic surf rock pan-continental avant-folk duo.

The Egyptian Lover, photo from Stones Throw Bandcamp

Friday | 03.29
What: The Egyptian Lover
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: This is an exceedingly rare chance to catch the influential hip-hop composer, producer and remixer live. His use of analog electronic gear in sculpting his sound made a major impact on hip-hop in the 80s in particular his 1984 single “Egypt, Egypt” from his On the Nile album. It bore the influence of Kraftwerk but stamped with his own masterful production and gift for layering rhythm, vocals and synth melodies that get stuck in your consciousness.

Pictureplane in 2015, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Pictureplane w/Street Fever, Polly Urethane, Dreams of Blights, Kill You Club DJs
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Pictureplane returns to Denver, the city where he more fully developed the style of music and production for which he is now most well known. He helped to coin the genre term witch house to describe what he was doing in the late 2000s with a blend of noise, hip-hop production and synth pop that tapped into an emotional space that resonated with feelings of nostalgia and yearning for a better time and place that felt within reach. That sound with other artists manifested into chillswave but Pictureplane always had more of a leg in the experimental realm of the music and harder beats. His 2021 album Dopamine found him reconciling his previous creative impulses into music that hit like a return to form but also a step forward. Also on the bill is Boise, Idaho industrial dance legend Street Fever whose music is rooted in a dark kind of techno and house that has proven to influential on a certain stripe of underground electronic dance music world of a more avant vintage with a live show that is both entrancing, enveloping and enigmatic. Perhaps this includes fellow Boise crafters of pounding and pulsing, industrial noise freakouts Dreams of Blights. Another prime reason to go to this show is to witness a now not so common set from Polly Urethane whose often ritualistic performance art isn’t limited to a genre. It could be one of her sublime fusions of operatic classical and pop performances or combined with a confrontational, industrial noise pieces, a noise soundscape with a turntable, an alchemical mix of post-nü metal noise rock or pure performance art never to be repeated with a collage of classical music and her own tracks and unusual yet poetic visuals. You just never really know except that it will be worth your time and that’s part of the appeal.

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond February 2024

**Tigercub performs at The Fillmore Auditorium on February 22 2024, photo by Andreia Lemos**

Friday | 02.02
What: Honey Blazer w/The Blue Rider, Ryan Wong Band and Soulfax DJs
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: This will be an evening of bands who have drawn upon some of the essence of the songwriting prowess and musicianship of 70s era rock where psychedelia and Americana blurred some lines. Honey Blazer’s 2022 album Lookin Up revealed a knack for channeling that lush and chill Laurel Canyon country rock and weirded it up some with layers of atmosphere and texture expressed as entrancing pop songs. The Blue Rider’s vibe is more like unhinged garage rock in that 60s mode but driven in part by analog synth weirdness. Ryan Wong Band sounds like Wong himself went on a retreat and took in the entire catalog of 70s country and injected it with some of the cosmic strangeness of Townes Van Zandt.

Saturday | 02.03
What: The Disassociation of Aaron Dooley, Yard Art and Psilocyborne
When: 9
Where: Roxy on Broadway
Why: Aaron Dooley is perhaps better known for his membership in Denver shoegaze greats Totem Pocket. But in 2023 he put out an album called The International Disassociation of: Aaron Dooley that is like a combination of prog rock, psychedelia and free jazz so this is going to be something a little different. Yard Art’s own alchemy of progressive rock, psych and freak folk will fit in with the night. The name Psilocyborne kind of tells you what that band might be about.

Saturday | 02.03
What: Flesh Tape and Fainting Dreams album release w/Dry Ice
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: This is a dual album release show from Flesh Tape and shoegaze/dream pop/emo group Fainting Dreams. The latter dropped its latest release Those Left Untouched By the Light on January 12 but this is the official unveiling of the album. Anyone that saw the band early in 2023 or in 2022 saw the more dream pop side of the songwriting from Elle Reynolds but recent performances have been more in the vein of tribal noise rock with expansive guitar atmospherics for something refreshingly original that fans of Kansas City noise rockers Flooding will truly appreciate.

Wednesday and Thursday | 02.07 and 02.08
What: Twin Tribes w/Urban Heat and Vandal Moon
When: 7:30/8 and 7
Where: Fox Theatre (02.07) and Oriental Theater (02.08)
Why: Twin Tribes is one of the most prominent darkwave/post-punk artists in America at the moment. Hailing from Brownsville, Texas, the duo’s richly synth-driven music offers not just tales of the usual rock and roll subjects but informed by the occult and esoteric subject matter that blurs the line between the supernatural, the romantic and a style of science fiction that incorporates elements of Gothic literature. Currently touring in support of its 2024 album Pendulum. Austin’s Urban Heat’s style of post-punk is more steeped in EBM but graced with frontman Jonathan Horstman’s commanding baritone vocals. Vandal Moon is a darkwave band from Santa Cruz, California whose sound seems rooted in a coldwave version of early 80s synth pop with some clear influence from Depeche Mode and Duran Duran.

Thursday | 02.08
What: Chance Peña w/Hayd
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Rising folk pop artist Chance Peña is a bit of a music industry veteran at age 22 having worked in making music for film and TV as well as contributing to the work of other artists as with John Legend’s “Conversations in the Dark” from his 2020 album Bigger Love. Peña’s latest EP Lovers to Strangers (2023) with lead single “In My Room” dropped in the summer but has major fall energy with its melancholic yet emotionally effusive and vulnerable melodies and tales of life as a thoughtful young person in this very challenging and conflicted period in our culture.

Friday and Saturday | 02.09 and 02.10
What: Cold War Kids 20 Years Tour w/HOVVDY
When: 8
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Cold War Kids is celebrating its 20 years together as a band with this tour in the wake of the release of its tenth, self-titled, album in 2023. After a trilogy of albums called New Age Norms (1-3 respectively) from 2019-2021 and its topical subject matter examining developments in society and culture with the group’s typically blues-and-soul-infused indie rock flair, the new album feels more like a set of power pop songs but with the same uplifting energy and thoughtful lyrics that has garnered the band its sizable following. Also on board for this tour is Austin-based indie pop group HOVVDY whose own self-titled album is set for release on April 26, 2024. The duo of Charlie Martin and Will Taylor are no strangers of utilizing electronic elements and aesthetics into its sound and performances but the advance singles from the new album sound like the guys have been listening more to some hip-hop production and incorporated beat-making into their songwriting in a way that just expands its evocative range and nuance of composition. It’s a creative development that frankly sets the group apart from many of its would-be brethren in indie music generally especially in the particular way they have utilized the new sound palette. Should be interesting to see how they pull it off live.

Saturday | 02.10
What: The Kills w/The Paranoyds
When: 8
Where: The Summit Music Hall
Why: The Kills have reliably produced hard rocking music of great imagination and creative production since its earliest days and the live shows always never skimping on the passionate performances. The duo’s new album God Games (2023) is yet another flavor of the group’s alchemy of rock and electronic music with some of its more gloriously moody and sonically enveloping pieces of its career. The Paranoyds from Los Angeles has been one of the more interesting punk-adjacent post-punk bands of recent years with its noisy guitar rock and mutant synth freakouts sounding like a band that could have been on both Kill Rock Stars and GSL Records.

Dressy Bessy in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 02.10
What: Dressy Bessy w/Barbara, The Raton 3 and Bad Boy Bug
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Dressy Bessy are the reigning legends of Denver indiepop with roots back to its formation in the 90s including then current and former members of The Apples in Stereo and Sissy Fuzz. These days the group is as vital as ever with live shows that are as joyously unhinged in the best tradition of great rock and roll but with catchy hooks and heartfelt lyrics. The Raton 3 is a band that includes Deborah Iyall who some may remember as the lead singer of New Wave legends Romeo Void perhaps best remembered for the iconic single “Never Say Never.” Raton 3 is more like psychedelic indiepop with a tender spirit and the kind of frayed edges you wish you heard more in pop music generally.

Wednesday | 02.14
What: Midwife w/American Culture, Cherished and Water on the Thirsty Ground
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Midwife’s ambient folkloric shoegaze that she dubs “heaven metal” is awash in a tenderly cosmic insight into human frailty and vulnerabilities that manifest as deeply atmospheric songs that hit like direct doses of emotional catharsis and transcendence. American Culture is an evolving rock band whose roots in indiepop and punk lands in always interesting and unique places so it’s never quite fit into some trendy subgenre insipidity. Cherished is like if a raw emo band fused with a shoegaze band that came out of punk but with more focused chops. Water on the Thirsty Ground might be different now but it’s experimental, industrial-inflected, noisy glitchcore has to be taken on its own terms of its own unfiltered emotional exuberance.

Friday and Saturday | 02.16 and 02.17
What: Yo La Tengo
When: 7
Where: Boulder Theater (02.16) and Washington’s (02.17)
Why: Yo La Tengo delivered one of the best records of its career with 2023’s This Stupid World in which it pushes the boundaries of its pop aesthetic and further into its knack for epic, expansive noise rock. The veteran band has always steered its own course and carved out a unique place as a foundational indie rock band whose sounds have waxed into the realms of Krautrock, space rock, noise, jazz, warmly rendered shoegaze and folk pop with a consistently evocative creativity and imaginative sonics. Live the group has also been pretty reliable as being able to manifest its most delicate songcraft and its roaring burns of rock theater.

Friday and Saturday | 02.16 and 02.17
What: Sarah Jarosz w/The Ballroom Thieves
When: 7
Where: The Gothic Theatre (02.16) and Boulder Theater (02.17)
Why: Sarah Jarosz released her new album Polaroid Lovers on January 26, 2024. The now Nashville-based, Austin, Texas born singer-songwriter garnered a sizable following with her more Americana flavored songwriting and delicately expressive vocals and lushly pastoral aesthetic. Her songs have always seemed to be informed by poetically observant lyrics that are vividly rendered emotional experiences and expressed in ways that are refreshingly free of clichés. The new record finds Jarosz building upon her mastery of the use of space and minimalism in her songs with deeper forays into electric sounds and soundscapes without sacrificing the aspects of her songs that feel intimate and brimming with great personal insight.

Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, photo from Bandcamp

Tuesday | 02.20
What: Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs w/Space in Time and Cheap Perfume
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: The band aka Pigs x 7 is a psychedelic doom band from the UK whose musical momentum is almost the opposite of what one most often associates with the current equivalent of stoner rock. Like a weird fusion of Neurosis and Sleep and with a quality that makes you think maybe people in the band were in hardcore groups prior to this. Its latest album Land of Sleeper blends sonic aggression with warped atmospheres and a cathartic treatment of existential dread. Space in Time is the long-running boogie rock/psych doom band from Denver who seem like the idea opening act for this show. Cheap Perfume is the political punk band from Colorado Springs whose joyful takedowns of misogyny and right wing ideology as it manifests in the culture are thrilling because they are creatively and poignantly on point.

Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter, photo from Bandcamp

Wednesday | 02.21
What: Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: After Kristin Hayter shelved the arresting avant-garde/classical/noise project Lingua Ignota after a lengthy tour in 2023, the artist had announced a new musical direction with Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter and an album SAVED! Which dropped in October of the same year. It’s a collection of songs that document Hayter’s, according to the blurb on the Bandcamp listing, “earnest attempt achieve salvation through the tenets of charismatic Christianity, focusing on the Pentecostal-Holiness Movement, which dictate that one’s closeness to God is demonstrated through transcendental personal experience.” So it’s a similar experience as what Hayter seemed to be doing with Lingua Ignota and with similar musical methods and sounds but fusing her original music with traditional hymns. Given Hayter’s unique performance style and emotional commitment to the concept as a vehicle for personal transformation it will likely be quite the thing to witness.

Wednesday | 02.21
What: Provoker w/Riki and Candy Apple
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Provoker is a post-punk band based in Los Angeles with roots in the musical scores of horror cinema with brooding and low-end robust synth, driving bass lines and soulful vocals. A lot of current post-punk has a spindly lo-fi sound and Provoker is in sharp contrast to that with lush production and a refreshingly richness of tone. Opening the show is the noisy post-punk/post-hardcore trio Candy Apple and Riki. The latter is hopefully due for a new album this year but either way her moody synth pop is like a musical time travel journey to a time and place that doesn’t exist where the 1980s didn’t end and bands could pick up where Depeche Mode left off with Speak & Spell and picked up a bit of Kim Wilde and baked it into modern minimal dance pop.

Thursday | 02.22
What: Circling Over w/Weathered Statues, Summer of Peril and Mood Swing Misery
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Circling Over is a dark post-rock band from Denver in that heavy shoegaze vein. Weathered Statues is probably the best death rock band in Denver at the moment with poignantly evocative vocals and dense yet dynamic rhythms that set it apart from the often sonically thin music rampant in modern post-punk. Summer of Peril calls itself “grungegaze” but its musical output so far sounds like that end of emo that wasn’t trying to adhere too closely to the punk roots and went for pure emotional expression through crafting vulnerable, atmospheric sounds to process melancholic moods.

Thursday | 02.22
What: Porno for Pyros farewell tour w/Tigercub
When: 7
Where: The Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Porno for Pyros is an alternative rock band that formed following the 1991 dissolution of Jane’s Addiction when frontman Perry Farrell and drummer Stephen Perkins brought on board Peter DiStefano and Martyn LeNoble for a group with similar sensibilities and knack for unconventional melodies and sophisticated rhythms. The songs that would emerge on the band’s 1993 debut album were more chill and experimental in sound palette than Farrell and Perkins had employed with Jane’s and more psychedelic but maintained a sense of otherworldly mystique that surrounded the music and image of their previous band. The group remained active until 1998 and has had reunion performances since then in the 2000s and 2020s (before the pandemic botched an initial attempt at a reunion and release of new material to support). In 2023 founding bassist Martyn LeNoble announced his amicable departure from the band with his supportive words for the as yet unreleased music aside from the “Agua” single but former member, and punk legend, Mike Watt (Minutemen, fIREHOSE, Dos, mssv, Stooges etc.) agreed to return for this final run of live shows assuming the band doesn’t decided to do performances in support of what one hopes is a final release of the recordings done with LeNoble.

Tigercub is a rock band from Brighton, England that formed in 2011 by vocalist and guitarist Jamie Stephen Hall and drummer James Allix who met a university and joined by bassist Jimi Wheelright in 2012. From its earliest releases the trio has demonstrated a knack for crafting commanding hard rock with a cinematic sensibility that it has consistently evolved into a body of work that has expanded its range and variety of expression across now three albums including arguably its most fully realized work to date with 2023’s The Perfume of Decay. The group’s 2021 album As Blue as Indigo delved deep into themes of anxiety, depression, mortality and loss. The latest release found the band exploring the use of found tapes that Hall had been collecting from old Dictaphone machines found in thrift stores as a layer of atmosphere that served as almost a sonic canvass upon which its hard rocking sound could find a subtle context. It’s a subtle effect but for the keen listener there’s a certain something to the music on the record that lends it an emotional impact like a well chosen setting and time of year can add something unmistakable and compelling to a film.

For the new album some of the themes of the previous offering linger as emotional fallout and reflecting the kinds of experiences we all go through when we’ve been through a particularly traumatic period and have to return to going through the usual daily experiences with a different emotional lens having been changed by grief and existential turmoil. For the new record the group seems to have taken in the influence of early shoegaze and Can in terms of working out the underlying moods and atmospherics and challenging themselves to produce something another level of creative ambition with its arrangements. You can hear the impact of Queens of the Stone Age in its fluid use of heavy guitar and rhythms but in its perhaps not as obvious ear for the aesthetics of electronic music and in the structure of where the sounds sit in the mix one might compare Tigercub to Failure whose own fusion of hard rock, post-punk and the influence of cinematic sound design has yielded its own career of noteworthy records. Listen to our interview with Hall for the Queen City Sounds Podcast.

Thursday | 02.22
What: Spectral Voice album release w/Mephitic Corpse and Street Tombs
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Denver-based death metal/doom band Spectral Voice is celebrating the release of its new record Spargamos with a these days rare performance in town at The Bluebird. The new album expands on the group’s claustrophobic, dark, atmospheric, grinding and caustic sprawl. It hasn’t sounded like some black metal aficionados recording in their bedroom or garage in awhile and that might put off purists but now its darkly cosmic sound just hits with an enveloping spirit of desolated awe in the face of the possibilities of existence beyond our mortal ken. Spooky but never corny.

Thursday | 02.22
What: Gig for Gaza w/Time/Calm., Church Fire, Stay Tuned, Team Nonexistent and Damn Selene
When: 6:30
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Probably everyone you know to the left of center and at this point even people who think of themselves in the political center in America have been critical of the response of Israel to the October 7, 2023 attacks of Hamas. Dropping more bombs in a shorter period of time on a much smaller land than America did in all of the Iraq War with the supposed aim of rooting out an organization that is often cited as a terrorist organization in the West seems like a genocidal war crime to anyone that isn’t buying into warhawk propaganda. When an election hasn’t been allowed since 2007 and the majority of the population of Gaza and the West Bank in general wasn’t born at that time or an even vaster number at most children it seems obvious that holding them accountable in such a barbaric fashion for the acts of a political party acting rashly in response to horrible conditions imposed on their people should be condemned and de-funded by the rest of the world. Until then independent methods of aiding the people of Gaza have been organized including this event. When world leaders especially those in the USA work to end this conflict and others around the world maybe these sorts of events don’t need to happen to raise funds and highlight atrocities. Fortunately all the acts on this bill are worth seeing beyond any political activism.

Sweeping Promises, photo by Shawn Brackbill

Saturday | 02.24
What: Sweeping Promises w/Colfax Speed Queen and Angel Band
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: A time not so long ago Lawrence, Kansas was known for great, underground indie rock if you were plugged into the DIY circuit. But like all college towns phases of who is around and active changes as the demographics change. So to hear about Sweeping Promises releasing their sophomore album Good Living Is Coming For You on both Feelt It and SubPop came as a bit of a surprise. The duo of Lira Mondal and Caufield Schnug got their start in bands together n the late 2000s while at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas and then being involved in the Boston underground scene forming, according to Grant Sharples in a July 2023 profile on the band in Pitchfork, Sweeping Promises in 2019 after trying out different styles of music as Silkies, Dee-Parts and Mini-Dresses. In 2021 the group found a place in Lawrence near University of Kansas where Schnug has set up a studio and already recorded numerous bands. The new record is reminiscent of the kind of thing you might have heard on Kill Rock Stars or K Records in the 90s or out of Athens, GA in the 80s and 90s with punk rock spirit, pop accessibility and lo-fi charm. So if you missed the band when it was in town in September 2023 this is your chance to rectify that as well as catch local psych garage greats Colfax Speed Queen and Angel Band.

Monday | 02.26
What: Militarie Gun w/Pool Kids, Spiritual Cramp and Roman Candle
When: 6
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Los Angeles-based post-punk band Militarie Gun has garnered a bit of cachet for itself with its exuberant live shows and music that taps post-hardcore and noise rock roots for its own melodic manifestation of the synthesis of those influences. In 2023 the group released the anthemic Life Under the Gun and toured extensively in support of the album and now with another swing through Denver in the wake of the release of its new EP Life Under the Sun which is much more minimal versions of songs from the aforementioned record and not so obviously grounded in punk with lush atmospheres and contributions from Bully, Mannequin Pussy and Manchester Orchestra.

Small Black in 2010 at Rhinoceropolis, photo by Tom Murphy

Tuesday | 02.27
What: Small Black w/NITE
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station
Why: Small Black were pioneers of the chillwave sound, although it never embraced the genre tag because its own music was more in line with experimental, DIY electronic weirdos like Pictureplane and drawing inspiration from early synthpop which was making up its style as it went and incorporating noise and generating its own aesthetics, when it formed in the late 2000s and its 2010 debut album New Chain a classic of the genre. But that music was surpassed in development and sophistication by its 2013 record Limits of Desire which got a double vinyl deluxe reissue for its 10 year anniversary in 2023. For this tour you’ll probably get a bit of those older flavors of its music as well as its even more lush and R&B inflected newer material.

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond December 2023

The Keening performs at Decibel Metal & Beer Fest at The Summit Music Hall on Saturday, December 2, 2023, photo by Jared Gold and Angela Brown

Friday | 12.01
What: Cherished w/Pill Joy, Replica City and Flesh Tape
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Cherished headlines this show with its emotionally vibrant shoegaze. Pill Joy has the kind of sound that seems to be rooted in emo but more in line with an atmospheric lo-fi slowcore band. Replica City is a shoegaze-y post-punk band in that slowcore lane as well. Flesh Tape from Fort Collins is supposedly an emo band but its favoring of noisy atmospheres places it in a realm of music adjacent to that of all the bands on this finely assembled bill.

Friday | 12.01
What: Decibel Metal & Beer Fest w/Khemmis, Cephalic Carnage, Red Chord, KEN Mode, Morbikon and Phobocosm 2-day passes available
When: 5
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: The first night of this festival featuring some of the great extreme metal bands of today includes performances from Denver legends like doom band Khemmis and internationally renowned death metal outfit Cephalic Carnage playing a rare local show. KEN Mode from Canada brings its harrowing noise rock for its second time through Denver in 2023. In September the quartet issued its latest set of caustic, haunting and cathartic songs as the album VOID. A companion to the 2022 album NULL, the new record is all downbeats but delivered with a spirited resistance to life’s inevitable misfortunes.

Hiss Golden Messenger, photo by Graham Tolbert

Saturday | 12.02
What: Hiss Golden Messenger w/Adeem the Artist
When: 8
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Hiss Golden Messenger is a prolific and critically acclaimed indie folk band from Durham, North Carolina. Don’t worry about the genre description so much because the group’s music is ambitious in its songwriting and sonics particularly on its new album Jump For Joy (2023). In its sounds you hear as much the influence or impact of the likes of Peter Gabriel as Palace Brothers. The group is able to navigate both crafting an intimate quality to the songwriting and orchestral arrangements. Not chamber pop so much as bringing rich arrangements to bare bones songwriting so that each composition teems with life without distracting from the emotional range of the music and its pastoral yet thoughtful storytelling.

The Keening, photo by Jared Gold and Angela Brown

Saturday | 12.02
What: Decibel Metal & Beer Fest w/Agalloch, Midnight, Primitive Man, Krypts, The Keening and Mother of Graves
When: 4
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: The second night of the festival brings to you The Keening, the latest project from Rebecca Vernon who was once the lead singer of legendary cosmic/tribal doom band SubRosa from Salt Lake City. The Keening brings forward Vernon’s gift for weaving together Gothic Americana sensibilities with a detailed tapestry of atmospheric sweep and orchestral arrangements like something out of a hidden, mythical west. The new album Little Bird is a gorgeously doom-laden set of songs that would be a great soundtrack for a future film from John Adams, Zelda Adams and Toby Poser whose films Hellbender and Where the Devil Roams are right in line with the moods Vernon excels at evoking in her music. Agalloch reunited for some shows in 2023 and this is one of them. The Portland, Oregon-based band and its transcendental, folky black metal has exerted a strong influence on most of the better bands mining that sonic territory since the group’s origins in the 90s. Primitive Man will likely be the heaviest band of the whole festival with the trio’s mastery of crushing dynamics and orchestrated emotional release through colossal noise.

Rosegarden Funeral Party, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 12.02
What: Rosegarden Funeral Party w/Faces Under the Mirror and WitchHands
When: 8
Where: The Crypt
Why: Rosegarden Funeral Party from Dallas puts on one of the most impassioned performances in the realm of modern Goth and post-punk. Leah Lane isn’t just a front person with the commanding voice, her guitar work is a refreshing departure from the thin and minimalistic sound that has been plaguing much of darkwave and post-punk lately. Faces Under the Mirror is the long-running EBM project of Jayke Haven and one of the few projects in that particle style that seems to continue to innovate with emotionally vibrant songwriting. WitchHands is the excellent deathrock band from Colorado Springs.

Tuesday | 12.05
What: Blood Club w/Dustbowl Champion and Floats
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Blood Club is a darkwave band from Chicago whose lo-fi production is fairly standard for a certain stripe of post-punk these days. But its ethereal guitar work is more diverse and creative than a lot of what’s going on in various corners of current post-punk. Frontman Jess Flores was once a member of French Police who have attained a bit of a cult status these days and Blood Club is not so far removed from that sound with icy synths and spindly guitar tone but more minimal and spacious. Dustbowl Champion from Fresno, California is cut from similar cloth but as a solo project with echoing guitar, vocals and synth with a spare drum machine beat like something recorded to a cassette and transferred to an iPhone for mixing. Floats is a lo-fi punk pop band from Texas that sound like its members got into some of that 2010s garage punk and indiepop and wanted do something with the same spirit but a different sound.

Thursday | 12.07
What: Soy Celesté, Pretty. Loud, To Be Astronauts
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: It would be a mistake to genre pigeonhole Soy Celesté but based on the debut Break Out EP there’s a bit of fuzzy lo-fi pop and the kind of socially aware and confessional indie rock that one hasn’t heard much of since the 2000s. Pretty Loud appears to be the kind of pop band that is inspired by music from theater and the vaudeville chamber pop sort of thing but live seem to be fairly animated and driven by piano/keyboard melodies and vocals. To Be Astronauts has a sound reminiscent of 1990s grunge period alternative rock bands with some blues in the mix.

Saturday | 12.09
What: SORROWS, Dragon Drop and Bell Mine w/DJ set by Shhadows
When: 8
Where: Glob
Why: This is a show featuring some of the more inventive experimental pop songwriters from Denver. SORROWS is a duo comprised of vocalist Glynnis Braan and percussionist Lawrence Snell both of whom contribute electronic production to songs that are an evolution of downtempo with soaring, melancholic vocals and deep mood. Dragon Drop centers around the hyperpop and darkwave songwriting of former EVP singer/guitarist and current member of Princess Dewclaw Amanda Baker. Bell Mine is an ethereal darkwave solo project whose music seems resonant with the sound and style of artists like Laurel Halo and The Knife.

Saturday | 12.09
What: Messiahvore w/Church Fire and Moon Pussy
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Messiahvore’s eclectic heavy sound came out of its members’ collective experience with making sludge metal, doom and hard rock in the past couple of decades and more. But Messiahvore hits as more experimental, more psychedelic and with lyrics that dabble more in social commentary. And really one of the more entertaining and commanding bands in Denver’s heavy music underground. So it’s different to get to see very political, industrial darkwave dance band Church Fire on the bill with its own sense of play while delivering vital and insightful lyrics about the state of things without waxing too topical. Not to mention Moon Pussy whose irreverent humor tends to happen between songs when Crissy Cuellar gets on the mic with her self-aware dad joke routine that isn’t truly a routine because it’s always off the cuff. But the songs are some of the most cathartic, abrasive and inspiring blasts of noise rock happening anywhere right now.

Sunday | 12.10
What: The Playground Ensemble Presents: Tatsuya Nakatani
When: 6
Where: Leon Gallery
Why: Tatsuya Nakatani is a renowned avant-garde composer and percussionist originally from Japan who now makes Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico his home. This set will be one of the musician’s solo sets and an improvisation piece done in collaboration with Denver’s Playground Ensemble director and Conrad Kehn who is a bit of a figure in the local music scene in his own right with modern classical and the avant-garde in recent years and with industrial and Gothic rock in the 90s through the turn of the century.

Sunday | 12.10
What: Jarhead Fertilizer w/Phobophilic, Crownovhornz and Death Possession
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Jarhead Fertilizer is the influential grindcore band from Ocean City, Maryland and currently touring in support of the December 8, 2023 release of its latest album Carceral Warfare. Phobophilic is a deathgrind band from Fargo, North Dakota. Crownovhornz from Pennsylvania released an unusual hip-hop album called Appalachian Aesthetic in August 2023 that is a tale of life in impoverished America and about life in bars and jail. Definitely within the realm of alternative hip-hop. But who knows? Maybe they’ll be playing some death metal too since that’s a tag on the Bandcamp page for the record.

They Are Gutting a Body of Water, photo from Bandcamp

Tuesday | 12.12
What: They Are Gutting a Body of Water w/Full Body 2, The Red Scare and Empty4400
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: They Are Gutting a Body of Water brings its brand of lo-fi bedroom shoegaze jangle from Philly to Denver this night. And by shoegaze do not take that to mean conventionally pretty guitar work and maybe some melancholic vibe. It’s more the noisy, disorienting, genuinely psychedelic sound but threaded together with the kind of weirdo twee indiepop of the 90s and 2000s. Also from Philadelphia is Full Body 2 whose own shoegaze flavor is steeped in ambient breakcore soundscaping. The Red Scare from Fort Collins will provide plenty of its own hazy, distortion-sculpting post-punk. Some might call it shoegaze but those people might also think Daydream Nation is a shoegaze album. The Red Scare if it can be called post-punk is more that vein of deep, gritty, disorienting atmospheric noise with some actual song structure. Empty4400 is more on the grittier, punk/emo-rooted end of the shoegaze spectrum for this night.

Limbwrecker in 2023, photo by Tom Murphy

Thursday | 12.14
What: Limbwrecker, Grief Ritual, Holographic American and ZEPHR
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: It’s good to know that mixed bills can happen and with this you get one of the great hardcore/extreme metal bands from Denver in Limbwrecker whose caustic yet playfully delivered sounds and cathartic and primal vocals is definitely for people into powerviolence. Grief Ritual’s own style of hardcore has plenty of math-y progressions that make the more cutting, atmospheric sounds and gruff and impassioned vocals hit a little harder with the realization that the songs are often a melancholic exploration of tragedy and a critique of an abusive economic and political reality experienced by all of us daily. Holographic American includes Caleb Tardio who plays keyboards in noteworthy Denver melodic death metal band NightWraith. But HoloAm has more in common with one of his older bands, the mathrock/progressive alternative rock band I Sank Molly Brown. But more noise rock, more in the vein of post-rock of the vintage one found in the American midwest in the 90s. ZEPHR is a trio also from Denver whose music has brought together elements of pop-punk but the kind that borders on emo, risking that noisy and not perfectly melodic yet compelling imperfection, and performed with a raw and heartfelt energy.

Friday | 12.15
What: Cathedral Bells, Juli a n St. Nightmare and Hex Cassette
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Cathedral Bells is a dream pop/shoegaze from Orlando, Florida whose 2023 album Everything at Once was released in May through eclectic Philadelphia-based Born Losers Records. Its sound is the kind of melodious, ethereal soundscape-y guitar pop that seems to draw on 80s synth pop and jangle-y indie rock of the 80s vintage as well circa C86 and Sarah Records. Also on this bill is one-human death/blood cult Hex Cassette and his energized, industrial/EBM dance music. Sometime during his set you will be asked to offer a blood sacrifice and he will come out into the audience and mix it up with the people that show up. But all in good fun. And this will be one of the final live shows you’ll get to see from Denver darkwave/post-punk band Julian St. Nightmare. In its short tenure as a live band, although it formed and started writing music in 2018, the quintet has developed its fusion of spidery post-punk, garage rock, surf and dark synthpop into an emotionally rich and powerful body of work and intense and electrifying live show. Listen to our interview with members of the group on the Queen City Sounds Podcast.

Friday | 12.15
What: Alexandra Kay w/Haley Mae Campbell
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Independent country artist Alexandra Kay released her debut album All I’ve Ever Known on October 26, 2023. Kay has garnered a large fanbase online with millions of followers on TikTok and hundreds of thousand followers on Instagram and nearly as many subscribers on YouTube. But none of those numbers would mean much if Kay didn’t have the talent to warrant attention. Fortunately, her new album is a showcase for Kay’s diverse songwriting style with songs that seem to have poignant personal insight and lack the posi bravado that is too common in popular music. Kay’s songs shimmer with an inner light provided in part by lap steel and the perfect blend of acoustic and electric guitar working to craft the backdrop to Kay’s vibrant vocals to cinematic effect. Her music may be rooted in country but its of the kind that has inherent appeal beyond genre and crosses well over into the realm of pop and in moments even dream pop.

Saturday | 12.16
What: Mindforce w/Destiny Bond, Moral Law and guest
When: 7
Where: D3
Why: Mindforce is the thrashcore band from Poughkeepsie, New York touring in support of its 2022 album New Lords. Destiny Bond’s particular style of hardcore seems more steeped in anarcho punk and a more experimental, noisy yet melodic sound like some DC hardcore and early emo with a touch of the kinds of punk that would have influenced or channeled into Christian Death like Adolescents. But all with a political edge and socially critical lyrics. Moral Law is a vegan, straight edge band and its own music like a very focused yet seething hardcore at times that sounds in the realm of grind.

Wednesday | 12.20
What: The Gamits w/Bandaid Brigade and despAIR Jordan
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: The Gamits are Denver pop punk legends and influential in the local punk scene at least certainly among punk acts with roots going back before the 2010s and with vocalist and guitarist Chris Fogal living abroad these days this is a rare live performance. Bandaid Brigade is a band from San Diego who seem to have combined elements of pop punk, yacht rock and adult contemporary without it imploding into an ungodly mixture. The members of despAIR Jordan were and in some cases are members of formerly or current prominent bands in the Denver punk scene like SleeperHorse, Sugar Skulls and Marigolds and Pinhead Circus and currently releasing some finely crafted songs of its own in a more atmospheric post-hardcore vein.

Commerce City Rollers, photo from Bandcamp

Thursday | 12.21
What: Up Yours People, The Picture Tour and Commerce City Rollers
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Up Yours People is the latest band from Rich Groskopf. The Picture Tour will bring the rainy day shoegaze/dream pop sound to the proceedings and thus more than a touch of musical elegance to the evening. And yes Commerce City Rollers is the band that used to play the dive bars at punk shows in the late 90s with its melodic garage punk fronted by Maranda “MJ” Gaylord that had basically split for years until reuniting a bit before the pandemic and releasing a 2019 album Backstories.

Friday and Saturday | 12.22 and 12.23
What: DeVotchKa performing How it Ends (with Claire Heywood on 12.23)
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Across two nights, the legendary “gypsy punk” band DeVotchKa performs its 2004, and arguably finest, album How It Ends in its entirety including its heartbreaking title track. It was the last album the group released before garnering greater success and fame with its music featuring in the 2006 film Little Miss Sunshine. Its orchestral arrangements and depth of feeling and stirring melodies was a big leap forward for the band that some of us got to see play shows in dive bars like 15th St. Tavern and unglamorous opening slots. But something clicked somewhere and the ambition of the songwriting expanded greatly and now while the band isn’t necessarily even indie famous it can command a sizable audience in and well beyond Denver with shows that while somewhat choreographed still pack that emotional punch that has made it worth witnessing in person.

Saturday | 12.23
What: Church Fire, The Milk Blossoms, Curta and debthedemo
When: 8:30
Where: The Roxy on Broadway
Why: This show will put you through some moods that’ll be good for you this holiday season. Church Fire will bring the energized industrial dance synth pop and all the feels. The Milk Blossoms will perform its heart-rending, gossamer tender pop songs this time in a slightly different configuration since drummer Tyler Lindgren won’t be able to perform replaced by bassist David Samuelson behind the kit. Curta’s weirdo alternative hip-hop returns to Denver for a rare engagement from Chicago and Boulder’s debthedemo will inject some beautifully crafted ambient rap house with performance art strangeness. In most ways the local show of the week for the discerning listener.

Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 12.30
What: Slim Cessna’s Auto Club w/Moon Pussy and Weathered Statues
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Slim Cessna’s Auto Club headlines two nights at the Hi-Dive for the New Years Eve weekend with its energetic and brilliantly executed Vaudevillian Americana post-punk. For this first night you also get to see Moon Pussy, the arch practitioners of dangerous noise rock delivered with an irreverent humor and incredibly intensity and Weathered Statues whose particular style of post-punk is more akin to the more death rock and spidery punk sound of Xmal Deutschland and Christian Death than the synth-driven style of groups more in line with darkwave.

Sunday | 12.31
What: Slim Cessna’s Auto Club w/Palehorse/Palerider and Snakes
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: This second night of the SCAC headline run for the holiday features opening acts Palehorse/Palerider whose psychedelic, deserty post-punk doom truly creates a deep sense of space and enigmatic moods and twangy garage rock Americana of Snakes. All killer, no filler.

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E33: Dale Hollow

Dale Hollow got his start in music in his hometown Nashville, Tennessee but is now based out of New York City. Hollow refers to himself as THE Country Music Superstar (“Trademark Pending”) and his stage persona larger than life, his mystique as a fully-formed artist when his earliest released dropped in terms of songwriting and musicianship and the quality of his output supports a case for that designation regardless of that dubious claim on purely verifiable commercial grounds by the likes of Luke Bryan, Loretta Lynn, Jessica Simpson, Darius Rucker or Kenny Chesney. There is a thrilling earnestness to Hollow’s performance on recording and on stage that is commanding even when there’s an element of humor and playfulness to many aspects of Hollow’s craft. His new record Hack of the Year beats critics to the punch with the title and yet it speaks to the spirit of the underdog and the performative humility rampant in much of country music. Hollow takes on the tropes of the genre and and both embraces their virtues and upends the pretensions. Hollow’s use of humor doesn’t mean his songwriting is a joke or satire rather it plays the same role humor does in approaching life and putting everything into the proper perspective and injecting a little joy into some of the most downbeat moments we might experience. The songs of Hack of the Year are very much unalloyed country performed with a grace, elegance and passion one might hope for out of any record or any genre.

Listen to our interview with Dale Hollow on Bandcamp and follow the adventures of the songwriter at his website linked below. Hollow is currently on tour with a stop at Globe Hall in Denver, Colorado on Tuesday, November 7, 2023 with Sarah Adams and Peter Stone, doors 7pm, show at 8pm.

dalehollowcountrymusicstar.com