Queen City Sounds and Art

Best Shows in Denver 1/24/19 – 1/30/19

hackdepicciotto_sylviasteinhäuser — **hackedepicciotto performs January 30 with DBUK at Lost Lake. Photo by Sylvia Steinhäuser**

Thursday | January 24, 2019

meetthegiant3_may15_2018_tommurphy — Meet the Giant, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Meet the Giant w/Dead Pay Rent, Mr. Atomic
When: Thursday, 01.24, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Meet the Giant, perhaps unintentionally, perhaps subconsciously, perhaps entirely by plan, has drawn on both 80s and 90s sounds at a time when the various aesthetics of those decades are firmly back in vogue. Downtempo, brooding post-punk, the rhythms of sample-driven composition and emotionally rich vocals make for a band that sounds instantly like something beyond having an appeal to nostalgia while drawing on a hint of that. The group spent nearly a decade honing its songcraft and chemistry as a unit and more than a small amount of the intimacy that comes out of such extended wood shedding comes through in the music like you’re getting to experience that connection that friends have who can share much with each other and be real. Many bands put on some kind of ego-driven facade fueled by a kind of borrowed rock and roll myth bravado. Meet the Giant comes about its rock and roll power honestly and with tender emotions laid bare, which is always more compelling than tough guy strutting any day of the week. Do yourself a favor and see them or at least check out their remarkable 2018 self-titled debut.

Who: DSTR, eHpH, Cutworm
When: Thursday, 01.24, 8 p.m.
Where: 3 Kings Tavern
Why: DSTR is Destroid, a project of Daniel Meyer who some may know more for his work as half of influential EBM band Haujobb. Distorted vocals, imaginative soundscaping, strong, pulsing beats and menacing, glitch-hazed atmospherics. Denver’s eHpH has been making an interesting hybrid of industrial rock and dark EBM of their own but refreshingly unlike any of their peers in the Mile High City. Cutworm is a bit of a left field choice for a bill like this if its 2018 Swallow EP is any indication with its sound being unfruitful in placing in a particular genre box. Its sounds range from modern downtempo darkwave to especially beautifully moody IDM. Live, though, Cutworm definitely brings the industrial edge into the production.

Friday | January 25, 2019

klausdafoe_nov10_2018_tommurphy — Klaus Dafoe, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Red Tack, George Cessna and Blindrunner
When: Friday, 01.25, 9 p.m.
Where: Lion’s Lair
Why: Red Tack is the solo, somewhat weirdo singer-songwriter project of Ted Thacker who should be remembered widely for being in 90s alternative rock band Baldo Rex and later as a member of indiepop band Veronica. Whatever his pedigree, Thacker has remained one of Denver’s most interesting songwriters and personalities. George Cessna is the son of Slim Cessna of Auto Club fame. The younger Cessna’s own work is both not too surprising considering his father’s legendary musical legacy but he is far from a carbon copy and his use of raw sound and atmosphere in his recordings and his wide ranging musical style in a broader realm of Americana and weirdo folk is noteworthy on its own merits.

Who: faim (record release), Line Brawl, Euth, Moral Law and Targets
When: Friday, 01.25, 7 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: Hardcore band faim is releasing its latest seven inch through Convulse Records and celebrating the occasion with a few of Denver’s and Wyoming’s best hardcore acts.

Who: Texas Chainsaw Massacre 1 and 2
When: Friday, 01.25, 9:30 p.m.
Where: Sie Film Center
Why: Tobe Hooper passed away in 2017 leaving behind a legacy of unusual and influential films beginning, in terms of impact, with 1974’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a movie so graphically violent and darkly disturbing for the time, because it felt more like a documentary than the mostly tame horror cinema up to its release. In 1986 he released the sequel as a horrifying kind of parody. Between that, the 1982 Poltergeist film, 1985’s space vampire spectacle Lifeforce and numerous other films, Hooper’s unique cinematic vision will be celebrated for years to come including this month-long or so series hosted by Theresa Mercado kicking off this night on the director’s birthday.

Who: Flaural, Panther Martin and The Eye & The Arrow
When: Friday, 01.25, 8 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: The kind of line up you want to see more often in the realm of indie rock with Flaurel’s psychedelic pop, Panther Martin’s visionary lo-fi rock and The Eye & The Arrow’s re-working of Americana into something we’re not hearing ad infinitum on playlists and radio stations with a fairly vanilla stream of content.

Who: Klaus Dafoe, New Standards Men and Simulators
When: Friday, 01.25, 9 p.m.
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Klaus Dafoe seems to be a sort of instrumental rebirth of late 90s to mid-2000s indie math rock but deconstructed to be more fractured and potentially more interesting than some of the bands mining that neo-mathcore/emo sound of late. Simulators are the kind of post-punk that carves out the overtly atmospheric quality for stark contrasts of tone and angular rhythms that somehow still flow without getting splintery and yet, despite that intentional minimalism, bursting with Bryon Parker’s raw emotional vocals.

Saturday | January 26, 2019

hippocampus-creditpoonehghana — Hippo Campus, photo by Pooneh Ghana

Who: Hippo Campus w/Now Now
When: Saturday, 01.26, 9 p.m.
Where: The Ogden
Why: Hippo Campus has been writing finely crafted pop songs since its early days and challenging itself to make each record reflect not just personal and creative growth, qualities you’d want in any band worth your continued attention, but an evolving approach to larger cultural narratives. The group’s 2018 album Bambi offers no pat answers or platitudes. It is a record brimming with questions instead of the instant opinion/instant expert tendency that permeates our culture from the way people interact and present themselves on social media and how one must conduct oneself in various contexts lest one be thought indecisive rather than recognizing and learning to identify nuance—not in a way to placate all sides but in order to avoid the hubris of being unaware of one’s own limitations of knowledge and comprehension. It can be enjoyed as just a solid pop album but there’s a great deal of dimensionality and content for anyone wanting to listen deeper.

Who: A Celebration of 1/26 with Weird Al Qaida, Gregory Ego and Mermalair
When: Saturday, 01.26, 7 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: Weird Al Quaida is an avant-garde punk/noise/psychedelic band from Denver that doesn’t perform often. Definitely for fans of the more rock end of Sun City Girls.

Who: Space Jail, Snaggletoothe and Claudzilla
When: Saturday, 01.26, 7:30 p.m.
Where: The People’s Building
Why: Space Jail might be described as a psychedelic synth band. Snaggletoothe as psych prog. Claudzilla as a one-person keytar rock weirdo extravaganza. All in likely the only venue in Aurora where you might see music anywhere within he realm of these bands.

Who: Soulless Maneater, Sliver, Endless Nameless, Fox Moses, Equine
When: Saturday, 01.26, 9 p.m.
Where: 3 Kings Tavern
Why: Soulless Maneater is somewhere between the best death rock band in Denver and a moodily creepy doom band. Sliver is “Diet Nirvana.” Fox Moses sounds like a gloomier neo-grunge band and all the better for that. Endless Nameless sounds like a hybrid of math rock, shoegaze and post-rock—not that those are mutually exclusive concepts. Equine is the avant-guitar and synth solo project of former Epileptinomicon and Moth Eater guitarist Kevin Richards.

Sunday | January 27, 2019

sumac_annegodoneo — Sumac, photo by Anne Godoneo

Who: Sumac, Divide and Dissolve, Tashi Dorij
When: Sunday, 01.27, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Aaron Turner’s guitar work and songwriting in partnership with fellow musicians has helped to define some of the boundaries of the more experimental, heavy music. As the leader of Hydra Head Records he also encouraged the development of that music throughout the 90s and 2000s. As a member of Isis, Old Man Gloom and Mamiffer, to name a few projects, Turner has crafted consistently interesting material that is undeniably within the realm of metal but with an ear for abstracting sounds into noise and then back together into coherent expressions of emotion outside the realm of standard songwriting in the genre. With Sumac this may be especially so in particular the band’s 2018 album Love In Shadow where the trio takes the concept of love at its most primordial level pre-marketing device, pre-narrowing the concept down to a relatively trite, or at least limited, word casually thrown around. Also on this tour is Bhutanese guitarist Tashi Dorij whose noisescapes could be considered loosely as avant-garde but also seem to contain a kind of personal ritualistic expression. See his own 2018 album gàng lu khau chap ‘mi gera gi she an example of the sorts of music you’re in for during his set. Since Dorij and Turner have collaborated on at least one record maybe you’ll get to see some of that this night as well.

Tuesday | January 29, 2019

themaykit_jul25_2015_tommurphy — The Maykit circa 2015, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Nadia Bolz-Weber – The Shameless Book Tour
When: Tuesday, 01.29, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Tattered Cover — Colfax
Why: Nadia Bolz-Weber is the activist and Lutheran pastor whose 2014 memoir Pastrix: the cranky, beautiful faith of a sinner & saint traced her personal growth from a kind of bohemian comedian to sober theology student and pastor. The book, brimming with irreverent humor and sarcasm as well as plenty of illuminating insights into human psychology, whether you’re Christian or not, struck a chord with a fairly sizable audience. In humanizing challenges many people face, Bolz-Weber made a good case for how we can embrace an expanded sense of our own best selves. In July 2018 left her pastoship of House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, Colorado. Now she is releasing her new book Shameless: A Sexual Reformation. As a candid reexamination of “patriarchy, sex, and power” (from the Tattered Cover website), Bolz-Weber will likely further cement her reputation as something of a refreshingly maverick religious thinker and writer.

Who: Big Paleo album release w/Places Back Home, The Maykit and Quentin
When: Tuesday, 01.29, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Denver-based math rock Big Paleo is releasing its, presumably, debut album. One of the opening bands, The Maykit, may not be math rock but its intricate musicianship and songwriting and Max Winne’s indisputably sincere vocal delivery will be a standout of the evening.

Wednesday | January 30, 2019

mallrat_photocredit_ michelle pitris — Mallrat, photo by Michelle Pitris

Who: Gnash w/Mallrat and Guardin
When: Wednesday, 01.30, 7 p.m.
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Mallrat is Grace Shaw from Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Since high school, Shaw has been writing sophisticated pop songs that bring together elements of electronic dance production, hip-hop style beats and the informal structure of modern indie rock—really an ideal synthesis and vehicle for expressing one’s ideas with nuance but a direct emotional quality. Her 2018 EP In The Sky is an interesting blend of contrasts: dusky atmospherics speckled with bright highlights, onomatopoeic cadences and vivid lyrics and soaring, saturated melodies dissolving into introspective minimalism. Headlining the show is Gnash, aka Garrett Nash, who released his debut full-length We on January 11, 2019. Nash made waves with his early breakup EPs and his far better than average beat-driven R&B.

Who: Hackedepicciotto w/DBUK
When: Wednesday, 01.30, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Hackedepicciotto is a multi-media, experimental music duo comprised of Danielle de Picciotto and Alexander Hacke. De Picciotto was one of the founders of the long-running electronic music festival The Love Parade in Berlin. The festival was initiated as celebration of innovative electronic music but also as a subversive kind of demonstration for peace through love and music. Hacke is the bassist for influential industrial band Einstürzende Neubauten. The aforementioned couldn’t completely encompass either artist’s work, output and collaborations and it would be worthwhile to explore their work in depth. But with this project the two bring together a set of skills in composition, performance, film making and storytelling. The word “immersive” gets thrown around a lot these days but it definitely applies to a Hackedepicciotto show. It isn’t just that the sound design and visuals and songwriting are striking, they are, it’s also because before it quite became a widely articulated phenomenon, de Picciotto, in her 2013/2015 graphic novel We Are Gypsies now vividly and powerfully captured what it’s like to be noteworthy, internationally renowned artists have to uproot from one’s home and home city of decades due to gentrification. Then, as explored in further detail on the 2016 album Perserverantia and 2017’s Menetekel how the way the world economy functions now globally has not only all but dismantled the way independent artists and not-so-independent artists can live, function and thrive. The albums alone are worthwhile experiences in the listening but the live show is where you truly get to experience a deep emotional manifestation of faith and hope nearly crushed by despair at the state of things supported by a drive to seek what must be better over the horizon. There is no naivete to the work, de Picciotto and Hacke both know they can never really regain what they once had, but a reminder that one’s compulsion to pursue one’s life work can be a beacon through difficult times. The duo’s latest release is the 2018 meditation soundtrack Joy.

Who: The Pink Spiders w/Television Generation and Smile Victoria
When: Wednesday, 01.30, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: The Pink Spiders are a power pop band from Nashville who had a minor hit in 2006 with “Little Razorblade” from their Ric Ocasek-produced album Teenage Graffiti. Smile Victoria sounds like it’s still wearing its Pixies and others 90s alternative music fairly freshly. But not in the neo-grunge kind of way as the trio has more atmosphere and melody than some of its peers tapping into the same era. Television Generation somehow perfectly blends grunge with power pop without sounding like Nirvana or like Cheap Trick gone metal. Is there a bit of sonic DNA in there out of Love Battery and Buzzcocks? Probably but live the band has plenty of grit and emotional darkness to keep it from ever feeling derivative.

Best Shows in Denver 01/18/19 – 01/23/19

cursivejpdavis1 — **Cursive performs January 18 at The Bluebird Theater and January 19 at The Fox Theatre. Photo by JP Davis**

Friday | January 18, 2019

the_crystal_method_chapmanbaehler — The Crystal Method, photo by Chapman Baehler

Who: The Crystal Method w/Yoko b2b iAM_Jacko and Skeena
When: Friday, 01.18, 8:30 p.m.
Where: The Fox Theatre
Why: In the 90s The Crystal Method blurred any boundaries that may have existed between various subgenres of electronic music of the time. Rather than specialists, The Crystal Method freely experimented with forms, styles and genres yet crafted a sound of their own with an emphasis on strong beats and a grittily otherworldly, moody atmospherics. The duo’s 2018 record The Trip Home is proof that it hasn’t spent the past two decades insisting its initial vision should dictate the rest of its music while also borrowing heavily from methods and sounds from the past and during the intervening years. If a big beat industrial synth pop album was a thing, The Crystal Method made one.

Who: Hot Rize & Friends w/Michael Cleveland, Red Knuckles & The Trailblazers
When: Friday, 01.18, 7 p.m.
Where: Boulder Theater
Why: Hot Rize, the Colorado-based bluegrass band, is celebrating four decades together with a pair of shows at The Boulder Theater. Its members were hanging out and working at the Denver Folklore Center in the 1970s and learning the craft and methods of that music before essentially popularizing bluegrass to an ever widening audience from the 1980s onward. Depending on your perspective, for better or worse, Hot Rize’s aesthetic of what Nick Forster called “human sized music” impacted the aesthetic of the music on A Prairie Home Companion—old timey music for an era where bigger, louder, better, less elegant seemed to be the order of the day beyond even music. Even if bluegrass isn’t your thing, Hot Rize is an especially compelling live band whose good humor and sheer charisma always makes for an enjoyable performance.

Who: Cursive w/Summer Cannibals and Campdogzz
When: Friday, 01.18, 8 p.m.
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Cursive is one of the bands that put Omaha, Nebraska on the musical map as a place from which noteworthy music was being made. By the time the group garnered more than underground and regional prominence it had evolved its sound out of its early post-hardcore roots and incorporated a diverse set of musical ideas and sounds that proved influential on 2000s indie rock with raw emotions placed in the context of vibrant, atmospheric sounds and textures to give the band’s songs an immersive, even cinematic feel. The quartet’s latest, Vitriola, is vintage Cursive in all its haunted, orchestral, emotionally heightened glory. Summer Cannibals from Portland, Oregon is one of the few newer bands making rock music that’s difficult to pigeonhole to a specific subgenre bandwagoned in the past five to seven years as its not garage rock, not surf rock, not neo-grunge and not psychedelia. And all the better for it. Fuzzy, lively pop songs.

Who: Corsicana album release w/The Milk Blossoms, These Bashful Claws, John Lensing
When: Friday, 01.18, 8 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Dream pop band Corsicana drops its debut album at this show—the sparkling, gentle yet uplifting Perennial.

futuregenerations_shervinlainez — Future Generations, photo by Shervin Lainez

Who: Magic City Hippies w/Future Generations
When: Friday, 01.18, 8 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Magic City Hippies at least have a name that gives a clue what you’re in for. Its posi-hip-hop-inflected funk and downtempo pop is what you would hope New Age-esque hippies might glom onto after getting tired of de-fanged EDM and jamtronica. Opening act, Future Generations, came to their lush and layered songwriting through the production angle early on when singer/programmer Eddie Gore was making beats for friends and his own early experiments in music. As the band came together and brought in ideas and instruments the fledgling band was able to build and learn together without the overt influence of previous bands. Thus its pop songcraft while accessible is clearly coming from a direction where the band is consistently absorbing new sounds and methods so that the band’s creative evolution is part of its act of writing songs. The Future Generations 2018 album Landscape may sound like a solid, buoyant pop album, because it is, but there are plenty of sonic Easter eggs in there for discerning listeners.

Saturday | January 19, 2019

chellaandthecharm_jul29_2018_tommurphy — Chella and the Charm, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Chella & The Charm w/Jennifer Jane Niceley, The Threadbarons (duo) and Many Mountains
When: Saturday, 01.19, 8 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Chella & the Charm’s forthcoming EP Good Gal is the heartbreaking work of Americana genius you need to have in your life in 2019. Chella has identified several strands of our collective pain as a culture and manifested them in a handful of songs with energy and compassion.

Who: Cursive w/Summer Cannibals and Campdogzz
When: Saturday, 01.19, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Fox Theatre
Why: See January 18 entry on Cursive and Summer Cannibals.

Who: Womxn’s March Mosh III: Bonnie Weimer, The Pollution, Lady of Sorrows, Death in Space, Cheap Perfume, burlesque performance by Slut Game Strong
When: Saturday, 01.19, 3-8 p.m.
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: After the official Womxn’s March in Denver, this show will happen with proceeds to benefit Planned Parenthood. It’s a chance to see experimental banjo songwriter Bonnie Weimer at 3 p.m. when the event starts followed by a diverse evening of music including psychedelic punk band The Pollution, operatic darkwave act Lady of Sorrows, guitar/production project Death in Space, political punk band Cheap Perfume and its delightfully irreverent sense of humor as well as a feminist burlesque performance from Slut Game Strong.

Who: City Hunter release of Deep Blood w/Death Scenes and DJ Dead Body and Yung Sherm
When: Saturday, 01.19, 8 p.m.
Where: Syntax Physic Opera
Why: Horror-themed, costumed hardcore band City Hunter will play one of its rare shows in support of the release of its 2018 LP Deep Blood on Youth Attack Records. Expect some serious hijinks on the performance side with what will also be a short set because the band’s longest songs are under three minutes with many under a minute. Fitting for a band whose lead singer looks like the masked killer from an early 80s slasher film. Opening is Death Scenes which is Scream Screen’s Theresa Mercado who will show morgue slides accompanied by music from Kevin Wesley of noise project Prison Glue.

Who: Hot Rize & Friends w/Michael Cleveland, Red Knuckles & The Trailblazers
When: Saturday, 01.19, 7 p.m.
Where: Boulder Theater
Why: See January 18 entry for Hot Rize and its 40 year anniversary shows.

What: Punk Against Trump 2019 – Allout Helter, Cheap Perfume, Over Time, Sorry Sweetheart, No Takers
When: Saturday, 01.19, 7 p.m.
Where: Moon Room at Summit
Why: Some of Colorado’s best, overtly political bands gather once again put on a show in protest against the POTUS Trump. But it won’t be a dour, didactic affair because all of these bands are about having fun and airing out legit social and political grievances.

Tuesday | January 22, 2019

handydiner_oryx_feb24_2017_tommurphy — Oryx circa 2017, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Rockin’ For Roe: Oryx, Rotten Reputation and Church Fire
When: Tuesday, 01.22, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: “Roe” as in Roe v. Wade. This benefit show for Keep Abortion Safe and Women’s Freedom Fund features experimental doom band Oryx, irreverent and heartfelt punk band Rotten Reputation and industrial synth pop powerhouse Church Fire.

Wednesday | January 23, 2019

Quits_May4_2018_TomMurphy_Mod1 — Quits circa Spring 2018, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Ball of Light, Toboggan, Quits and Landgrabbers
When: Wednesday, 01.23, 8 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: Cincinnati’s Ball of Light just released its new album Flux on January 10, 2019. It’s ten tracks of urgent, feral, noisy post-hardcore sounds like what a hybrid of Neurosis and Season To Risk might sound like. Toboggan, not the Spanish band, is a bit like late 90s emo with hooks and coherent lyrics but not short on raw emotion. Quits is the noise rock band from Denver starring Doug “Fucking” Mioducki who used to be in early indie pop band Felt Pilotes before going on to way less melodic but no less emotionally charged bands like Koala, Sparkles, Witch Doctor and CP-208. His bandmates are also noteworthy musicians from other great Denver bands but you can do some homework if you feel like it.

Best Shows in Denver 1/10/18 – 1/16/18

voight_oct13_2018_tommurphy — Voight, performs Monday, January 14, at DATELINE gallery. Photo by Tom Murphy

Thursday | January 10, 2019

nekrofilth_perzfromband — Nekrofilth, photo courtesy the artist

Who: Nekrofilth album release w/Phallic Meditation and Keef Duster
When: Thursday, 01.10, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Nekrofilth releases its new album Worm Ritual tonight at a show with heavy psychedelic bands Phallic Meditation and Keef Duster. Nekrofilth’s sound is more akin to classic early thrash and black metal. On the new record the band does cover “Poison” by Venom, after all. Like the latter and Slayer, Nekrofilth has a playful quality to its aggression and ripping guitar work. Song titles like “Vomit Dog,” “They Took My Skin,” “Ready to Defile” and “Severed Eyes” suggest a healthy sense of the viscerally absurd with an unironic joy in the cartoonishly horrific the way one might enjoy the gnarliest B horror movie. Fans of blackened thrash rejoice, Nekrofilth has what you’re looking for.

Who: Random Temple w/Thistledown
When: Thursday, 01.10, 9 p.m.
Where: Black Buzzard
Why: “Rhythm & Folk” band Thistledown will perform with Random Temple’s more production-oriented electronic project under his own name.

Friday | January 11, 2019

productlust_may13_2017_tommurphy — Product Lust circa 2017, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Product Lust album release show w/Goon, Herse, Candy Apple
When: Friday, 01.11, 7 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: Product Lust’s feral and driving 2018 album Year of the Rat is being celebrated tonight with a now rare live show as vocalist Kat Salvaggio is attending school out of Colorado. The seething post-punk band’s wiry energy fits in well with weirder hardcore and punk and thus this bill with Goon, Herse and Candy Apple is an opportunity to see bands that have punk of some stripe as their root but who are taking that spark in interesting directions.

Who: Lazarus Horse
When: Friday, 01.11, 8 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: Lazarus Horse is the band that comes about when someone with good taste in music and good creative instincts writes a bunch of experimental rock music that doesn’t seem obviously influenced by anything else but creative flights of fancy, escaping to daydreams while doing meaningless work as a tool for staying sane in a civilization that’s grinding its best people into the dirt. It’s the soundtrack to that internal rebellion that becomes contagious.

Saturday | January 12, 2019

brothersaturn_feb25_2018_tommurphy — Chromadrift’s Drew Miller as Brother Saturn circa 2018, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Glasss Presents: Chromadrift album release w/Gold Trash and Bowshock
When: Saturday, 01.12, 8 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: Chromadrift’s Cloudless Mind is the bright, ethereal flow of textured melodies that eases the freeze of winter. Fans of IDM and more abstract post-rock will appreciate Drew Miller’s blend of processed guitar, live synths and sequencing. Though the album dropped on January 3, this will be your first chance to see this music live in the new year. Also performing is noisy electroclash duo Gold Trash and downtempo jazz improv group Bowshock.

Who: NightWraith album release w/Glacial Tomb, BleakHeart
When: Saturday, 01.12, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: NightWraith’s self-titled, debut full length is coming out on color vinyl. The Denver-based group’s left of center mix of folky black metal, thrash and psychedelic doom is steeped in pastoral mythology.

Who: e-scapes, Zealot and The Far Stairs
When: Saturday, 01.12, 7:30 p.m.
Where: The People’s Building
Why: This’ll be probably the first indie rock show worth checking out in Aurora, Colorado since The Masculine organized one in 2009 at the old Other Side Arts space in downtown. The People’s Building is also downtown and across the street from Aurora Fox Theater. Zealot includes former members of The Don’ts and Be Carefuls, The Pseudo Dates, Violent Summer, Ideal Fathers and other bands most people haven’t heard of but should check out. The Far Stairs is a band that makes strange music sound more catchy and accessible than it has any right to.

Who: Pink Hawks, Atomga, Roka Hueka
When: Saturday, 01.12, 8 p.m.
Where: The Bluebird
Why: The local Afrobeat band all-star line-up.

Who: Pineross EP release w/Lady Gang
When: Saturday, 01.12, 7 p.m.
Where: Ubisububi Room
Why: Kevin Larkin of Chimney Choir fame is releasing his most recent EP Esplanade at this show in the extra intimate and cozy Ubisububi Room underneath the Thin Man and St. Mark’s. Lady Gang sounds like a full band but is just Jen Korte making maximum creative use of a loop station to augment her already considerable talents as a singer-songwriter.

Who: Luke Vibert, Seied and Kanyon Walker
When: Saturday, 01.12, 7:30 p.m.
Where: The Black Box
Why: Luke Vibert has long been on the forefront of modern experimental electronic dance music in various forms. Fans of Dilla, Flying Lotus and Blockhead will find a lot to like in Vibert.

Sunday | January 13, 2019

crushed_band_at_scenesplitter1 — Crushed!?, photo by @scenesplitter

Who: Crushed!? W/The Uglys, Tides, Stonewall BLVD and Arctobog
When: Sunday, 01.13, 7 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: Originally from the much smaller nearby town of Belen, Crushed!? is now based out of Albuquerque. Its post-hardcore sound has more in common with the likes of a more melodic At the Drive-In or Touché Amoré than the more screamo end of that music. Initially the music reminds one a bit of the great punk bands of the late 90s and early 2000s who adopted a bit of the math rock thing. But its rhythms are more inventive and wide-ranging like something one might have expected out of 90s DC and other East Coast rock like Versus, Helium and The Dismemberment Plan. The group’s 2018 album Sins of the Father is refreshingly difficult pin with a specific genre designation.

Monday | January 14, 2019

entrancerdocilerottweiler_aug16_2014_tommurphy — Entrancer (right) with Docile Rottweiler (left) at Synesthesia 2014. Photo by Tom Murphy

Who: R.Ariel, Kafari, Entrancer and Voight
When: Monday, 01.14, 7:30 p.m.
Where: DATELINE
Why: This event is a combination of touring art installation courtesy and musical performances at DATELINE art gallery. R.Ariel’s new album Where You Are is an emotionally uplifting album of ethereal sounds and buoyant flow of bright tones. Kafari’s 2018 album Beholding is a masterpiece of minimalism like it was composed while somehow spending contemplative mornings underwater and absorbing a deep sense of peace. Entrancer has been spending years honing the ability to explore whatever directions his mastery of synthesis and beatmaking takes him. His 2018 album Decline Vol. 1 is true soundscaping that draws you into a sonic journey that while impressionistic and composed of deep layers of tone and texture conveys a sense of place physically and emotionally. Is the “Decline” of the title something to dread or something to greet as the inevitable cycle of life and death? The album offers no pat answers but it certain captures the ineffable moments of decline of a phase of one’s life, of civilizations and of all authoritarian orders. Voight may finally play a deep house/techno set. If not, it’ll be, by far, the loudest project of the night with its fiery and intense industrial post-punk shoegaze.

Who: Solos/Duos – Denver Avant Garde Music Society
When: Monday, 01.14, 8 p.m.
Where: Thought//Forms
Why: This night, long held at other venues over the years, has re-emerged at Thought//Forms gallery. You never know what you’ll see but this night you’ll also get to see a set from Denver’s premiere spontaneous composition band Animal / object.

Who: Freq Boutique
When: Monday, 01.14, 8 p.m.
Where: Fort Greene
Why: This reoccurring event organized by electronic equipment company WMD, this night is sort of an open mic for synthesizer enthusiasts. This night’s festivities may include a set from hip-hop/experimental electronic dance artist Strange Powers.

Tuesday | January 15, 2019

mickjenkins_samschmieg3 — Mick Jenkins, photo by Sam Schmieg

Who: Mick Jenkins w/Kari Faux
When: Tuesday, 01.15, 7 p.m.
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Mick Jenkins 2018 sophomore album Pieces of a Man is a bit of a tribute to Gil Scott-Heron’s 1971 album of the same name. Like Scott-Heron, Jenkins offers snapshots of the world around him in words with musical accompaniment to set the vibe. The organization of the album and the experience of listening to it is something like a hip jazz and poetry night. The opening track is called “Heron Flow” as a nod to Gil and his record’s opening track, the influential song poem “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” Jenkins and his collaborators evoke the feel of a hazy after hours jazz club across the record with a sense of blending old school production and present day wordsmithing. Jenkins makes fairly mundane life experiences seem mythic and cool as Scott-Heron did in his day. Also on this bill is one of modern hip-hop’s greatest talents, Kari Faux. Her EPs, partly boosted by music appearing in the comedy series Insecure, combine a rebellious swagger with an otherworldly and mysterious quality – a rarity in music generally.

ensiferum_andywhittle — Ensiferum, photo by Andy Whittle

Who: Ensiferum w/Septicflesh and Arsis
When: Tuesday, 01.15, 7 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Helsinki, Finland’s Ensiferum is a melodic death metal band in the vein of the Gothenburg style but on the more orchestral end. Its use of acoustic guitars and folk structure and progressions give its music an expansive feel that evokes images of standing at the helm of one’s longboat charging toward unsuspecting European enclaves in the ninth century. Fans of Enslaved may enjoy Ensiferum’s similarly joyful performances.

Who: Supersuckers w/The Hangmen and Reno Divorce
When: Tuesday, 01.15, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Supersuckers started playing its brand of fuzzy cowpunk in Tucson, Arizona in 1988 before moving to Seattle in 1989 near the beginning of when more than a few music journalists from beyond the Pacific Northwest were starting to take not of happenings in the Emerald City’s underground. The band never made the big time the way the grunge bands everyone has heard of did but it has been able to carve out a career for itself and its wiseacre, intentionally lowbrow humor. Who else would start off their 1992 album on Sub Pop, The Smoke of Hell, with a song called “Coattail Rider” at the peak of the alternative rock explosion? Such chutzpah must continue to be honored. Oh yeah, the trio’s 2018 album, out on Acetate Records, is called Suck It. That the underground rock world has come back around to the sound Supersuckers perfected three decades ago is surely not lost on the band as a choice bit of irony. The song “History Of Rock n’ Roll” in which Eddie Spaghetti sings about how Supersuckers, the greatest band in the world is a footnote in the history of rock ‘n roll suggests they’re well aware.

Best Shows in Denver 12/27/18 – 1/2/18

ChurchFire_Nov1_2018_TomMurphy — **Church Fire drops *Summer Camp Doom Diary* @ Hi-Dive this Saturday, 12/29/18. Photo by Tom Murphy**

Thursday | December 27, 2018

Sliver_Dec17_2018_TomMurphy — Sliver, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Drink Drank Punk w/Sliver and Denver Meatpacking Company
When: Thursday, 12.27, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Drink Drank Punk sounds like a party game of some kind but it’s actually a punk band that sounds like some 90s grunge-inspired musicians decided to call themselves punk because that’s where grunge came from anyway. On the band’s “About” section on Facebook words have semi-randomly capitalized letters and other odd bits of bravado. Listing one of your own other projects as an influence on the band you’re in? Really? Hopefully the band is good. Fortunately, the other two bands, clearly own the influence of grunge and 90s alternative rock and make it their own. Sliver’s fury and emotionally raw performances feel like they come from a very real place. Especially with Demry West on drums playing with a joy that balances out Chris Mercer’s churning anomy. Denver Meatpacking Company could have been a solid pop band but there’s something cathartic about playing music with a bit more grit even if you’re old enough to remember when “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was toppling the glam metal temples in the early 90s without even trying. That comes across in DMC’s songwriting and shows.

Who: Sleepy Animals EP release, Bluebook, Lowfaith
When: Thursday, 12.27, 8 p.m.
Where: Syntax Physic Opera
Why: Sleepy Animals releases its EP Mirrored Polygons today. Its downtempo indie rock is in good company with the avant-garde indie pop of Bluebook and Lowfaith’s gentle and expansively moody post-punk.

Friday | December 28, 2018

GreenDruid_Jul21_2018_TomMurphy — Green Druid, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Khemmis w/Dreadnought, Green Druid
When: Friday, 12.28, 8 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Doom band Khemmis has been making waves well beyond Denver for a few years at this point and this weekend is doing a two night run showcasing some of the best metal local metal bands including tonight with Dreadnought and its majestic, folk-inflected, atmospheric doom and Green Druid’s psychedelic tinged brand of heavy music.

Who: Joseph Lamar, Talking Mirrors, My New Dad
When: Friday, 12.28, 9 p.m.
Where: Denver Bicycle Café Beer Hall
Why: Joseph Lamar has been a bit of a musical alchemist and chameleon with his songwriting steeped in dream pop and R&B while taking on various roles as a musician in his band an in other projects. His live show is a mixture of the intimate and the mystical.

Who: Slim Cessna’s Auto Club w/Denver Broncos UK and Midwife
When: Friday, 12.28, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Slim Cessna’s Auto Club has, since its beginnings in the early 90s, established itself as one of the definitive bands of the Denver music outside the mainstream. With an international fanbase, SCAC, like many of the Mile High City’s best bands, plays small club shows in its hometown. The group’s lively performances of harrowing yet ultimately life-affirming music is reliably compelling, moving and, though highly theatrical, human. For this three night run (also including 12/29 and NYE) the band is bringing in refreshingly different opening act from the usual “same genre” billing. For this show, sure, dark post-punk Americana side project Denver Broncos UK, well worth seeing, but also the delicate, ethereal outsider folk brilliance of Midwife.

Saturday | December 29, 2018

Mirror Fears_Jul30_2017_TomMurphy_web — Mirror Fears at UMS, July 30, 2017, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Church Fire: Summer Camp Doom Diary release w/The Milk Blossoms, Wheelchair Sports Camp and Mirror Fears
When: Saturday, 12.29, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Church Fire’s latest album Summer Camp Doom Diary was many years in the making from shedding the quaint but necessary early compositional ideas and methods represented by the phase in which the duo was calling itself Sewing Buttons on Ice Cream. When the band emerged into the type of group that could make powerful tribal, industrial dance music infused with a sophisticated sociopolitical orientation it really found its core audience among people who don’t see why bangers are irreconcilable with rich and thoughtful content. The new record is the apex of Church Fire’s most recent wave of artistic development which, in many bands, is where its future music will plateau even if it’s worth a listen hereafter. But if you’ve seen Church Fire in the last half year you’ve seen hints of the future direction of the band all of which is more than hinted at across Summer Camp Doom Diary like mini-prophecies, Easter eggs, of self-liberation for both the band and listener alike. For this show Church Fire is joined by other local visionary artists in the more experimental realm who make music that stretches the brain and expands your inner horizons.

Who: Khemmis w/Of Feather and Bone and NightWraith
When: Saturday, 12.29, 9 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Second night of Khemmis’ local showcase with the grindcore-esque Of Feather and Bone and the thrash-core doom of NightWraith.

Who: Pale Sun, Emerald Siam and Wild Call
When: Saturday, 12.29, 8 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: When silly people talk about the “end of guitar rock” they should be so lucky as to catch this line-up with Pale Sun’s hypnotic and moving post-shoegaze ambient rock, Emerald Siam’s left field stretch beyond brooding post-punk by incorporating hooks and emotional depth and Wild Call’s gritty, dreamy, visceral songwriting.

Who: Itchy-O w/PPL MVR
When: Saturday, 12.29, 8 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Itchy-O is doing a three night run for the new year beginning tonight with costume weirdo metal band PPL MVR. While a lot of its music is some kind of sludgy hard rock the yeti-looking group freely plays with sounds and methods from other styles of music including psychedelia and hip-hop.

Who: Slim Cessna’s Auto Club w/Munly & The Lupercalians and Voight
When: Saturday, 12.29, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: This second night of three of SCAC’s NYE run at Globe Hall includes performances from the spooky, costumed ritual folk band Munly & The Lupercalians and shoegaze/industrial post-punk duo Voight.

Sunday | December 30, 2018

HandyDiner_CloudlessRainAndSheetMetalSkinGraft_Feb25_2017 — Cloudless Rain (left) with Sheet Metal Skin Graft (left) circa 2017, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Textures: Brother Saturn, Cloudless Rain, Gutter Spirits
When: Sunday, 12.30, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: The final Textures ambient showcase of 2018 with performances from post-rock/loop-shoegaze/electro ambient project Brother Saturn and Cloudless Rain whose own music seems to be one of freefloating, endless horizons as one would expect from a persistent virtual world chillout zone.

Who: Wildermiss w/The Solid Ocean and Panther Martin
When: Sunday, 12.30, 8 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Red Fox Run was a promising band that realized that ambition when some of those guys got together with Emma Cole to form Wildermiss. It’s upbeat, earnest indie rock with interesting tonal flourishes and imaginative song dynamics that separate its musical offerings from the current spate of cookie cutter indiedom. The Red Fox Run guys also bring to the project much of what they learned about promoting themselves beyond just overplaying and oversaturating the local scene in the seemingly aimless manner of many of their peers. This is the first night of a two night run to ring in the new year.

Who: The Beach Boys
When: Sunday, 12.30, 6 p.m.
Where: Paramount Theatre
Why: It is indeed The Beach Boys probably performing choice cuts from across its career with some surprises thrown in because Brian Wilson isn’t a rote creative talent.

Who: Itchy-O w/Radio Scarlet
When: Sunday, 12.30, 8 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Second night of Itchy-O’s run at The Oriental, this night Denver deathrock band Radio Scarlet will open the show.

Who: cindygod EP release
When: Sunday, 12.30, 9:30 p.m.
Where: Pon Pon
Why: cindygod is the newest band from the former members of noise rock band Gauntlet Hair. When the group emerged in the spring/summer of 2018 it had grown to a four-piece with a new name but with sounds that fans of the old band would find immediately likeable. Live, cindygod has been a reminder of what a great band Gauntlet Hair was but one that has evolved beyond that era of musical development but with the same frantic yet nuanced dynamics and joyous outpouring of sound. The group recently released the digital version of its debut EP with the vinyl available at this event.

Monday | December 31, 2018

Who: Rubedo w/Fed Rez, R A R E B Y R D $, DJ Polyphoni
When: Monday, 12.31, 8 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Rubedo doesn’t play too many Denver shows these days. Its winning, accessible and energetic mixture of funk, noise rock and prog has found an audience beyond Denver. In 2017 Rubedo released Vaca, a sort of farewell album to the trio’s late mentor and musical partner Isaiah “Ikey” Owens. Perhaps this show will include some of the material that will make up its next chapter. For this NYE show you also get to see raucous, insightful and witty hip-hop group Fed Rez and R A R E B Y R D $, another hip-hop group but one whose soulful, even spiritual, sound is rooted in an ability to channel pure emotion in nuanced, gentle yet powerful ways.

Who: Wildermiss w/Retrofette, Coastal Wives, Levi Double U
When: Monday, 12.31, 8 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: This second night of Wildermiss’ NYE run at Larimer Lounge will include performances from synth pop band Retrofette, indie blues rock band Coastal Wives and hip-hop production-influenced house music artist Levi Double U.

Who: Itchy-O w/Mr. Pacman
When: Monday, 12.31, 9 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Itchy-O concludes its three-night run of shows this NYE with peformance art/synth pop group Mr. Pacman. Traditionally the 3 or 4 members of the latter have performed in costume like something out of an 80s cartoon cosplay demonstration but the confrontational performance will fit in well with what follows with the onslaught of Itchy-O.

Who: Slim Cessna’s Auto Club w/Wayfarer and George Cessna (solo)
When: Monday, 12.31, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: The third and final show of SCAC’s NYE residency featuring opening sets from Denver doom band Wayfarer and George Cessna performing a solo set.

Wednesday | January 2, 2019

AdamSelene_SpookieDarlingOfDarlingHouseMedia — Adam Selene, photo by Spookie Darling of Darling House Media

Who: Weird Wednesday: Adam Selene, The Jinjas, Vampire Squids From Hell
When: Wednesday, 01.02, 9 p.m.
Where: 3 Kings Tavern
Why: This is the first Weird Wednesday of 2019. The series, curated by independent, underground promoter Claudia Woodman, aims to highlight the stranger or more eccentric and/or more experimental music happening in Denver or dropping in on tour. For this show it’s poet/hip-hop artist Adam Selene whose beats are definitely not the standard faire and incorporates a broad palette of sounds and instrumentation, being more akin to the likes of Eyedea & Abilities and other hip-hop projects that don’t hesitate to use straight up rock and other noisy samples to give the music some edge. A good pairing with synth rock/pop weirdos The Jinjas. Psych/Americana-twinged surf rock band Vampire Squids From Hell aren’t overtly weird except when you consider that at times the group sounds like a strange hybrid of The Brian Jonestown Massacre and a mellower Man Or Astroman?

Best Shows in Denver 12/20/18 – 12/23/18

Sliver_Dec15_2018_TomMurphy2 — Sliver performs Friday, December 21, at The Marquis Theater

Thursday | December 20, 2018

CheapPerfume_Nov13_2016_TomMurphy — Cheap Perfume circa 2016, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Wild Lives w/Cheap Perfume, Bad Year and An Antiquated Bluff
When: Thursday, 12.20, 7 p.m
Where: Lost Lake
Why: It’s all rock bands of one stripe or another but at least it’s not all the same kind of rock band. Wild Lives is more of a straight-ahead rockist punk band and one that doesn’t mince words about where its political sentiments lie. It’s charming single “Fuck Sheriff Joe Arpaio” is up there with “Westboro Baptist Church” by I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House and that’s no faint praise. Cheap Perfume is also deft at such articulation of modern, principled, but not uselessly polite, outrage. For example “It’s Okay (To Punch Nazis)” in the wake of, well, the “Greatest Generation’s” sacrifices be damned, the re-rise of fascist types in the USA and elsewhere. Bad Year is the local equivalent of a pop punk supergroup including former Pin Downs guitarist and Denver scene veteran extraordinaire Sara Fischer and Chuck Coffey of SPELLS guitarist/former member of Mail Order Children, Call Sign Cobra and more bands than most other people might join. And An Antiquated Bluff, the solo project of Josie Cool who has also spent time in multiple noteworthy punk and post-hardcore bands as well as a stint in experimental rock band Teacup Gorilla. Is Josie is doing the songwriting it’s always worth your time.

Who: Television Generation, Mr. Atomic, The Rainbow Treatment
When: Monday, 12.20, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Oh sure 90s has reincarnated in the 2010s in various places but that seems less strange than the recent embrace of 60s and 70s music. At any rate, in Denver two of the best are Television Generation and Mr. Atomic. Both fuzzy, both tapping into grunge but in the case of TG, it’s in the context of well-crafted pop songs melded with a genuinely thorny angst and expunging of generational despair. Which we’ve not had enough of in such bracing doses in recent years. Mr. Atomic is able to summon similarly emotionally rich realms of sound but it’s songwriting bears signs of being influenced by the likes of Weezer and 90s pop punk before it departed nearly forever into wackdom by the turn of the century.

Friday | December 21, 2018

DeathInSpace_Jun14_2018_TomMurphy — Death in Space, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Equine, Evil Ear (IL), Death in Space, Felony Charge
When: Friday, 12.21, 7 p.m.
Where: Thought//Forms Gallery
Why: This a show that’s mostly ambient and avant-garde guitar drones. Equine is former Motheater and Epileptinomicon guitarist Kevin Richards’ solo guitar and electronics project wherein he explores various aspects of soundscaping and composition. Evil Ear is chill electronic soundscapes and sonic textures in the context of what sounds like loop manipulation. Death in Space is…supposedly quite different from the rest of her musical career in which Aleeya Wilson uses guitar and loops to make an abstract kind of punk and experimental guitar rock and noise. If her all synth project Spargob is any analog it’ll be interesting either way. Felony Charge sounds like a weirder kind of deathgrind band.

Who: Sliver w/Stereoshifter, AFD (Amazing Flying Dumbasses), Swamp Rats and Bert Olsen
When: Friday, 12.21, 7 p.m.
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: This is a donation based show to benefit Sox Place and Urban Peak, two non-profits that aid homeless youth. For the bill, Chris Mercer of punk/grunge-esque band Sliver brought together other artists who feel as strongly as he does about homelessness in our community. Mercer himself spent some time homeless and has a direct experience of what might actually help homeless young people and the homeless in general not just out of that experience but also in getting out of homelessness with humanity compassion and understanding. Fortunately, the bill is a great cross-section of the better punk and rock acts in Denver out of the underground playing a more commercial venue with a robust sound system so yes, a benefit show, but one that one would want to go to in order to experience some of the best bands Denver has to offer.

Who: Jade Cicada and Detox Unit w/Craftal, Schmoop, visuals from Steven Haman and B1n4ry
When: Friday, 12.21, 8 p.m.
Where: Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom
Why: Jade Cicada aka Skyler Golden is performing this event alongside Detox Unit. Both artists are very much of the moment in terms of more experimental electronic dance music with some of the affectations one might expect from someone who had eclectic tastes and musical instincts developing out of that scene in the 2000 and 2010s. But one also hears elements of UK garage and the sample-based composition of underground hip-hop artists and the like from the late 90s and early 2000s. As with the latter, the free association use of bits of music to create new emotional resonances in the recontexualization of the familiar alongside original content.

Saturday | December 22, 2018

TelefonTelAviv_perArtistWeb — Telefon Tel Aviv, photo courtesy artist’s management

Who: Telefon Tel Aviv w/GILA and Stratusphere
When: Saturday, 12.22, 9 p.m.
Where: The Black Box
Why: Joshua Eustis probably plays to much larger audiences as a contributor to the live versions of Puscifer and Nine Inch Nails. But with Telefon Tel Aviv, which he formed in 1999 with the late Charles Cooper, Eustis has been making some of the more fascinatingly detailed and textured IDM of the past twenty years. Eustis hasn’t released a full album since 2009’s Immolate Yourself, which predated Cooper’s untimely death that January, but his multiple collaborations and remixes since that time are noteworthy as they are sparse including wortk with Lusine, Vatican Shadow, SONOIO and These Hidden Hands. As Eustis, he’s had a role in the 2013 Nine Inch Nails album Hesitation Marks and The Black Queen’s 2016 album Fever Daydream. But for this show you’ll get to see the brilliant kind of minimalist techno/IDM that helped establish him as an artist of note.

Who: Barf Fest III: RL Cole & The Hell You Say, Fast Eddy, Love Gang, Colfax Speed Queen, Palo Santo, Mike Rose & The Early Mornings
When: Saturday, 12.22, 7 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Barf magazine is an irregularly released publication that showcases what some might see as low culture aesthetics in Denver but done with such humor, care and consideration for the underground music and art scene in Denver that it could never be dismissed. This third festival showcasing the kinds of bands from the realms of local psychedelic garage rock and blues is easily one of the best slices of that side of the Denver scene that has happened all year.

Sunday | December 23, 2018

Faceman_Aug24_2013_TomMurphy — Faceman circa 2013, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Faceman’s Parade of Lights feat. Tivoli Club Brass Band and Sirens of the North
When: Sunday, 12.23, 8 p.m.
Where: Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox
Why: Steve “Faceman” can be relied upon to come up with a ridiculous yet beautiful concept for a show on the regular. Someone should catalog all the creative ideas, sculptures and sets, and the unlikely legit execution of his ideas someday in a book. Like the 100 Year Storm show of 2016 in which he brought in some 100 bands to play the Oriental Theater in early November of that year. Difficult to say exactly what will make up his own version of The Parade of Lights so best to see for yourself. Whatever the exact concept it will be entertaining.

Best Shows in Denver 12/13/18 – 12/17/18

AdvanceBase_JeffMarini — **Advance Base performs Monday, December 17, at Hi-Dive. Photo by Jeff Marini**

Thursday | December 13, 2018

MuscleBeach_Oct4_2018_TomMurphy — Muscle Beach, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Musical Mayhem: Jimi Davies (GA), TripLip and e-Scapes
When: Thursday, 12.13, 7 p.m.
Where: Lion’s Lair
Why: This month’s edition of Musical Mayhem features performances from Denver-based math thrash jazz group TripLip, Valdosta, Georgia-based psych folk artist Jimi Davies and e-Scapes. If you find out what that project is about, let us know.

Who: Muscle Beach w/Giardia, Vexing and Matriarch
When: Thursday, 12.13, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Muscle Beach comes out of hardcore and metalcore and noise rock with all the raging energy and inhuman vocals that go along with all of that music. But there’s an exuberance to its delivery that transcends the desperation and anger that tends to fuel those musical proclivities. Giardia is also impossible to pigeonhole as a psychedelic rock band with metallic sounds and prog as its palette for tones, atmospheres and textures.

Friday | December 14, 2018

Just Slide 2_Credit Brooke Ashley Barone — Harry Hudson, photo by Brooke Ashley Barone

Who: Harry Hudson w/JP Saxe
When: Friday, 12.14, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Harry Hudson got dealt a bad card in life when he found out he had stage 3 Hodgkin’s lymphoma at age 20. But his experience with chemo and the isolation and facing an uncertain future and the subsequent bouts of depression deepened the content of what might have been merely well-written pop songs. His 2018 full-length album Yesterday’s Tomorrow Night further documents that journey and personal development with an expansive spareness and intimacy. Chances are after this tour of small clubs Hudson will find a much larger audience. It’s not pop music that’s pushing musical boundaries but it’s also genuinely meaningful and coming from a place of a deep appreciation for life and its challenges—which you don’t hear much of in enough pop music.

Who: We Are Not a Glum Lot, Safekeeper, Turvy Organ and Broken Record
When: Friday, 12.14, 8:30 p.m.
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: We Are Not a Glum Lot started out as an early adopter of the return of math-y emo in its more spare and meditative form with elegant and introspective, sparkly guitar side by side with a quiet loud dynamic with the ethereal songwriting unfolding into a flood of emotions and sonic intensity. Not necessarily the band you might expect out of Colorado Springs except that the city has produced some of the most emotionally vibrant and musically inventive bands out of the Centennial State like Against Tomorrow’s Sky, Eyes Caught Fire, Cocordion, Be Thou My Vision, Spirettes, El Toro De La Muerte and Abracastabya. A lot of names but the Springs scene never did get a lot of attention outside of town despite the quality of artists coming out of there. Rumor has it WANAG has an album in the works for release with a different sound than what it executed so well in the past and if you go to this show you may get to hear some of that in person.

Saturday | December 15, 2018

Khruangbin_byMaryKang1 — Khruangbin, photo by Mary Kang

Who: Khruangbin w/The Marias
When: Saturday, 12.15, 8 p.m.
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Khruangbin’s eclectic sound has been described in terms of whatever the listener might home in on like surf rock, psychedelia or electronic pop. Overtly the instrumentation embodies all of that with drummer DJ Johnson throwing acoustic break-beats into the mix. The band presents itself as almost a band out of a Moebius comic book taking place in the near future. Perhaps out of his collaboration with Alejandro Jodorowsky, The Incal. All of which speaks to how the band’s music has a richly multi-cultural aesthetic while not diluting a cohesive artistic vision by trying to be all things to as many people as possible. Its 2018 album Con Todo El Mundo has found its way into several year-end-best lists and it’s easy to see why because even when it draws on familiar sounds it takes the synthesis of influences in interesting directions.

Who: Magic Sword w/Crystal Ghost
When: Saturday, 12.15, 8 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Magic Sword performs bombastic 80s B science fiction movie soundtrack-esque synth rock with all the absurd drama one would expect. And in space knight style costumes with cloaks and glowing since stripe eyes on their helmets with the climax of the set coming with one or more members lighting up glowing swords (thus the name of the band) to commemorate the dramatic high point of the song. Glowing swords that are sold at the merch table. It could all just be one big gimmick but the music itself is enjoyable in spite of and because of the absurdity of it all with the songs enjoyable without a sense of irony.

Who: KGNU Quarterly Showcase: Tiq Tok, The Sea Grapes, Bryon Parker, Housekeys, DJ Cal Huss
When: Saturday, 12.15, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Lion’s Lair
Why: This edition of the community radio station KGNU’s quarterly showcase includes some noteworthy solo artists from Denver’s underground music scene. Bryon Parker recently releases a split record with foundational indie pop artist Jad Fair who was a member of Half Japanese, co-wrote an album with Daniel Johnston and now has an acclaimed solo career. But Parker has also been in some of the more interesting indie rock and post-punk bands in Denver including his other band Simulators. His solo effort is more in the weirdo indie pop vein and worthy of your attention precisely for that reason. Housekeys is a soundscapey, ambient, shoegaze solo act comprised of Tiffiny Costello. Definitely for fans of artists like Grouper and Juliana Barwick.

Sunday | December 16, 2018

EmmaRuthRundle1 — Emma Ruth Rundle, photo courtesy the artist

Who: Emma Ruth Rundle w/Jaye Jayle and Abrams
When: Sunday, 12.16, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Emma Ruth Rundle’s music is a warmly hazy and emotionally nuanced sweep of commentary and observations buoyed along by guitar work that ranges from the spare and folky to fiery rumbles that perfectly compliment vocals that seem to call out into the universe for succor and knowledge. Her 2018 album On Dark Horses may be the best shoegaze record of the year without even aiming for that sound. She’s currently touring with friend and collaborator Evan Patterson and his band Jaye Jayle. Patterson was and is in heavy, post-hardcore bands like Breather Resist and Young Widows but Jaye Jayle is a more playful, even whimsical at times, side of his songwriting. His vocals for this project seem roughened and weighed down by a world weariness but that matches the dark, pastoral minimalism of the instrumentation reminiscent of the introspective, haunted parts of Sixteen Horsepower’s 2002 album Folklore. Since both artists contribute to each other’s records you may get to see some of that at this show. Currently Jaye Jayle is touring in support of his 2018 album No Trail And Other Unholy Paths.

Monday | December 17, 2018

CasiotoneForThePainfullyAlone_Sep11_2010_TomMurphy — Casiotone For the Painfully Alone circa 2010, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Advance Base (Casiotone for the Painfully Alone) w/Lisa/Liza and Karima Walker
When: Monday, 12.17, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Owen Ashworth was one of the stars of the early bedroom producer and indie pop/rock crossover with his band Casiotone for the Painfully Alone. Who can say why that music isn’t more acclaimed outside a sizable cult following because Ashworth’s songs were insightful and honest without trying to sugarcoat his enthusiasm, his love and his struggles. Even if you didn’t share Ashworth’s obsessions and outlook on life, his storytelling and compositions and utter uniqueness made his work compelling because it was easy to take on its own terms rather than inspiring comparisons to other artists. In 2010 Ashworth retired CFTPA not really intending to play music again for a long while if not indefinitely. But when you have a talent it won’t let you go as readily as one might wish and Ashworth returned a couple of years later with Advance Base. The songwriting is vintage Ashworth but given that he’s had a studio in which to work on music he’s more able to sculpt the songs to sound the way he’s imagined it. But don’t worry, the songs on the new album Animal Companionship are still as wisely melancholy and, at times, as appealingly uncomfortable as ever.

Best Shows in Denver 12/6/18 – 12/12/18

Cupcakke_courtesyArtist — **CupcakKe at Summit Music Hall, Saturday, December 8, 2018. Photo courtesy the artist**

Thursday | December 6, 2018

Who: Red Fang w/Telekinetic Yeti and Quits
When: Thursday, 12.6, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Red Fang is a “stoner rock” band from Portland, Oregon that started out when that form of music was a big trend in underground metal. But Red Fang’s knack for writing a solid melody and its self-awareness and sense of humor set it apart from early on. After all, who gets über metal nerd comedian Brian Posehn to cameo in your music video (“Wires) unless you’re somewhat legit but don’t take yourself too seriously. It’s been a couple of years since the band’s most recent album but in 2018 it released an interesting choice for a single in Tubeway Army’s “Listen to the Sirens.” Opening the show are two fairly different kinds of bands. Dubuque, Iowa’s Telekinet Yeti makes a sort of groove-oriented doom-sludge, like a more psychedelic Fu Manchu. Quits from Denver is a noise rock juggernaut whose membership includes Luke Fairchild of Git Some fame, Doug Mioducki (formerly of indie pop band Felt Pilotes and noise rock groups Sparkles, Witchdoctor and CP-208) and Darren Kulback (ex-Hot White and Poison Rites). When the band started former Hot White vocalist/bassist Tiana Bernard brought her emotional intensity and charisma to the band but since she moved out of state, Neil Keener has stepped in with his considerable abilities honed in projects like Planes Mistaken For Stars, Git Some and Woven Hand.

Friday | December 7, 2018

Who: Godflesh w/In The Company of Serpents
When: Friday, 12.7, 7 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Godflesh was oft-cited as an early grindcore band by the national music press in the late 80s when the group’s landmark industrial metal album Streetcleaner was released in 1989. That same year other significant records in the realm of what came to be called alternative music emerged with Nine Inch Nail’s Pretty Hate Machine, Soundgarden’s Louder Than Love and Pixies’ Doolittle. The combination of scorching, grinding, forbidding guitar and bass work backed by beats generated through drum machines was not in line with metal orthodoxy and too abrasive even for most fairly adventurous radio stations. Though in being explicitly against the tough guy stance in its lyrics, Godflesh was certainly articulating an ethos that was in opposition to the hypermasculine rock and roll image and rhetoric of the time.

Fast forward decades and the duo has experimented with atmosphere and dynamics, expanding the palette of Godflesh overall while not dispensing with a style of music that reflects the harshness of the world as a sort of sonic totem against it. Guitarist Justin Broadrick has also explored various musical interests including forays into the realms of electronic music not always present in his work with Godflesh including the projects Techno Animal, Jesu, Pale Sketcher, Final and Scorn, among others. Bassist G.C. Green, who founded Godflesh with Broaderick in the mid-80s when the latter was a teenager whose pioneering guitar work on the first half of the 1987 Napalm Death album Scum was one of the blueprints for extreme metal generally and grindcore in particular, has also contributed more than his fair share to experimental music with his contributions to Final and Main. All the biographical details aside, Godflesh as a live duo is even more beautifully brutal than the records might suggest and as powerfully menacing.

Opening the show is the excellent Denver doom/extreme metal band In the Company of Serpents. The group has evolved quite a bit over the years from an early sort of high contrast death-grind doom sound and now Grant Netzorg’s songwriting has folded in his inspirations from dark Americana, Swans and Earth. It’s still towering riffs and gritty vocals but with a more song-oriented approach rather than what could at times seem conceptual.

Who: The Number 12 Looks Like You, Rolo Tomassi, Arsonists Get All the Girls
When: Friday, 12.7, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: The Number 12 Looks Like You melded together an instinct for amped emotional expression and math rock and by not sounding like every other screamo and post-hardcore band, established a bit of a cult status for its inventive sound that fans of Hella and Blood Brothers might find incredibly appealing. After breaking up in 2010, the group returned to active status in 2016 with this its first appearance in Denver since reconvening.

Who: Weaponizer w/Rotstrotter and Flight of Sleipnir
When: Friday, 12.7, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Bannock Street Garage
Why: Weaponizer’s blackened thrash has surprisingly keen songwriting as though the guys in the band grew up listening to metal but not getting lost in just the making sounds their parents might hate and actually writing songs that will probably endure past the time it’s no longer active. This show celebrates guitarist Justin Kelly’s fortieth birthday and the band will be joined by deathgrind band Rotstrotter and Flight of Sleipnir who seem to draw some major inspiration from Scandinavian, transcendental metal bands and perhaps people in the band have read Egil’s Saga or Heimskringla or any of the old Viking epics.

Saturday | December 8, 2018

Calm_Aug6_2016_TomMurphy_Mod1 — Calm. circa 2016, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: CupcakKe
When: Saturday, 12.8, 7 p.m.
Where: The Summit Music Hall
Why: Maybe CupcakKe is considered a “dirty rap” artist because of the sexual content of her raps. But she’s no more so than many artists who haven’t been similarly dubbed. Her creatively layered beats alone would make her an artist of note but even among the unapologetic, sometimes boastful, stream of words, CupcakKe actually makes some interesting, insightful and poignant truthful commentary about life. Her fourth album, 2018’s Eden, may be a bit moodier on a few tracks than some of her previous releases but it just demonstrates her range as an artist and nowhere on the album is the IDGAF about foolishness attitude in short supply.

Who: Calm. album release w/Extra Kool, Joe Alan and Cosmicam the Cosmos
When: Saturday, 12.8, 7 p.m.
Where: The Summit Music Hall
Why: Two of Denver’s underground hip-hop greats, Calm. and Extra Kool, perform tonight to raise awareness of the issues facing the homeless by inviting those who show up to donate coats and other warm gear to Denver Homeless Outloud which also dedicates its efforts to stop the city’s misguided and destructive camping ban. Calm. also releases its incendiary new album Things I Learned While Dying in Denver on this night as well.

AnthonyRuptak_NickVelharticky — Anthony Ruptak, photo by Nick Velharticky

Who: Anthony Ruptak release of A Place That Never Changes w/Los Mocochetes and Kramies
When: Saturday, 12.8, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Anthony Ruptak’s new album A Place That Never Changes nearly didn’t happen when all his music gear, songbooks and money for recording was stolen from his home. But years of good karma playing in the Mile High City and running one of the best open mic nights in town meant the community came to his aid and helped him to complete the debut LP. The record is never just one flavor. There are bits of freak folk, indie pop, chamber rock and pastoral country but it all comes together as a statement, in the form of vignettes, on a how life and your surroundings change even if you feel as though it never really, in essence, does. Ruptak brilliantly explores the frustrations, the worries, the aspirations, the fantasies and yearnings of a generation and a society that seems to be stalled out and assaulted by forces seemingly beyond our control. All while suggesting we can work around the situation if we open ourselves up to our own imagination and share the angst and struggles with others even if just a little. Fans of Mercury Rev, My Morning Jacket and Iron & Wine will find much to love about A Place That Never Changes.

Monday | December 10, 2018

Protomartyr_DanielTopete5_Mod1 — Protomartyr, photo by Daniel Topete

Who: Protomartyr and Preoccupations w/Teeth of the Hydra
When: Monday, 12.10, 7 p.m.
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: On a short list of the great post-punk/art punk bands of today would have to include Detroit-based noise rock weirdos Protomartyr and Preoccupations from Alberta, Canada and its brooding yet expansive atmospheric guitar rock. So it’s only fitting that the two bands are touring together and releasing a split single on which each band covered the other. Preoccupations’ interpretation of Protomartyr’s “Pontiac 87” from that band’s 2015 album The Agent Intellect is brimming with a moving, haunted sense of resignation. Whereas Protomartyr’s cover of “Forbidden” from Preoccupations’ 2016 self-titled album honors the somber grit that gives way to elevated emotional states that made the original so compelling. Both bands have a gift for using atmosphere with an emotional push and intensity coupled with layered musical textures and dynamics that even when each hits a hypnotic peak of repetition it remains heady until the end. Each band would be worth seeing alone but a bill together makes it potentially one of the great shows in Denver of 2018.

MiddleKids_MaclayHeriot — Middle Kids, photo by Maclay Heriot

Who: Middle Kids w/The Shacks
When: Monday, 12.10, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Australian rock band Middle Kids released its debut full-length, Lost Kids, in 2018 and did us all a favor by showing how one can be pretty much unabashedly influenced by music that one’s peers made trendy and do something more interesting with it. The songs seem to be rooted in a sort of folk rock songwriting mode, twinges of 70s Laurel Canyon haunting its edges, while incorporating elements of fuzzy 90s rock. But with uncommonly thoughtful and wise lyrics that are nostalgic yet self-conscious of the tendency to romanticize when the bare truth can often be more poetic than a sanitized personal revision of one’s life.

Tuesday | December 11, 2018

theheliosequence-2018-_AnaPupulin — The Helio Sequence (Benjamin Weikel), photo by Ana Pupulin

Who: The Helio Sequence w/Wild Pink
When: Tuesday, 12.11, 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: The Helio Sequence were exploring spacious melodies and daydream tones when it wasn’t too widely present in modern music outside of IDM acts like Boards of Canada and Clark. As a duo, the band had to be creative and efficient in their execution of sounds so there is a fairly different sound from other bands that are often placed under the banner of indie rock. Before the latter was a clumsily vague banner term The Helio Sequence was often described as being within the realm of psychedelic rock and shoegaze, which is true enough, but its musical roots also stretch to Pacific Northwest underground rock, drummer Benjamin Weikel even having drummed on the 2004 Modest Mouse record Good News for People Who Love Bad News. In 2008 The Helio Sequence released its second, and breakthrough, album Keep Your Eyes Ahead. It represented a more overtly well-composed pop direction that band would expound upon thereafter—soaring melodies, introspective lyrics and always inventive soundscaping. For this tour the project is celebrating the ten year anniversary of the album that propelled it into a circle of success wider than underground cult status.

Who: Demoncassettecult w/Machu Linea and Mirror Fears
When: Tuesday, 12.11, 8 p.m.
Where: Lion’s Lair
Why: Beat driven, noise influenced experimental electronic music is the theme for this show. Demoncassettecult combines industrial soul samples (close enough) with R&B vocals for something that shouldn’t exist but completely makes sense live and on the projects recordings. Machu Linea is the latest project from Armando Garibay who was a member of The Circus House, a sort of avant-garde psychedelic pop band that included former Ancient Elk vocalist Anna Smith. Machu Linea is like downtempo deep house reminiscent of Sunday 8PM-period Faithless but updated. Same dusky, beautifully moody, hip-hop-inflected dance music. Machu Linea’s 2018 album GIRL would be in the upper echelons of a best of dance music list for the year if the wider world was aware of it. Mirror Fears, of course, has been pushing the envelope of electronic music in Denver without being an electronic dance artist per se. Not that dance beats and programming aren’t part of her sound because they are but she also comes to the music from the perspective of someone who spent time in a dream pop band as well as being steeped in the local noise and experimental music scenes. Lately her songwriting has delved further into beat-driven electronic composition.

Who: John Grant w/Two Medicine
When: Tuesday, 12.11, 7 p.m.
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: John Grant’s Denver music history is pretty respectable as the keyboard player of an early incarnation of gloom rock legends Twice Wilted and then as the lead singer/pianist of dream pop band The Czars. But upon leaving Denver to pursue his artistic fortunes elsewhere, Grant embarked upon a critically acclaimed career under his own name beginning with 2010’s excellent Queen of Denmark. His command of electronic music composition in the context of artier pop songwriting has made all of his solo albums worth listening to on their own. That his lyrics are thoughtful, even insightful, and relevant to the vagaries of modern life has kept his songs fresh and striking. Currently Grant is touring in support of his 2018 album Love is Magic.

Who: S A D Nois, Lipglo$$, Equine and more
When: Tuesday, 12.11, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: S A D Nois and its sound sits somewhere at the intersection of modern classical, noise and textured environment sound composition. Lipglo$$ is sort of like a weird, ambient, noise take on trap and profane and hypnotic. Maybe influenced by video game music and Tim & Eric. Equine is Kevin Richards’ use of his mastery of weird jazz chords and phrases, minimalism and processing both in fascinating directions.

Wednesday | December 12, 2018

AlloutHelter_Nov13_2016_TomMurphy_Mod1 — Allout Helter circa 2016, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: La Armada w/Allout Helter, Targets, No Sign of Remose and others
When: Wednesday, 12.12, 7 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: La Armada from Santo Domingo in the Domincan Republic is one of the most popular hardcore bands in the country and it has made an impact throughout the North American underground with its crossover sound and political lyrics. The quintet is in good company for this bill with Denver’s Allout Helter and Targets. The former shares some of the thrash sound of the latter and a bit of the grindcore edge of the latter.

Who: Kid Astronaut w/Kayla Marque, Dylan Streight, Shalom Dubas
When: Wednesday, 12.12, 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Jon Shockness is moving to London soon to explore what the wider world of music outside of Denver and outside the United States has to offer his eclectic and considerable talent. He was once a member of the late great hip-hop group Air Dubai and a graduate of Denver School of the Arts where he recently told Colorado Public Radio he was able to be taken seriously even as a young artist, providing a solid foundation for his efforts sine. In 2018, as Kid Astronaut, Shockness released the project’s debut full-length, the sultry, powerful and imaginative Full Moon.

Best Shows in Denver 11/29/18 – 12/5/18

LinguaIgnota_TeddieTaylor11 — **Lingua Ignota performs with Thou, MJ Guider and Blood Incantation at Syntax Physic Opera on Friday, November 30, 2018. Photo by Teddie Taylor.**

Thursday | November 29, 2018

Sliver_Nov6_2016_TomMurphy_web — Sliver, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Sliver, afd, Tuck Knee, Sick World, Wheels
When: Thursday, 11.29, 8 p.m.
Where: Thought//Forms
Why: In the early days, Sliver always wanted to be a Limp Bizkit cover band but singer/guitarist Chris Mercer kept being told he looked like Kurt Cobain on April 6, 1994 and he looked into Nirvana’s music and its roots and got inspired to make a sort of rock music with the raw and somewhat unpredictable quality of punk and the tuneful sensibility of Cobain’s own accessible yet often startlingly honest songwriting. In spite of Mercer’s early influences, Sliver has evolved into one of the better bands out of Denver and sharing the room tonight with like-minded artists operating outside of the trad punk straight jacket.

Who: Gamelan Tunas Mekar
When: Thursday, 11.29, 7 p.m.
Where: Dazzle
Why: Denver-based Gamelan Tunas Mekar is an orchestra of practitioners of the percussive/tonal instrument the gamelan. Lead by Balinese composer and Artist-in-Residence Made Lasmawan, this is probably the most legit performance of traditional Balinese music you’re likely to get to see anytime soon.

Friday | November 30, 2018

Who: Thou, Lingua Ignota, MJ Guider and Blood Incantation
When: Friday, 11.30, 8 p.m.
Where: Syntax Physic Opera
Why: Thou has built a body of work over the course of the past decade and more that transcends a convenient genre designation for the uninitiated like doom, sludge crust and experimental black metal. Its music fits all of those and more but mostly it’s just a sonically accurate embodiment of human struggle and our collective agony at having to bear the crushing weight of societies and cultures that aren’t geared toward cultivating and nurturing us. But not that abstract. Thou’s music feels deeply personal and coming from a place in the heart that has all but given up hope. Thou is also one of the most prolific bands in heavy music with five releases in 2018 alone. In August the group released Magus on Sacred Bones Records, a typically somber yet colossal collection of anthems suggesting a spiritual purge and awakening a sense of mission in surrendering to an intuition guided by forces larger than the self. Hey, one song is called “Transcending Dualities” and another “The Kingdom of Meaning.”

Lingua Ignota is the name for the language that the twelfth century Christian mystic St. Hildegard of Bingen used in her mystical practice. It was a secret language in which Bingen may have expressed her experiences outside that of typical mortal ken. That association certainly fits the music of Kristin Hayter for the project of the same name. Seemingly tapping into the nightmares of the collective unconscious for her compositions and recordings, Hayter inevitably gets compared to the similarly elemental Diamanda Galas who also employs piano to great dramatic effect alongside disorienting, noisy drones. Fans of Pharmakon and Jarboe will also find a great deal to love in Hayter’s oevre. 2018’s All Bitches Die evokes a kind of modern day experience of the mythological and mystical with both claustrophobic intensity and sublimely spacious compositions that at times are reminiscent of the more transcendent passages of Patti Smith’s misunderstood, experimental 1976 record Radio Ethiopia. All comparison’s aside, Hayter’s music pulls you along and challenges you, it is both uncompromising yet accessible.

MJ Guider is Melissa Guion of New Orleans and her composed environment music is enveloping and otherworldly Her 2016 album Precious Systems is like a visionary post-Snow Crash science fiction album written in music.

Blood Incantation doesn’t do many Colorado shows as the weirdo death metal band has been touring internationally for a few years at this point and can preserve some of its mystique locally.

Who: Glasss Presents: Princess Dewclaw, Rat Bites, Bert Olsen
When: Friday, 11.30, 9 p.m.
Where: Lion’s Lair
Why: Princess Dewclaw somehow sounds like a great, angsty southern California deathrock band from the early 80s with New Wave-y synthesizers mixed with the electrifyingly raw quality of early Babes in Toyland. All without sounded beholden to any of that. Rat Bites is a four-piece punk band that seems to have come out of 90s era garage punk—a little rough around the edges but with an unerring songwriting sense. Like The Dead Boys or Murder City Devils. Bert Olsen is to garage rock what post-punk was, for the most part, to punk: Moodier, sadder, artier and, well, more sensitive and nuanced.

Who: Slapshot w/Line Brawl and Cadaver Dog
When: Friday, 11.30, 7 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Slapshot is the legendary Boston hardcore band. Good thing the group didn’t get the memo that hardcore was pretty much over by the time it released its ferocious 1986 album Back On The Map. Across its lifespan the group included members of other classic hardcore groups including people from Negative FX, DYS and SS Decontrol. It’s sound had already absorbed a bit of that crossover sound by the time it was releasing recordings but Slapshot’s songwriting remained tight and vicious even up to and including its 2018 album Make America Hate Again. Joining the veteran band on this bill are two of Denver’s best bands, hardcore or otherwise, with Line Brawl and Cadaver Dogs, both of whom are clearly from that Boston lineage of loud, sharp, stark punk.

Saturday | December 1, 2018

BoyzNoize_GlenHan_2018 — Boys Noize, photo by Glen Han

Who: Nova Fest 6: Fathers, The Burial Plot, Under Auburn Skies, It’s Just Bugs and Saving Verona
When: Saturday, 12.1, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: This festival basically showcases some of the harder-edged bands that some might call metal or hardcore or post-hardcore but none of which truly fit into a single heavy music genre slot. Especially It’s Just Bugs, which is a confrontational hip-hop group that utilizes industrial beats and noise in evoking the challenges of the modern urban experience and the tension of trying to eke out an existence in a time when the economic and political climate makes it so being working class is harder than it’s been since the Great Depression. Fathers is the post-hardcore super group includes, among others, former members of Lords of Fuzz and Cult of the Lost Cause. Years ago The Burial Plot was a heavy band that was breaking to the national scene when it split but it’s now back and actively performing around the Denver area.

Who: Boys Noize w/Sergio Santana and T-Rx
When: Saturday, 12.1, 9 p.m.
Where: Beta Nightclub
Why: Alexander Ridha has been DJing as Boys Noize for nearly a decade and a half at this point. His upbeat remixes of a broad range of artists from Snoop Dog to Depeche Mode and David Lynch are noteworthy for the same reason his DJ sets are worth a listen or, in the case tonight with Beta and its Funktion-One—Ridha’s ability to weave together multiple genres in a set that sound like genres of their own. And it’s not just the tired EDM clichés that started killing off that world of music. He’s not afraid to bring in some menacing and distorted sounds and beats that one might more rightfully hear in a darkwave band or party bangers that aren’t eyeroll-worthy. Ridha is a versatile artist who seems to seek to expand his own musical vocabulary and methods regularly and it has resulted in a freshness to his sets and his recorded output.

Sunday | December 2, 2018

SeventhCircleMusicCollective_RottenReputation_Nov6_2016_TomMurphy — Rotten Reputation circa 2016, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Rotten Reputation w/Viqueen, Claudzilla and Rat Bites
When: Sunday, 12.2, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: San Francisco’s Viqueen (pronounced like Viking but not “king”) makes a stop in Denver with its metallic punk reminiscent of L7, Tribe 8 and maybe a less chaotic Blatz. Also on the bill is the political expressed as the personal (and vice versa) poppy punk quartet Rotten Reputation. With its sarcasm and sharp humor game strong, Rotten Reputation has treated us to two full-length albums’ worth of creative vitriol with its 2017 album Nancy and 2018’s Castration Station. Claudzilla may not be punk in the traditional sense of the sound but in spirit, anyone that irreverent and, not to put too fine a point on it, weird is in the realm of punk and her keytar rock/pop songs will probably alienate the right people but the rest of us can revel in its strangeness. Rat Bites, as mentioned earlier in this column, is a noisy punk band that fans of Murder City Devils, New Bomb Turks and Jawbreaker might enjoy.

Who: Black Marlin w/Hail Satan, Dead Characters and Totochtin
When: Sunday, 12.2, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Black Marlin is a Denver band with a proclivity for blending the technical musical sensibility of prog and math rock with thrash. Hail Satan is an out and out, no bones about it thrash band but one that could only come out of a certain degree of self-awareness but without any irony in its love for the music. Totochtin is a sludgy but not doomy noisy metal band. It might be a safe bet the guys in the group listened to a few Unsane, Yob and Thou records but you never know. With names like Little Foot, Grease Trap and Big Trash, instrumental metal band Dead Characters bridge the gap between surf rock and sludge metal.

Tuesday | December 4, 2018

Who: VNV Nation w/Holygram and The Rain Within
When: Tuesday, 12.4, 6 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: VNV Nation is a group that has been a bit polarizing in the community of industrial music fans. Its particular EBM aesthetic has certainly influenced the sound and style of the futurepop and EBM music of the late 90s and 2000s—that samey, fake dark and intense post-industrial music with emo-esque vocals and fairly uninspired production. Nevertheless, VNV Nation’s records have had a creative cohesive vision that can be found in the music of its mid-era EBM peers like Covenant, Apoptygma Berzerk and Aseemblage 23 and not so much in many of the bands they all inspired. The project has been driven by Ronan Harris’ songwriting and composition since the beginning and his fusion of synth pop with the hard-edged beats of German industrial acts is is not for everyone. But, especially with the 2018 album Noire, Harris demonstrates his command of the underpinnings of the music that influenced him and informs his own work where an instinct for connecting classical music structure, classic pop songcraft and experiments in electronic sounds can yield interesting results.

HOLYGRAM 2 - photo by Yves Christelsohn — Holygram, photo by Yves Christelsohn

Cologne, Germany’s Holygram masterful matching of post-punk moodiness and driving bass lines with industrial beats and synth work has been compared to The Cure from the arc of albums from Seventeen Seconds to Pornography. Brooding but bright and urgent. The outfit’s 2018 album Modern Cults has that hazy headlong quality coupled with haunted vocals and a taut emotional flavor that is part of what makes The Soft Moon so appealing as well.

Who: Minus the Bear farewell tour w/Tera Melos
When: Tuesday, 12.4, 7 p.m.
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Minus the Bear is calling it quits after seventeen years and several records. Formed in Seattle in 2001 the group’s membership has included then current and former members of prominent post-hardcore bands in America including Botch, Kill Sadie, Circa Survive and These Arms Are Snakes. Minus the Bear’s music required a different kind of technical precision with its idiosyncratic take on math rock – sparkling melodies, intricate guitar work employed with a sort of minimalist approach. That Tera Melos is on the tour is only fitting as that group’s own imaginative math rock is also more focused on songwriting than pure technique.

Who: Childish Gambino w/Vince Staples
When: Tuesday, 12.4, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Pepsi Center
Why: Childish Gambino caused quite a stir with the spring 2018 release of the video for the song “This Is America.” Often poorly, sometimes cringe-worthily so, imitated by several people, the song and video is a brilliant commentary on racism in America today. Donald Glover’s accomplishments as a comedian are better written about elsewhere but his musical output has been equally as interesting and respectable. His 2016 album Awaken, My Love! is one of the better psychedelic soul and funk albums of the past few years. But his promotion of the album with the app that took uses to space with a view back to earth before crash landing in Joshua Tree followed by a list of tour dates and links to get tickets was, to put it mildly, unconventional. But it’s just Glover keeping with his usual attempts to keep things fresh and interesting for him and anyone who wants to be along for the ride. Also on this bill is Vince Staples whose own music may be hip-hop but his musical interests are far broader and you can hear it in his extensive use of synths, samples, production and vocal delivery. Staples’ incisive and evocative words bring attention to a neglected America that isn’t much talked about by politicians and their lapdogs trying to put a good face on the fake economic boom that is really only benefiting the upper one percent before it crashes hard in the next decade. At least that’s what his 2018 opus FM! seems to discuss among other issues.

Wednesday | December 5, 2018

ChiefWhiteLightning_Jack-Grisham1 — Chief White Lightning, photo by Jack Grisham

Who: Chief White Lightning w/The Corner Girls and …And The Black Feathers
When: Wednesday, 12.5, 8 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Even though that wave of bands trying to mine classic rock glory and songwriting has crashed and dissolved (whether they know it or not) as has the umpteenth psychedelic rock revival, some artists will survive the trend on strong songwriting and having something else to offer than a nostalgia trip appeal. One of those is Josh Logan who is Chief White Lightning. Yeah, boogie rock, blues rock, honky tonk and pop. But Logan brings a great deal of personality to his performances and songwriting and that makes all the difference. …And the Black Feathers from Denver are coming from a similar place but its own songs have an expansive quality that gives its songwriting a broad emotional range even when the songs seem to draw on familiar rock and roll themes. It would be weird if The Corner Girls went more in a blues punk direction or whatever after honing its whole “pastel punk” and surf rock thing but you’ll have to go to see.

Best Shows in Denver 11/22/18 – 11/28/18

PaleWaves_BrianGriffin — **Pale Waves performs Monday, November 26, at The Bluebird Theater with Kailee Morgue and The Candescents. Photo by Brian Griffin.**

Thursday | November 22, 2018

MacSabbath_Jeremy-Saffer — Mac Sabbath, photo by Jeremy Saffer

Who: Mac Sabbath w/Franks & Deans bluebirdtheater.net/events/detail/359843
When: Thursday, 11.22, 8 p.m.
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Mac Sabbath performs Black Sabbath covers, with fast food themed lyrics, in the guise of fast food characters from some chain gone dark. Are they really aliens from another dimension like Bizarro or escaped mental patients? Who can say, really. But when Black Sabbath gives you the nod of approval maybe your weirdo cover band has some legitimacy. The group has two official music videos released since its inception in 2014 and a flexi disc for the “Pair-a-Buns” single and nothing else yet since singer Ronald Osborne has declared a complete denial of the existence of technology after the 70s. Why not record or, even more quaint, an 8-track? We may yet see such releases from the mysterious band. But for now, and for purposes of the sheer spectacle of the thing, Mac Sabbath is best seen live.

Sunday | November 25, 2018

JHamiltonIsaacs_Jul18_2017_TomMurphy — J. Hamilton Isaacs, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Elvis Costello & The Imposters
When: Sunday, 11.25, 7 p.m.
Where: The Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Elvis Costello is probably too famous for any introduction. What he contributed/contributes to music is a gift for perfectly capturing a mood, a moment, a frame of mind with detail and humanity. This doesn’t always mean he’s writing songs that fit in with what some people might think of as the “appropriate” way to think and feel about the subject of the song. You may even listen to one of his songs and think, to put it charitably,“What a jerk!” But that’s the point. Whether a character created for the song or a bit of an abstraction of his actual thoughts, Costello’s songs are compelling because whether or not you share the sentiments the songs are poetic and believable pulling up just shy of being sentimental even if he does often employ a sense of nostalgia. His character sketches are vivid and resonate with an emotive familiarity. Currently the songwriter is touring with his band The Imposters in support of Costello’s 2018 album Look Now.

Who: Centered: Steve Hauschildt, Reighnbeau and J. Hamilton Isaacs
When: Sunday, 11.25, 7 p.m.
Where: Savoy at Curtis Park
Why: Steve Hauschildt probably became first known to a national audience during his 2006-2013 run with experimental electronic trio Emeralds. The group fused ambient music with pop and the minimalist end of Twentieth Century classical music. As a solo artist, Hauschildt has delved further into exploring the possibilities of minimalism in composition and creating an sound environment with depth and texture. His 2018 album Dissolvi is reminiscent of a Squarepusher record with the beautiful level of tonal detail but after any deep house influence. Not an ambient dance record, per se, but it could be considered one of the best. Reighnbeau from Santa Fe, NM is a band that includes Bryce Hample, Colleen Johnson and Madeleine Johnston. So for the uninitiated, heavy hitters in underground ambient and experimental pop. Its sound tends toward an organic tone while employing plenty of sonic material that could only come from a computer or other electronic device. The group has a layered sound suggesting a complex mixture of emotions. J. Hamilton Isaacs has been a fixture of Denver’s experimental music scene for over a decade whether he is often acknowledged for it or not. His own beat-driven electronic experiments blend together sequencing/sampling and modular synthesis. Always different, always interesting.

Who: Textures: Wonderlust, Chromadrift, Crimson Highways
When: Sunday, 11.25, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: This months’ Textures Ambient Showcase features post-rock/ambient soundscape artist Chromadrift whose Drew Miller also composes soundtrack-y music in a more abstract shoegaze vein as Brother Saturn. Also, Daniel Mescher as Crimson Highways uses loops and electronics to compose impressions and textured emotional colorings to transport you away from the tonight’s cold.

Monday | November 26, 2018

AuthorAndPunisher_courtesyRelapseRecords — Author & Punisher, photo courtesy Relapse Records

Who: Pale Waves w/Kailee Morgue and The Candescents
When: Monday, 11.26, 7 p.m.
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Manchester, UK band Pale Waves doesn’t overtly flout conventional song structure and what makes for solid pop melodies. But the band’s early material, upbeat in tone and pacing, hit some of the same emotional touchstones as artists like CHVRCHES and Lorde. But Pale Waves look like an updated version of a dark post-punk band from the 80s and many of its songs, particularly on the 2018 full-length debut My Mind Makes Noise., explore themes of loss, existential uncertainty and identity with an assurance and sensitivity one might not expect from a pop band with a strong visual aesthetic. About the title, singer Heather Baron-Gracie told us that it is an acknowledgment of how our minds are filled with ideas and emotions and it can sometimes be overwhelming but that we can, to some extent, also choose which noises we amplify and feed. In providing interesting contrasts that challenge assumptions (Goth-ish-presenting band making emotionally rich pop songs, pop songs with deeply melancholic themes), Pale Waves demonstrates to people who care to pay attention that one needn’t adhere to narrow expectations in music or in one’s own life.

Who: Echo & The Bunnymen w/Enation
When: Monday, 11.26, 7 p.m.
Where: The Paramount Theatre
Why: Echo & The Bunnymen didn’t just write that song in Donnie Darko, what was it, “The Killing Moon”? Or for an earlier generation, didn’t just do that Doors cover for the soundtrack to The Lost Boys. “People Are Strange,” though. At any rate, Echo & The Bunnymen for post-punk connoisseurs was one of the most consistently interesting bands of the 80s because until it’s 1987 self-titled album, the one that broke the band to the mainstream, of course, with the hit “Lips Like Sugar,” the group had had a string of fascinating, critically acclaimed records. There was an elegance of sentiment, a poetic sensibility and a deeply imaginative quality to the band’s music. Like it was tapping into the unconscious and creating its own mythology cast in dreamlike detail—shrouded in indigo lights and fog, early morning sunlight and mist. The first four Echo & The Bunnymen records are post-punk canon and for the rest of its career there’s been plenty of strong material, even on 1990’s fan-reviled, Ian McCulloch-less album Reverberation. McCulloch remains an enigmatic, romantic weirdo mystic of rock and roll which some my find confounding at times but, really, don’t we all need someone out there maintaining their own mythology in that way that is not harmful but gives hope to anyone who dared to dream of a more interesting world and had the guts to see making it a reality as an iconic band.

Who: The Body, Author & Punisher and Many Blessings
When: Monday, 11.26, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Two of the best bands that don’t fit too well into the world of metal or heavy music but don’t really fit into any other realm of music either except for maybe noise are sharing the stage tonight. And with Denver’s Many Blessings, a solo noise project of Primitive Man’s Ethan McCarthy. The Body from Providence, Rhode Island have long blurred any lines between doom, grindcore, hardcore, noise, industrial, electronic pop and ambient music. Just depends on the album. The group has been fairly prolific across its 19 years of existence but perhaps none more so than 2018 when the band produced a split industrial group Uniform as Mental Wounds Not Healing, an early 2018 record I Have Fought Against It, But I Can’t Any Longer (a grinding dirge that never seems to get boring) and the fall release O God who avenges, shine forth. Rise up, Judge of the Earth; pay back to the proud what they deserve. Live, the band unleashes intense energy while keeping it weird. No mean feat and The Body does so brilliantly. Author & Punisher is a one-man industrial band. Tristan Shone is an artist and a mechanical engineer who builds his unique instrumentation. One his early tours he definitely played DIY spaces in Denver but has made a bit of a name for himself outside noisenikdom and recognized for his innovative methods of composition. His latest album, 2018’s Beastland out on Relapse Records, is simultaneously possibly his most accessible and challenging record to date. As a frame of reference, imagine a late 80s Ministry and late 90s Neurosis collaboration album.

Tuesday | November 27, 2018

Who: Street Sects w/Ten Foot Beast
When: Tuesday, 11.27, 8 p.m.
Where: Streets of London
Why: Street Sects fills the room with fog in order to disorient you already before its barrage of sounds, lights, rhythm and, on occasion, a bladeless chainsaw brought forth to make for a performance designed to take you out of your comfort zone. Is it noise? Industrial? Inspired by confrontational punk? Perhaps specifically by tales of Alan Vega swinging that bike chain at early Suicide shows in New York? Who can say. What is certain is that while its live shows are not short on visceral thrills, its records stand on their own as well. Its latest record, 2018’s The Kicking Mule is like a futuristic industrial noir with darkly amusing and hardboiled titles like “269 Soulmates,” “Suicide By Cop,” “Dial Down the Neon” and “Still Between Lovers.”

Who: Sharone (“I Love You, Goodbye” single release) w/Melody In Heart, Blake George, Sean Hennigan
When: Tuesday, 11.27, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: Sharone Borik debuted as a talented singer-songwriter before launching her dark, hard rock band Sharone & The Wind in 2016. For this night, Borik is releasing her new solo single “I Love You, Goodbye.” Given Borik’s gift for songwriting and performing with a theatrical flair it should be interesting to see how she presents her solo work this time around.

Who: Glenn Jones and Janet Feder
When: Tuesday, 11.27, 7 p.m.
Where: Baur’s
Why: Two of guitar’s avant-garde greats on one bill. Glenn Jones has been a member of experimental rock band Cul de Sac since 1990 but he was also a collaborator and friend of John Fahey and he has written a film score for Roger Corman. His solo work is often very much in the folk vein but more elaborate and imaginative than too much of what passes as folk these days. Janet Feder was born in Boulder, raised in Denver, and has been pushing the guitar envelope in a variety of ways with form and composition for decades now. While her work might rightfully fall under the umbrellas of prog, the avant-garde, experimental folk and modern classical music, her actual songwriting is fairly organic and highly imaginative. This is a rare chance to see both artists on the same bill.

Wednesday | November 28, 2018

CultLeader3_BobbyCochran — Cult Leader, photo by Bobby Cochran

Who: Blockhead w/Yppah, Arms and Sleepers, Mikey Thunder and Jordan Polvina
When: Wednesday, 11.28, 8 p.m.
Where: Cervantes’ Other Side
Why: Tony Simon has been making some of the most interesting and transporting beats in hip-hop for nearly 20 years including his collaborations with Aesop Rock, Ilogic and Murs. His solo releases on the respected Ninja Tune imprint paint a tapestry of New York daydreams of the Big Apple of myth and journeys far beyond to places exotic to a city dweller. His compositions, part immersed in classic sampling tradition of taking bits of jazz and funk records and recontextualizing them, part weaving in experimental electronic music—his own and those possibly borrowed., are immediately captivating and mostly on the downtempo vibe. Live the music can be a bit like the DJ on a laptop sort of affair but on the sound system at Cervantes’ it’ll have a full sound.

Who: Cult Leader, God Mother, Call of the Void and Kenaima
When: Wednesday, 11.28, 8 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Salt Lake City’s sludge-grind band Cult Leader recently released its second album A Patient Man. While some of the material is what you might expect of a highly energized band out of its expected realm of music, the group took some hauntingly introspective turns on the record including the track “To: Achlys,” which sounds more like a dire, metallic, brooding post-punk song akin to a late 80s Swans song with a visually stunning music video depicting a man seeking solace in the arms of a stylized figure that resembles a Kali-esque death goddess. The group has been making waves lately and in December is taking Denver-based organo-industrial legends Echo Beds on a short tour. On the bill for this night is the great Denver death-grind outfit Call of the Void and adrenalized mathrcore band Kenaima.

Who: Screwtape EP release w/Noogy, World Movement, Dox and HYFY
When: Wednesday, 11.28, 6 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Screwtape, one of Denver’s greatest political hardcore bands, is finally releasing its second EP and celebrating the occasion at this show at The Oriental Theater with some of its like-minded peers. By hardcore don’t take that to mean a young band imitating some earlier era of the music but taking those roots as inspiration for making something vital and of the now.

Best Shows in Denver 11/15/18 – 11/20/18

GougeAway_RonYamasaki — **Gouge Away performs at the Hi-Dive on Friday, November 16, 2018. Photo by Ron Yamasaki**

Thursday | November 15, 2018

daughtersreidhaithcock1 — **Daughters, photo by Reid Haithcock**

Who: Daughters w/Echo Beds
When: Thursday, 11.15, 9 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: When noise/experimental rock band Daughters reunited in 2013 there was no guarantee the group would do more than play a limited number of shows before going on hiatus again. Its first attempt at a record was scrapped because it didn’t feel, according to vocalist Lex Marshall, authentic to what the band was about. Its music was confrontational and visceral, executed with a savage precision and it didn’t fit too well into the boxes in which the group was often thrown: grindcore, math rock, art-metal, post-hardcore. Daughters bridged the gap between the disorientingly surreal and amped emotional immediacy. Its 2018 record You Won’t Get What You Want pushes the band’s sound into greater vistas of experimentation with its core sound, coming upon what sounds like some forgotten chapter of an industrial, post-punk and noise hybrid from the 80s. The words and the sounds of the record, however are very much of the now with a world teetering on the brink of chaos, a darkly liminal period that might make for the perfect backdrop to a J.G. Ballard novel. That Echo Beds, which recently released its own similarly-minded record, Buried Language, will open the show and set the stage for the sonic mayhem to follow.

Who: Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin
When: Thursday, 11.15, 9 p.m.
Where: The Gothic Theatre
Why: Claudio Simonetti and his band Goblin created some of the most iconic horror movie soundtracks of all time having done those for Dario Argento’s Deep Red as well as the European release of George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. But perhaps the group’s crowning musical achievement was the score for Argento’s 1977 supernatural horror classic Suspiria. The haunting music and unsettling vocalizations (often done by Simonetti himself) was the perfect companion to a movie not short on rich color and deeply affecting atmosphere. This version of Goblin lead by Simonetti will perform the soundtrack live during a screening of Suspiria with what Simonetti jokes about as Goblin’s other “greatest” hits following the film.

Who: Galleries, Grass and Wild Call
When: Thursday, 11.15, 9 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: There was a time not so long ago that Denver had, to put it charitably, way too many “psych rock” bands in the trendy mold. But lurking around in that world and a step or more apart from it were bands developing decidedly in their own directions while still rooted somewhat in the realm of psychedelic rock. Wild Call’s gritty, atmospheric, emotionally-charged songs seem like something from another era when subgenre’s didn’t matter so much as ethos and approach, finding your own voice rather than operating in a style even if you pulled from various styles in your songwriting but having something meaningful to say and an interesting way to say it. Grass borrowed a bit of that warped warble from My Bloody Valentine but sounds more like it learned a lot about edgy and nearly unraveled sounds from some of the more blustery bands on Siltbreeze in the 2000s like Times New Viking and Psychedelic Horseshit. Maybe a few nods in the direction of the Reatards. A maximalist lo-fi. Galleries is more like a band re-imagining classic rock through the lens of the influence of grunge and 2000s garage rock so it sure does sound a little different from any of that.

Friday | November 16, 2018

Escort_TomEdwards — Escort, photo by Tom Edwards

Who: The Flux Crew in concert
When: Friday, 11.16, 8 p.m.
Where: Pine Street Church Boulder 1237 Pine Street
Why: Dino J.A. Dean will be the conductor of this fifteen piece ensemble that will engage in, according to the Facebook event page “real time collaborative composition.” What this means is essentially improv in the overlapping contexts of jazz, contemporary classical and the avant-garde. The musicians performing come from a broad spectrum of local artists from noise, jazz, classical, funk, folk, rock etc. all sonically synergizing toward a mutual musical goal. Dean’s illustrious career in theater, jazz, punk, dance and experimental music of a broad stripe from when he was in funk bands in the Los Angeles area, working as a sideman for Ike and Tina Turner and in the 80s playing trombone controlled synthesizer in the 80s with Jon Hassell. Dean has also worked with the late jazz great Butch Morris, acclaimed playright/actor/director Sam Shepard and modern dance choreographer Colleen Mulvihill. To name a few. Dean will bring that experience in collaborating with other artists in guiding the proceedings in this unique performance with his musical group The Flux Crew.

Who: Gouge Away, Drug Church, Heart Attack Man and Cheap Perfume
When: Friday, 11.16, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Drug Church is an hardcore band from Albany, NY, but one that isn’t on the nostalgia trip that some hardcore has been on in recent years. Drug Church has more in common with IDLES from the UK whose own expansively sonic songs tackle personal and social issues with an unbeatable combination of wry wit and sheer emotional intensity. Gouge Away from Fort Lauderdale has been making some of the most powerfully compelling punk of the last few years. But, and especially on its 2018 album Burnt Sugar, Gouge Away brings a particularly imaginative approach to its headlong rush of energy by not just writing most songs with the same dynamic, injecting atmosphere into its sustained bursts of fiery noise. In that way it has more in common with 90s noisy punk bands like Unwound and Karp. Unabashedly political, minus any boring didactic perspectives, Gouge Away is one of the bands keeping punk relevant a quarter a decade after it seemed to have been co-opted by the mainstream.

Who: The Motet w/Escort
When: Friday, 11.16, 8 p.m.
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: The Motet is celebrating its twentieth year as a band in 2018. Founded by drummer/arranger Dave Watts, the group’s blend of Afrobeat, jazz and funk may be something one would expect from a band from Boulder but it’s also surprisingly fresh and the musicianship legitimately respectable. Also joining the veteran Colorado band is Escort from Brooklyn. Like-minded in some ways, Escort performs music that one can trace roots to back to when 70s funk and disco met in fruitful rather than laughable ways. Think more in the vein of Commodores and Chic but updated after American musicians absorbed European influences and the resurgence of jazz reclaimed from academia and the ossified old commercial jazz market. The Motet performs same time same venue on Saturday, November 17 The Motet but with with Cory Wong who will include special guest Antwaun Stanley of Vulfpeck in the line up.

Saturday | November 17, 2018

Who: Wax Trax Fortieth Anniversary w/Slugger
When: Saturday, 11.17, 7 p.m.
Where: The Mercury Café
Why: Wax Trax might be the longest running record/music store in the Denver metropolitan area. While music stores might be considered a bit of an anachronism today they still serve an important function as a place to discover stuff you may not know about without the awkwardness of algorithms making suggestions based on what you view on a website. They are also places where you can meet other humans who might have a shared interest and where one might encounter something as quaint as a flyer for a show for bands you know nothing about and might find interesting. Also, not all local bands worth your time have a robust, easily found online presence. Besides, what music fan doesn’t enjoy organically finding something by browsing and not having something specific in mind? Wax Trax has been more than that. It has employed local musicians, one of its owners, Duane Davis, wrote incisive music reviews and other articles for several years and he and others at Wax Trax were involved in the local imprint Local Anaesthetic which put out records by some of the best punk and post-punk bands of the 80s. With the documentary about the store and the label that emerged out of that when the store’s founders moved to Chicago having screened in Denver last weekend it only seemed reasonable to have the actual celebration of the store’s first forty years at the Mercury Café. In the 80s both businesses were neighbors on 13th Avenue and Mercury Café was a hub for live, underground music—the relationship was somewhat synergistic. While there may not be a lot of live music for this event, aside from the psychedelic rock band Slugger fronted by current Wax Trax employee Gabriel Abelo, some of the memorabilia and stories shared will be worth attending to witness.

Who: J Mascis w/James Elkington
When: Saturday, 11.17, 8 p.m.
Where: Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox
Why: J Mascis is rightfully known as the influential guitar shredder extraordinaire of influential rock band Dinosaur Jr. His buried vocals amidst blistering yet melodic songs turned out to be perfectly capable of laid back utterances that articulated the feelings and thoughts of someone that was checked out of the sanitized insipidity of much of 80s popular culture, offering an alternative, more personal, and ultimately more truthful perspective of living as a kind of weirdo in Reagan’s/Bush’s America. Mascis wrote most of those songs and for years he’s established a solo career that parallels the subject matter he has explored with Dinosaur except he’s able to be more nuanced in his vocal delivery and in later years, his broad songwriting palette has become more obvious. The 2018 record Elastic Days is lush and eclectic with contributions from Pall Jenkins of Black Heart Procession, Miracle Legion’s Mark Mulcahy and Zoë Randell of Luluc. But on the road, and for this show, it’ll be J and what he describes as “a little fort around” himself of amps, various stands and other refinements. At Ophelia’s the intimacy of the room will surely make this a memorable show.

Who: Hive w/Weathered Statues, Rotstrotter, Aseethe and Vexing
When: Saturday, 11.17, 8 p.m.
Where: Syntax Physic Opera
Why: Hive from Minneapolis is a melodic crust band not to be confused with the band HIVE from Chicago who are also from the Midwest and no strangers to blackened metal. So the excellent Denver-based crust/grind band Rotstrotter is a good fit on the bill as is the like-minded Vexing. Iowa’s Aseethe is a doom band and not too far removed from the same milieu of heavy music. Weathered Statues, though, are a dark, post-punk band whose musical DNA seems to include Xmal Deutschland, The Cure and DA! But there’s an undercurrent of dance rhythms that thankfully are nothing like what all these post-punk revival era “dance punk” bands were peddling. Just a clear sense of rhythm and pacing that draws you into the song as surely as its dusky atmosphere’s and Jennie Mather’s commanding vocals. Weathered Statues plays first and may confuse some people expecting all conventionally heavy music for the night.

Who: Municipal Waste w/Toxic Holocaust and Haunt
When: Saturday, 11.17, 6 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: At a time when metalcore was reaching its apex, Richmond, Virginia’s Municipal Waste was making the kind of crossover music that would come back into vogue again nearly a decade after its 2001 inception. For the uninitiated, that crossover meaning the kind of music that emerged around the mid-80s when bands like DRI, which may have started out as hardcore punk, fed into its metallic instincts and synthesized hardcore and thrash metal, which itself was informed by punk. Because it was an early re-adopter, Municipal Waste became a bit of a cult band. Toxic Holocaust’s Joel Grind was also someone who was tapping back into that crossover sound in the late 90s but injected into his songwriting some of the evil sound and brutality of black metal.

Sunday | November 18, 2018

Wrong_CourtesyRelapseRecords — Wrong, photo courtesy Relapse Records

Who: Wrong, Portrayal of Guilt, Abrams, False Cathedrals
When: Sunday, 11.18, 7 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: Wrong is the kind of noise rock band that probably wouldn’t have quite happened in the 90s or earlier. While the Unsane and Helmet influence is there giving the music a precise yet savage edge, one can hear the stretch of sounds into distended otherworldliness as though steeped in the industrial psychedelia of post-Twitch Ministry and the haunted sludge of pre-Superunknown Soundgarden. It also has a bit of the near hysteria catharsis one hears in Daughters. The band’s 2018 album Feel Good has positive intentions but the songs themselves are all about feeling bad and purging that low end of one’s life.

PortrayalOfGuilt_AdrianGlickman — Portrayal of Guilt, photo by Adrian Glickman

Portrayal of Guilt’s 2018 album Let Pain Be Your Guide is a nightmarish set of pronouncements about the acceptance of life’s seemingly unacceptable but all too real aspects. It’s not all relentless, grind-y hardcore because there’s a nuance of sounds and dynamics that give harsh and brutal music a fascinating dimensionality that makes what might be forbidding music to many an accessibility built on how relatable the lyrics really are in the current social and political climate worldwide. Many songwriters express well the pains of some aspects of existence, Portrayal of Guilt’s songs sound like a direct line to that experience in case anyone is confused.

Tuesday | November 20, 2018

JapaneseWallpaper_GiuliaGianniniMcGauran1 — Japanese Wallpaper, photo by Giulia Giannini McGauran

Who: Shallou w/Japanese Wallpaper
When: Tuesday, 11.20, 7 p.m.
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Melbourne, Australia’s Japanese Wallpaper is Gab Strum who seems to be a bit of an electronic music prodigy. In 2014, when he was a mere 17 years old, his song “Breathe In (ft. Wafia)” was featured in Zach Braff’s film Wish I Was Here. Strum’s brightly ethereal compositions sound like the next two steps in the evolution of chillwave and informed by the same production methods born out of hip-hop that informed that musical movement. Soothing without being soporific, Strum’s songs would be perfect for when you want to take some time to contemplate something important with clarity of mood and mind. Some of his newer material like “Fooling Around” is celebratory yet introspective and reveals Sturm’s clear evolution as an artist into realms of music beyond the tranquil minimalism of his earlier offerings.

Who: Odonis Odonis w/Church Fire and Voight
When: Tuesday, 11.20, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Toronto’s Odonis Odonis sounds like DAF reborn in the techno/rave scene of Detroit 90s. At least on its latest album, 2017’s ominously luminous No Pop. The duo is joined this night by two Denver bands whose own music embody a similar wedding of darkwave industrial beats and a masterful command of incorporating noise with the more electro-dance-oriented Church Fire whose cathartic live show never disappoints and the post-punk/dark techno band Voight who are arcing out of a long period of legit A Place to Bury Strangers worship into more fascinatingly beat-driven territory.

Wednesday | November 21, 2018

KyleEmerson2 — Kyle Emerson, photo courtesy the artist

Who: Kyle Emerson, Stelth Ulvang and Down Time
When: Wednesday, 11.21, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: If Kyle Emerson isn’t already making waves on the indie touring circuit, he should be soon. The veteran Denver songwriter has been paying serious dues for a few years now touring small clubs and venues across America. His psychedelic folk pop are imbued with emotional warmth and insight as heard most recently in recorded form on his 2017 full-length album Dorothy Alice. The album closer “Post Egomania” is a perfect way to sum up the emotional and spiritual journey of the rest of the album. For this homecoming show from his most recent tour Emerson will share the stage with Stelth Ulvang of The Lumineers and one of Denver’s best indie rock bands, the not-so-obviously-but-unmistakably experimental Down Time.

Who: Reverb & The Verse
When: Wednesday, 11.21, 7 p.m.
Where: Bonacquisti Wine
Why: Reverb & The Verse is one of the longer running hip-hop crews in Denver and one of the most diverse and boundary pushing in a way that’s difficult to say where the root of its music might lay beyond that of the breadth of palette that exists in hip-hop. Shane Etter, one of the band’s main producers from its early days is well-versed in a wide range of electronic music and recently did mastering on the 2018 album from literate documentarians of dystopian America, hip-hop duo Curta. Here is an infrequent opportunity to catch one of Denver’s finest live.