Rousers were a staple of the late 70s CBGB’s scene. Inspired by the likes of New York Dolls, Ramones and 1950s rock and roll, the group included vocalist Jeff Buckland, rhythm guitarist Bill Dickson, bassist John Hannah, lead guitarist Tom Milmore and drummer Jerid O’Connell. Its sound was an amalgam of punk energy and attitude and vintage rock and roll sound and knack for melodic hooks. By the end of the decade the band had been courted by Sire records yielding a 1979 demos recording session with Ed Stasium who had then recently recorded Ramones and Talking Heads. But Sire decided not to sign Rousers and the demos remaind in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s Sire archives until digitized and restored in 2024. Those recordings were mixed between Bob Stander of Parchessi Studio and Ed Stasium as well. Aside from some 1981 seven inches, Rousers would have been lost to history except in the memories of those who were there to see them in their prime but the newly mixed tracks were released as 1979 Sire Session on October 14, 2024 on black and transulcent white vinyl as well as 2 CD set with bonus tracks. The 13 main tracks have a vibrant, kinetic energy and clarity of tone that is immediately striking with songwriting that makes you wonder if Rousers would have been pop radio stars had the record been released and promoted especially during a period then when retro-rock was back in vogue. The album will be made available for digital download and on streaming services other than Bandcamp in 2026.
Listen to our interview with Bill Dickson on Bandcamp and follow Rousers at the link below.
Your Friend Nirantha released the debut EP Desire Path on September 25, 2025 and the lead single “Sunshine” is a quiet and delicate epic. Minimal percussion keeps the pace as spare, ethereal guitar traces the background spaces of the song and lightly distorted bass provides the deeper mood and Nirantha Gopal’s voice sits in the foreground with of affection and appreciation. In the end with the child’s voice one might rightfully assume it’s sort of a creatively ambitious song for one’s child. Hearing bells and in the mix to add a touch of texture enhances the impression of this song coming out of more a desire to convey a feeling more than being influenced by a specific style of music. It’s not really dream pop or indiepop but fans of both will find something undeniably appealing here. Fans of Black Belt Eagle Scout circa Mother of My Children will hear some resonance with the way Katherine Paul crafts melodies with great emotional nuance. Listen to “Sunshine” on Bandcamp and follow Your Friend Nirantha at the links provided.
An ethereal harmonic hovers as the backdrop to Carmine Francis’s single “Too Much” and truly lends his vocals and the spare instrumentation an intimate quality and immediacy. The song is like a meditation on life’s ups and downs and perennial yearnings and anxieties and trying to find a way to turn it all into something that liberates you from that cycle of seemingly endless little struggles that long term can feel like they’re dragging you down. We commiserate with the songwriter as he relates how his own previous efforts and goals may have contributed to staying on the existential rat race rather than aiming to dream differently and take in the fears he once avoided and reconcile them with a better headspace. Fans of Silver Jews and the more psychedelic folk side of Wilco will appreciate the fine inflections of tone and rhythmic nuance that make this song something you want to hear again immediately. Listen to “Too Much” on Bandcamp where you can hear the rest of the Surrender EP which released August 21, 2025.
Mora Mothaus’ vocals are part of a seamless soundscape on the “Eye.Seek” single reminiscent of The Knife when they would go off standard song structure. This song flows with a seemingly organic structure with understated beats providing texture and fading into the background as the song prepares to soar. In the music video we see the artist dancing in a chamber illuminated by blue light for part of the video and looking on with an expression of deep introspection as though caught up in the thoughts of living out a dream until she leaves an office building into the Tokyo night seemingly in an attempt to run from the “demon” of her inner aspirations only to find it would have been better to embrace the creative impulse within herself all along as terrifying as it can be especially when it requires you to break with internalized societal expectations. Anyone that has found some resonance with the likes of Molly Nilsson, Jenny Hval and Pierce With Arrow will appreciate Mothaus’ evocation of emotional transcendence. Perfectly blending layered atmospheres, minimal, accenting beats, tonal shimmers, fiery yet spectral guitar and great arcs of melody Mothaus keeps us captivated throughout. Watch the video for “Eye.Seek” on YouTube and follow Mora Mothaus at the links provided.
Plague Garden is a post-punk band from Denver, Colorado that began a concept in 2017 when singer-guitarist Fernando Altonaga wanted a vehicle for his more post-punk songwriting that didn’t fit with his project at the time eHpH, an industrial/EBM project. Keyboard/synth player Angelo Atencio was in the latter at time time as well and the two projects operated in tandem for several years. In 2022 the group brought on bassist Stephen Hannum and in 2023 current guitarist Dæmian Alexander. From its earliest days the band’s songwriting had imaginative soundscapes and robust guitar tones as well as a poetic sensibility that has translated into poignant lyrics that express vivid portraits of personal struggle and catharsis. With three albums to its name so far, Plague Garden is now entering a phase of exploring themes and concepts in the music and expanding its sound palette as well as the inclusion of Spanish language lyrics. Live the band’s music is a fusion of guitar-driven post-punk and darkwave with experimental electronic and production elements with a theatrical aesthetic and passionate performances.
Plague Garden will be a part of Colorado Goth Fest on Saturday, June 22, 2024 which will feature local and national acts including Calabrese and Scary Black, WitchHands, Opaque Shades, Funeral Process, Thee Coroners, Redwing Blackbird and Devoratus showcasing the more death rock and post-punk side of the Goth scene with an event that runs from 4pm until 12:30am at HQ. Listen to our interview with Plague Garden on Bandcamp and follow the band at the links below.
Friday | 01.05 What:The Salesmen w/Billy Conquer, Tuff Bluff and Candy Chic When: 8pm doors/8:30pm show Where: Hi-Dive Why: The Salesmen might be considered post-punk because its music has that angular aspect and seems informed by political edge in the more interesting end of punk but its eclectic style doesn’t fit a narrow genre tag. Its 2023 EP WAR IN COLORADO! sounds like they grew up listening to Red Hot Chili Peppers, pop punk and 90s art rock in the vein of Mr. Bungle and took what chops they learned that mutant route and made something decidedly different. Billy Conquer from Gunnison, Colorado unabashedly claims its garage rock roots but its 2020 EP Garage Hits has a flavor that sounds more like the guys grew up having their brains poisoned by classic rock and jam band overload (it happens whether through parents or peers) but then discovered T-Rex and Big Star and rather than follow the typical garage punk route of the 2010s actually honed their chops both technical and songwriting-wise to make something that dips into the classics a bit but so well developed you don’t mind. Tuff Bluff is the latest punk band to include Sara Fischer who some may remember for her time in old school Denver groups like Pin Downs, The Speedholes, New Idols, The Manxx, Bluebelle and others. So of course the songwriting is well crafted and both gritty and melodic Candy Chic has been around longer than one might assume since its cachet has caught on a bit more over the past year. Its music doesn’t seem beholden to surf rock, indiepop or post-punk though general fans of that kind of music will find something to appreciate about the band’s deft navigation of a sound that may remind some of early Slumberland bands or even Sarah Records acts with a gentle touch and a knack for tender and ethereal melodies and richly emotional vocals.
Daniel Donato, photo by Jason Stoltzfus
Friday and Saturday | 01.05 and 01.06 What: Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country & Trouble No More (A Celebration of Allman Brothers Band) When: 7pm doors/8pm show both nights Where:Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom (01.05) and Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom (01.06) Why: Daniel Donato released his latest album Reflector on November 10, 2023 and its richly diverse sounds and styles are entrancing and lively. It’s the kind of country one would expect from an artist rooted in modern Nashville in that he seems to have absorbed the sounds where country intersects with psychedelia, indie rock and the jam band universe and produced an orchestral yet accessible sound of his own. Donato’s songwriting isn’t same-y and through the album and his body of work he offers uplifting and thoughtful tales of human existence with great imagination and energy.
Equine in 2019, photo by Tom Murphy
Sunday | 01.07 What: Equine, Church Car (NYC) and Adam Baumeister When: 7 pm Where: St. Pauli Tavern Why: Equine is Kevin Richards’ long-running, solo, free jazz-inflected, avant-garde guitar drone project with several albums in his body of work to date. Richards was once the genius guitarist of post-hardcore band Motheater and a member of noise band Epileptinomicon and Equine reflects that background some in that he brought truly unorthodox jazz chords to post-hardcore guitar style and a structure, albeit one more intuitive, to noise. Church Car is the latest project of Ian Douglas Moore who was known in Denver more for his time in punk adjacent and Americana bands. Adam Baumeister? Who knows what you’ll get because his wide-ranging creativity has meant he was a member of Bad Weather California, art-punk weirdos Navy Girls, his own experimental guitar and cosmic country grunge pop band Littles Paia and Lil’ Adam as well as numerous other musical endeavors over the years including his running of lathe cut imprint Meep Records.
Nocturnal Prose, photo from Bandcamp
Sunday | 01.07 What: Nocturnal Prose w/Hex Casse, Empty4400 and Luna’s When: 7pm Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective Why: Nocturnal Prose is a noisy post-punk/shoegaze band from San Antonio, Texas. Hex Cassette is the one man cult and industrial dance extravaganza who always seems to find a way to joke darkly with the audience while getting them to dance by bringing the performance into the crowd. Empty4400 is a true fusion of noisy shoegaze and emo. Luna’s is a hardcore band from Denver.
Plaid, photo from Bandcamp
Thursday | 01.11 What:Plaid w/Rameau Control When: 8 Where: Meow Wolf Why: Plaid is the influential and foundational IDM duo from the UK. From its early days when Andy Turner and Ed Handley were part of The Black Dog Plaid has been pioneering forward thinking electronic musical ideas, forms and methods of composition including crafting their own electronic instruments in software form not to mention its creative use of hardware. Plaid’s diverse body of work has pushed the boundaries of modern electronic music and its latest album 2022’s Feorm Falorx is one of its most accessible records with bright melodies and finely sequenced beats like dance music for the soundtrack to a deceptively utopian thriller set in an off world holiday resort.
Clarion Void, photo from Bandcamp
Friday | 01.12 What:Poison Tribe w/Upon a Fields Whisper, Clarion Void and Empire Demolition When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Poison Tribe is a crusty hardcore band from Denver whose body of work thus far seems like a caustic critique of state violence and the horror of the dystopia that is too obvious from any remotely realistic assessment of world events and American national and local politics. Upon a Fields Whisper is an atmospheric doom/blackened crust band from Colorado Springs comprised of noteworthy musicians from that city’s always surprisingly great local music scene including Brian Ostrow of numerous other bands including 908 and formerly of Blighter. Also Bryan Webb who has also been a mainstay of Colorado Springs music in various bands perhaps most well known for some for his tenure in garage punk legends Nicotine Fits and The Conjugal Visits. Clarion Void also from Colorado Springs seems to traffic in the kind of existential blackened doom that means it is deft at both introspective melodies and blisteringly intense riffing that it often lets hang in the air like a harbinger of disaster. Empire Demolition is sort of a powerviolence/deathgrind band from Denver who are set to release their new album Defenestration on January 12, 2024 in time for this show.
Bluebook in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 01.13 What:Bluebook w/The Still Tide and Uhl When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Bluebook is the long-running musical project of Julie Davis that has undergone various incarnations as a vehicle for her jazz-inflected, experimental downtempo chamber pop. But the current iteration of the band is a bit of an all-star lineup including former Monofog and Snake Rattle Rattle Snake singer Hayley Helmericks on drums, Anna Morsett of The Still Tide on guitar and Jess Parsons (The Still Tide, Patrick Dethlefs, Alex Cameron) on keyboards, all of whom also contribute vocals to the project. The result of this amalgam of talent is a group that conveys an emotional depth like a brooding, dark folk art rock pop group. Not much else like it. The Still Tide proves that Anna Morsett isn’t just a gifted songwriter but one of the best lead guitarists in a band in Denver with a knack for using alternate tunings and expertly placed capos to create a unique sound palette alongside what bandmate Jake Miller is doing on his own guitar. Uhl is the art pop project of Isabella Uhl whose vocals focused compositions have garnered critical attention from national publications like Under the Radar and whose music might be compared to ambitious songwriters in a more dream pop vein like Kate Bush or perhaps more directly like Jenny Hval and Fever Ray.
Rowboat, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 01.13 What: Rowboat, Zealot and A Strange Happening When: 9 Where: The Roxy on Broadway Why: If you were to put the names of a dozen of the best indie rock bands in Denver in a hat and draw them out you couldn’t do better than this. Rowboat is a trio fronted by Sam McNitt who starts with a folk foundation on acoustic guitar in his songwriting process and builds them into emotionally charged and poetically insightful songs well orchestrated in the live setting on electric guitar and bass and synth from Scott Frank and drums by Brian Lepien. It is powerful and consistently underrated stuff in recent years in Denver from former members of Blue Million Miles and Fucking Orange. Zealot is a band that is comprised of brilliant songwriters and musicians in their own right but lead by Luke Hunter James-Erickson who perhaps is inspired greatly by the literary indie rock of The Mountain Goats but whose own creative muse has lead him down various fruitful paths and interests over the past couple of decades in Denver. But on board are former Fingers of the Sun and current Salads and Sunbeams songwriter, bassist and singer Suzi Allegra, former Facade and Violent Summer guitarist and singer Kitty Vincent and Michael King who is one of the great bass players in Denver indie rock but plays drums in this band. On the recording of the group’s latest single are Jacob Adamson and Elisha Coy from A Strange Happening whose own concept pop indie rock is a brilliant fusion of radio play storytelling style and indiepop in the classic 90s vein.
Pink Hawks, photo from Bandcamp
Saturday | 01.13 What:Pink Hawks release of Elote w/Don Chicharrón, 2MX2 and Fuya Fuya When: 7 Where: The Oriental Theater Why: Pink Hawks came out of Yuzo Nieto’s fascination with experimental music, jazz and the possibilities in fusing those impulses with Afrobeat and other forms of African and Latin popular music. This show is a celebration of the release of the vinyl edition of the group’s new record Elote. So it’s only fitting that Latin psychedelic rock band Don Chicharrón is on hand on the bill as well as excellent Spanish language hip-hop duo 2MX2.
Cheap Perfume circa 2016, photo by Tom Murphy
Wednesday | 01.17 What:Cheap Perfume, Dead Pioneers and Elegant Everyone When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Three of the most overtly political bands from Colorado on one bill? And all with lyrics that are smart, poetic and poignant? Each of these acts are also entertaining, energetic and those lyrics don’t feel like a lecture at all but a rallying cry for something important and a sharp, pointed and clever critique of some of the worst impulses of our collective culture and society. That’s what punk can, has been, and should probably be more often.
Deth Rali, photo from Bandcamp
Thursday | 01.18 What:In Plain Air w/Corsicana, Deth Rali and Tarantula Bill When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Psych prog trio In Plain Air is launching its long weekend tour through Kansas at this show with support from dream pop band Corsicana, Deth Rali and it’s unorthodox blend of thrash and psychedelic prog and Tarantula Bill who, based purely on song streaming, seem to ably enough perform music clearly inspired by early 2010s psychedelic indie rock.
Wave Decay circa 2023, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 01.19 What:Wave Decay w/Pale Sun and Galleries When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: This will be a show of the heavier end of shoegaze and psychedelia. Wave Decay’s sound is rooted in the angular disorient and sonic discipline of krautrock but with dense atmospherics reminiscent of music done by Jeff suthers of Pale Sun whose own mastery of soundscaping and emotionally charged songwriting all at once is more or less unmatched in Denver. Galleries came out of the 2010s based in the classic rock resurgence and psych garage and its current musical offerings are in that vein but the band appears to have followed an instinct for expansive melodies and the kind of psychedelia one might more expect from the more rock and roll end of Deerhunter.
Moore Kismet, photo courtesy the artist
Friday | 01.19 What: Wreckno w/Moore Kismet, Thelem and Eyezic When: 8 Where: Ogden Theatre Why: Wreckno is now based in Indianapolis but started out in small town Michigan and garnered a cult following as a queer rapper, producer and DJ in the bass music/EDM world with a presentation that is as colorful as it is inventive in genre bending and collaborating with a wide range of artists in his wheelhouse and beyond. But if you’re going definitely get there early enough to catch Moore Kismet whose 2022 debut album Universe, released when he was 17, revealed a gift for layering rhythms and atmospheres in a way reminiscent of the production of Flying Lotus and beats fusing ideas out EDM, trap and the more experimental hip-hop auteurs of the 90s and 2000s and progressing it into his own style. Fans of the aforementioned and the more electronic dance end of Jockstrap will get a lot of Moore Kismet’s creative experiments in the electronic music art form.
Quits, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 01.20 What:Broken Record, Quits, despAIR Jordan and DJ Listen Up Nerds When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why:Nothing Moves Me proved that Denver’s Broken Record had polished its already noteworthy songwriting into a shining body of work that has the emotional nuance and conviction of a great emo band but with power pop knack for hard hitting melodies like Dinosaur Jr had that band come up through 90s underground rock rather that influenced a lot of it. Quits is a juggernaut noise rock band who will be hitting the road to the West Coast in the first week and a half of February in support of its 2023 album Feeling It out on Sleeping Giant Glossolalia. DespAIR Jordan somehow came out of the punk scene and writes glittery and uplifting, shoegaze-adjacent pop rock that sounds more like The Dismemberment Plan than Sunny Day Real Estate but without truly sounding like either.
Squirrel Flower, photo by Alexa Viscius
Tuesday | 01.23 What:Squirrel Flower w/Goon and Lu Lagoon When: 7 Where: Larimer Lounge Why: Ella O’Connor Williams was involved in the Boston DIY scene in her teens before moving to Iowa to attend Grinnell College where she wrote her first EP Early Winter Songs From Middle America as Squirrel Flower and releasing it herself in 2015. Eight years, two further EPs and four albums later Williams released 2023’s Tomorrow’s Fire. The songwriter already had more than a touch of that Low-esque talent for melodious vocals and emotional delicacy of expression baked into the music but also some of that scrappy energy that propels her folk-inflected songs into an elevated realm of sonic power. The new record simply opens up where Williams is able to go with her experiments with sounds and styles in unexpected directions and at times is reminiscent of the eclectic and explosive music of Wednesday. Except of course that Williams has her own perceptive observations about the challenges of modern, working class life told in musical shadings introspective and brash yet always sensitive and vulnerable in the way that only truly powerful music can be.
Nabihah Iqbal, photo from Bandcamp
Wednesday and Thursday | 01.24 and 01.25 What: Nabihah Iqbal w/STAR Inc. and DJ Ladybug When: 6pm doors/7pm show on 01.24 and 7pm doors 8pm show on 01.25 Where:Washington’s (01.24) and Lost Lake (01.25) Why: Nabihah Iqbal was a human rights lawyer before crafting the music for which she would later be known though has likely dabbled in music across a lifetime. An early contributor to the work of the late experimental pop artist and producer Sophie, Iqbal released her debut album under her own name in 2017 with Weighing of the Heart. In 2023 she unveiled Dreamer via the respected avant-electronic imprint Ninja Tune with its intricate layers of hazy, luminescent atmospheres and flows of introspective vocals. The music casts light on the aspirations, challenges of joys of navigating the world and its sweeping dynamics intermingle the musically tactile with the ethereal for an effect that is transporting yet grounded. Iqbal’s navigation of these aesthetics and creative impulses is masterful and often attempted by more conventional shoegaze bands but not always to the same degree of effectiveness.
Friday | 01.26 What:King Cardinal w/Cous and Hunter James and The Titanic When: 7 Where: Globe Hall Why: Brennan Mackey of King Cardinal says on the band’s web bio that he moved to Denver on a whim after working a finance job he didn’t love and perhaps dreading what the rest of his life might look like he decided to throw that caution to the wind. Fortunately for us, Mackey is a gifted songwriter and musician and the 2017 debut album from King Cardinal, Great Lakes, is a choice example of when an Americana band can infuse its more homespun charm with mood and imagination. Dynamic flows of tones and textures in expressive rivulets around Mackey’s own fine singing. The group is now releasing its new album Landlines. Haven’t heard any of the new material but based on the attention to songwriting details and delicacy of delivery it’s likely to be another set of songs of pastoral beauty and sentiments that have made the group’s previous offerings eminently listenable.
Owosso in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 01.26 What: Rowboat, Blacktop Musical and Owosso When: 8 doors/9 show Where: 715 Club Why: Rowboat is making a rare live showing inside of the same month with this show and bringing some highly literate and passionate folk-rooted, shoegaze adjacent rock to this small room. Also on the bill is the Owosso whose members came up in the punk and early modern indie rock milieu and whose music has that scrappy angular energy blended with melodic songwriting acumen that made the many of the DC post-punk bands so perennially appealing.
Buck Meek, photo by Shervin Lainez
Saturday | 01.27 What: Buck Meek w/Dylan Meek When: 7 Where: Globe Hall Why: Buck Meek is perhaps best known as the guitarist and backing vocalist of indie rock phenoms Big Thief. But for the past half a decade and more he’s carved out an musical identity to explore separate from the band and his third album Haunted Mountain was issued by 4AD in 2023. The cosmic, ambient folk/alt-country is at turns poetically fantastical, tenderly personal and organic in its arrangements. Each song seems to emerge, unfold and grow into charming, poignantly knowing vignettes of life. If you’re a fan it would be advised to catch him on this tour to see how the band pulls this off live.
Digable Planets, photo from Bandcamp
Tuesday | 01.30 What:Digable Planets Reachin’ 30th Anniversary Tour w/Kassa Overall When: 8 Where: Ogden Theatre Why: Digable Planets began as a solo project of Ishmael “Butter Fly” Butler in the late 80s but the demos blossomed when Butler met and began collaborating with Mariana “Ladybug Mecca” Vieira and Craig “Doodlebug” Irving after he started interning at Sleeping Bag Records in NYC and in 1989 the current and classic lineup of Digable Planets was born. Like some of its contemporaries the trio was immersed in the aesthetics and creative impulses of jazz fused with highly literate lyrics and brought that sensibility firmly into hip-hop in a way that translated as particularly experimental and to this day surprisingly forward thinking. During its first iteration from the 80s through 1995 the group only released two albums, 1993’s Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space) and 1995’s futuristic Blowout Comb. The group has reunited twice from 2005-2011 and 2015 to the present and although it hasn’t released an album’s worth of new music its live show maintains a certain mystique and late night jazz vibe that is still deeply compelling.
Church Fire, photo by Tom Murphy, concept by Church Fire
Church Fire is a trio from Denver, Colorado that formed around 2010. It’s sound is “…equal parts industrial synth pop, hyperkinetic dance punk and dreamlike ambient 8-bit EDM doom,” or so this author wrote some time back. The project began as a duo of Shannon Webber and David Samuelson originally calling itself Sew Buttons on Ice Cream and performing shows in the local underground and DIY circuit. Samuelson had been a member of art rock bands Bangtel and Dinner With Cannibals and Webber in political noise punk trio Dangerous Nonsense (which she would continue to front until the mid-2010s). The latter and Samuelson’s previous bands were welcomed by the local, weirdo art rock scene of groups with a penchant for the mutant sounds of artists like Mr. Bungle, John Zorn, Chrome and Frank Zappa that once had a loose affiliation as the Denver Art Rock Collective before that fizzled out in the early 2010s.
In 2012 Church Fire dispensed with its odd assortments of instrumentation and focused on the more electronic songwriting with Webber’s commanding and emotionally electrifying vocals and stage presence and changed its performance moniker to its current form. The name seeming to reflect the band’s anti-authoritarian spirit and its always creative and earnest anti-patriarchal critique. Its developing sound then was more in line with what was going on in the nascent darkwave scene of which Church Fire was not a part and which didn’t have a strong showing in Denver. So the band garnered its own following in Denver aside from what one might presume to be its scene with always strikingly powerful live shows and its undeniably compelling dance beats, entrancing and transporting melodies and rare fusion of joy and righteous anger. All qualities that have remained an aspect of the band’s sound and performance style even as it has evolved.
Around the time Church Fire took on its then new name it shared bills with other acts emerging in new forms and under new names like The Milk Blossoms who had once been called Architect (in which Samuelson plays bass) and Mirror Fears, the solo project of Kate Warner, formerly of dream-pop/indie rock band Talk All Night. Webber and Samuelson grew up south of Denver and Warner grew up on the north side in a family that encouraged creative endeavors and with siblings who made a mark in music in their own right, her brother Andrew now in Slim Cessna’s Auto Club and Weathered Statues and having been in groups like Bad Luck City and Snake Rattle Rattle Snake. There seemed to be a natural affinity and stylistic compatibility between Church Fire’s music and that of Mirror Fears. Warner had played keyboards and synth in Talk All Night but for Mirror Fears she learned electronic production/composition and principles of audio engineering (in part from doing live sound and trouble-shooting gear for a local rehearsal studio and various events) further and her emotionally rich and vulnerable voice has a unique resonance that transcends any specific musical style. In the summer of 2019 Warner had joined Church Fire and put Mirror Fears on hiatus.
As a trio Samuelson took up drums with a rigorous practice regimen that honed a precision and power suitable for the band’s existing music with Webber and Warner experimenting with combining and playing off each other’s strengths as vocalists while taking the group’s songwriting in new directions and maintaining an inspiring and engaging live show. You can go to a Church Fire and be guaranteed to see a fiery performance that invites you along for a shared catharsis. To date the band has played hundreds of shows and released four full-length albums, an EP and a few singles, all worthwhile listens with memorable songs throughout.
Listen to our interview with Church Fire on Bandcamp and follow the trio at the links below. Chances are if it’s a month, Church Fire has a show or two. But the next two shows are on Saturday, December 23, 2023 at The Broadway Roxy with The Milk Blossoms, Curta and Debthedem0 at 8:30 pm doors, 9pm show and Saturday, December 30, 2023 at The Skylark Lounge with Watch Yourself Die, Voight and Horse Girl 8 doors, 9 show.
These days a love song expressing feelings of deep connection can seem like a hackneyed pop song premise. But Midheaven’s crafting of its song “Heaven,” a testament to Andy DeLuca’s and Sarah Eiseman’s richness of affection for one another, feels like taking a journey through a hall of illuminated emotions in a dazzling pageant of sonic detail. The elegant and fragile guitar work, Eiseman’s ethereal vocals a constant presence and the human connection with the dense and dynamic procession of tones. Melodic drones, driving rhythms, thick and finely accented bass and while clearly in the realm of a shoegaze band something about the band’s attention to the electronic elements is reminiscent as much of early 90s Curve slightly more so than obvious shoegaze greats of that era. Think more like newer acts like Tamaryn, Asobi Seksu and The Lost Patrol. Like the duo took its New Wave and synthpop influences and extrapolated that style of production and dance music sensibilities into an atmospheric rock context resulting in a song that truly engulfs you with its wave of uplifting emotion which isn’t experience we get often enough in the musical parlance of modern shoegaze.
Elora launches “Embers” with a sound of lightly distorted synths in warping waves for a sound like a musical machine getting up to speed. But it’s really just the perfect musical setting for a song looking back on a friendship that it turns out was based around getting drunk and high but with one person in the friendship never being accountable and engaging in manipulative and at times passive-aggressive behavior. The melody even as it warps and sounds like it might melt apart draws you into Elora’s clear and bright vocals, coherent in a song that might veer off and threatens to stumble sideways. And don’t many of us know those people for whom lines like “you crossed a million lines, you were my friend when you were high” and “everything was fine until you started drinking” seem oh so appropriate. Especially when you’re young, or in a social scene that romanticizes partying and getting altered on various chemicals of choice. And to have misbehavior forgiven and dismissed as being drunk or fucked up, especially when you’re getting the brunt of that mistreatment. Elora looks back with some bemusement and wonder at allowing herself to remain connected to such a person for as long as she did. So why revisit that time? To remind yourself how good you’ve got it now and to draw that line on foolishness from others now. Listen to “Embers” on Spotify and follow Elora at the links below.
Alice Boyd’s music video for “Separation” as interpreted by Studio Gruff takes the song and renders its minimalistic choir of voices into flashes and streams of color on a dark field, like gentle fireworks. But as the song progresses and Boyd’s voice comes to the fore we see a progression of images of life taking to land from a primordial sea and evolving rapidly in beautiful alien forms that become those more familiar to us today. In the lyrics Boyd references the Cambrian age and how it was there before us but as such is our predecessor in the continuum of cosmic and earthly dynamics that is life and its impacts on and interactions with the environment and its own various manifestations. The song with its sharp and playful rhythms and creative use of voice as both a percussive and melodic element is a manifestation of the knowledge of that interconnectedness making the song high concept art pop that fans of Rubblebucket, Laurie Anderson and Tune-Yards will appreciate. Watch the video for “Separation” on YouTube and follow Alice Boyd at the links below where you can find a route to listen to the rest of Boyd’s newly released EP From The Understory which dropped on digital and vinyl on April 21, 2023.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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