For “Drum and Flowers” Sunken Cages seems to have employed a hybrid production style to match the synthesis of musical ideas and styles. At first and throughout it sounds like something recorded to a cassette but put through modern production software. It brings together organic drums, synth sequences employed with the sensibility of organic percussion and lo-fi distortion to give the whole song a gritty and textural quality that contrasts well with the beatmaking. It’s like an industrial song if that music emerged from the global south rather than the UK, Europe and North America. The almost orchestral arrangement of drums truly sets it apart from possible obvious influences and in utilizing ancient sound sources with current technology and methodology in recording and production it hits the ears as deeply familiar yet fresh, new and celebratory. Listen to “Drum and Flowers” on YouTube and follow Sunken Cages aka Ravish Momin at the links below. The new album Neram Pularumbol (As the Dawn Breaks) is out on Mhorka Records on August 7, 2026.
“After the Silence” eases into your consciousness with a gentle background drone and delicate motes of town seeming to drift by like snowflakes. Bajune Tobeta’s nearly abstract piano carries elements of melody while low end strings resonate somewhere in the sonic depth of field. Amid these layers of sound are contributions from Christian Fennesz but who can fully say where one musicians offerings and layers are fully distinct from the other without knowing exactly who played what. It doesn’t matter. The net effect is one of expert layering of sounds to create greater collective harmonies with a textural element that enhances the tranquil energy of the piece. Both artists worked with Ryuichi Sakamoto with sensibilities that blend those of electronic music, contemporary classical and ambient and this track from Tobeta’s forthcoming EP Anechoic (out August 14, 2026) promises a longer work with cinematic resonances that tap into the human mind’s capacity for transcending the noise and activity of the present moment into a spaces of meditative peace even if only for fleeting moments but enough to gain perspective on what can often overwhelm a person in the usual state of mind. Listen to “After the Silence” on YouTube and follow Bajune Tobeta at the links provided.
Anne Richmond Boston was an early and current member of Atlanta-based New Wave/jangle pop band The Swimming Pool Q’s. As a vocalist and keyboard player, Boston was in the group in time for playing opening slots for Devo and Police in the late 70s. The Q’s were a staple in the college rock world of the 80s with Boston highlighted as a powerhouse singer with the band. She left the group in 1987, 5 years before its 1992 split (reuniting in 1998), and in 1990 released his first solo album The Big House of Time. The follow up I Should Be Happy was recorded with contributions from musical luminaries like Terry Adams (NRBQ), Marti Jones, Syd Straw, David Barbe (Sugar, Mercyland), Billy Conway (Morphone), Bob Elsey (The Swimming Pool Q’s), Michael Lorant (Indigo Girls) among others. But the record was shelved for reasons not even clear to Boston either. Thanks to friend Clay Harper over thirty years later Boston remixed eight of the 12 original songs recorded and added seven for a 2025 release on vinyl, CD and digital. The album sounds perfectly in line with the current era with the kind of songwriting that recalls classic pop, Laurel Canyon folk rock and the kind of art folk pop one might associate with Joni Mitchell. Boston sounds confident and soulful singing songs that seem to be about existential crises before that became a term used to describe a state of mind in which one grapples with life pressures and a sociopolitical climate that doesn’t support anyone’s best life. When writing the songs Boston likely had no idea it would be a perfect record for the 2020s while simultaneously capturing the mood of the early 90s as well.
Listen to our interview with Anne Richmond Boston on Bandcamp and follow the singer/songwriter/graphic designer/visual artist at the links below.
Hissuae, photo by Stephen Trutwin/Strut Photography
Hissuae brings an orchestral, stage musical sensibility to “Mayfly/Something Divine.” The songs flow into each other. Both are grounded in cinematic piano work and the artist’s warmly ethereal vocals with which she imbues songs about love and desire with a transcendent quality. Musically it sounds like something written for stage drama but deemed too strong and independent a work for such a context. The bursts of keyboard work and the extended structures in the song are reminiscent of something from the first couple of Tori Amos records in which that songwriter sounds like someone really working something out in her mind but finding the vehicle for that emotional work in the physicality of playing piano and its potential for elegant expression and a broad and nuanced tonal range which also highlights Hissuae’s own versatility as a singer able for which wide musical spaces and dynamic sweeps are required. Listen to “Mayfly/Something Divine” on Spotify or one of the other streaming/purchase links on Hissuae’s DistroKid account.
Thursday | 07.02 What: Modern Leisure, Angel Band and Caspar Milquetoast When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Modern Leisure makes its more high profile return to Denver stages after a bit of a hiatus. The group fronted by Casey Banker who has been a member of some of the better indie rock bands of the past several years including The Don’ts and Be Carefuls and Shady Elders. Banker’s talent for writing a memorable melodic hook with emotionally vibrant songs about heartbreak, heartache and everyday life in urban America with vivid storytelling that renders some of life’s downbeats seem like something you can pull yourself out of often by just really feeling those moments. Opening are two of the more noteworthy bands from Denver. Angel Band writes exquisite pop songs in the vein of vintage early Slumberland and Sarah Records groups with some actual grit and emotional weight. Caspar Milquetoast writes the kind of psychedelic country that sounds like what would happen if some great 90s lo-fi pop band discovered both Townes Van Zandt and the more cosmic end of The Byrds or The Flying Burrito Brothers while free associating experimental musical ideas and cultural references. Who names a song after Cy Twombly? Not many acts.
Suicide Cages, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 07.03 What:Suicide Cages, Church Fire, Seam Ripper and f-ether When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Suicide Cages is the rare heavy band in its post-hardcore/noise rock mode that is intense and forceful in its performance style with incredibly precise musicianship and nearly unhinged in the outpouring of feelings while sensitive and giving expression to the rage, pain and sadness that comes from navigating the offenses against humanity that come from navigating late capitalism. Church Fire will pretty much debut it’s four-piece configuration and new light show with this performance, it’s first in months, which is a bit of a record for a band that has regularly performed live every year for more than a decade so if you’ve been seeing them it’s going to be noticeably different but likely still the gloriously energetic and emotionally charged catharsis of industrial dance pop. Seam Ripper from Greeley appear to have found the sweet spot between doom, Gothic rock and post-hardcore without feeling the need to fit in strictly in a genre. f-ether has often been one of the best electronic dance producers with a gift for inventive beat-making and tonally rich melodies. Skyler Heck aka f-ether has been delivering hard hitting yet fluid industrial hip-hop.
Myles Smith, photo by Jennifer McCord
Saturday | 07.04 What:Ed Sheeran w/Myles Smith amd Aaron Rowe When: 5:30 Where: Empower Field at Mile High Why: Ed Sheeran is one of the most commercially successful pop artists of his generation and needs no introduction. But Sheerhan is someone who started writing songs in his very early teens and worked as a guitar tech in his late teens before being accepted at Academdy of Contemporary Music and then dropping out to focus on his budding career in music as a songwriter and musician but also as support for other artists. But by the time he was 19 he was garnering mainstream attention for his own work and he signed to a major label after self-releasing a few EPs. Since 2011 Sheerhan has become one of the most famous songwriters in the world for his particular style of folk pop with obvious influence from hip-hop in the production. He has also used his success to uplift other artists whether as a collaborator or with opening slots on his tours. One artist who was inspired by Sheeran is opener Myles Smith who grew up in a British Jamaican family near London. Smith himself has cultivated a wide fan base for his uplifting, expansive and soulful folk pop. With three EPs released between 2024 and 2025 Smith has grown as a songwriter and his 2026 debut full-length My Mess, My Heart, My Life is an especially vulnerable set of songs that are open about personal and interpersonal struggle, love and what makes life worth living. There’s a song called “Sertraline” which is another name for Zoloft signaling how open Miles is about real issues that one is willing to take necessary steps to help oneself get through some of life’s super downbeats.
Replica City, photo by Tom Murphy
Thursday | 07.09 What: Replica City album release, Total Cult, Glueman and Cleats When: 7:30 Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Room Why: Replica City is releasing its new full-length album A Better You. The ten songs confirm that the trio has put together a narrative of the state of American society today with heartfelt songs about self-accountability, authoritarian paranoia and corruption and the multitude of ways our economic system and culture aim to keep us all distracted and powerless. Like a Millennial cognate of Zen Arcade but whose version of angular yet melodic post-hardcore is reminiscent of the likes of Drive Like Jehu, Hot Snakes and Pretty Girls Make Graves. Opening are post-garage punk group Total Cult from Colorado Springs, garage grunge stars Glueman and noisy post-hardcore band Cleats.
BleakHeart, photo by Cameron Baczkowski
Friday | 07.10 What: BleakHeart, Spiritual Poison, Mournful Ruin and El Welk When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Denver-based doomy shoegaze group BleakHeart is celebrating the release of its latest album A Stone Thrown to Silence with this stacked lineup. The four-piece has undergone a bit of reinvention since the 2024 release of Silver Pulse with greater experiments in the use of space and now with just one vocalist in Kiki Ganun, The lead singles and song titles suggest the record leans into themes of impermanence and searching for hope or at least the will to move forward when there seems to be little to nothing to offer solace in a world that seems to be headed to annihilation. The album seems to most completely reflect the name of the band but in its dark drones and most crushing guitar work one hears resilience and a strength of personality that everyone has but often forgets until the time comes to draw on inner resources one didn’t know one had. Spiritual Poison is the “ambient” band of Ethan McCarthy of Primitive Man fame but don’t show up to the set expecting something like Brian Eno or Laraaji. Nothing as soothing as that but an cathartically unsettling flow of textural atmospheres and deep, layered tone. Mournful Ruin is a death/sludge quartet from Denver with more than a touch of Sabbath and black metal in its sound. El Welk is the great, dark garage Americana band fronted by George Cessna with Kim Baxter on drums.
The Church, photo by Hugh Stewart
Saturday | 07.11 What:The Church – The Singles: 1980-2025 When: 7 Where: The Summit Music Hall Why: The Church is the legendary Australian post-punk and psychedelic rock band from Sydney who got off the ground in 1980 and has had a distinguished career of producing some of the most emotionally engaging and poetic rock music of the past few decades. They have classic material most people who have been aware of rock and pop music since the 80s but the group’s entire catalog of studio material is worth a listen and the band has managed to reinvent itself regularly without losing its gift for creative storytelling and heartfelt and insightful lyrics delivered with passion and grace. Truly one of the greats of modern music and they will play some of the finest material from throughout its career for this performance.
PINKNOISE, photo by Jacqueline Day
Tuesday | 07.14 What: PINKNOISE w/Edith When: 7 Where: Globe Hall Why: PINKNOISE aka Kacey Foxx released their sophomore EP FLESH AND BONE on April 17, 2026. The seven song offering is the singer/songwriter’s follow up to the 2025 EP HUMAN=KIND. Foxx makes a kind of music that perhaps fits in with industrial metalcore/screamo but the vulnerability doesn’t feel performative or like misplaced aggrievement. The songs invite the listener in for a shared experience where one can explore painful experiences, insecurities and resistance to a toxic culture of cruelty that seems to permeate channels of social and political power. Regardless of any specific styles that may have influenced Foxx as a developing artist, their ability to fuse emotional power with the ability to express truths of inner turmoil has a catharsis resonant with some of the better music of Nine Inch Nails.
The Head and the Heart, photo by Alex Currie
Wednesday and Thursday | 07.15 and 07.16 What: The Head and the Heart with The Colorado Symphony Orchestra w/Evan Honer 7/15 and w/Wilderado 7/16 When: 6:30 both nights Where: Red Rocks Amphitheater Why: Seattle’s The Head and the Heart emerged in 2009 around the time of a national upswing of indie folk in various corners of the country. Its members met through open mic nights at Conor Byrne pub in the Ballard neighborhood in northwestern Seattle and when the group put together a recording in 2010 they home made covers with denim to house the CDRs it was an organic hit locally with stores like Easy Street in West Seattle and Sonic Boom in the aforementioned Ballard not being able to keep up with demand. That fall the band signed to Sub Pop who remastered and reissued the self-titled debut on vinyl, CD and digital. The album went on to Platinum-selling status. The Head and the Heart has since gone on to much wider acclaim and fame playing large venues on national and even international tours but its core virtues as a band can be heard in that first record for which it is now touring behind a 15-year anniversary of the self-titled album. The band’s vocal harmonies feel intimate and powerful with the three vocalists complementing each other with an intuitive connection with each other accented with the prominent percussion and orchestral arrangements on guitar, bass and mandolin. On this two-night run of performances the group will be joined by The Colorado Symphony Orchestra itself acclaimed for syncing well with indie rock and other bands whose songs easily adapt to a larger and more expansive sound palette.
The Body in 2023, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 07.17 What: The Body and Big|Brave w/Spiritual Poison and Fainting Dreams When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: The Body has for years been a reliable source of some of the heaviest, most crushing, dynamic experimental metal around. Freely mixing sludge, doom, noise rock, screamo and power electronics, the duo of Chip King and Lee Buford seem to collaborate with many of the more forward thinking heavy bands of the past three decades as well as offering up several albums of only their own material. Going to a show from The Body is like signing up for a flood of sounds and outpouring of emotion in a joyous yet bare bones display of maximalist guitar, drums, electronics and vocals creating more noise than a duo has any seeming right to doing. The music may seem monolithic to the uninitiated and fans alike but listen to their records and there is a great deal of nuance and concepts that the band has masterfully executed all along with influences ranging from the most extreme metal to mainstream pop and synth pop. Currently The Body is touring with Canadian experimental metal trio Big|Brave who have done a fascinating collaborative avant-folk album with The Body called Leaving None but Small Birds (2021). But the band recently released in grief or in hope, a record that pairs melody with processed noise, textural harmonics and drone for an effect that is both intimate and enigmatic in a deep exploration of living as a human in the current era when everything seems to be falling apart socio-politically and the climate crisis and widespread extinction event hovers on the nearby timeline but clinging on to faint possibilities.
Big|Brave, photo by Stacy LeeValley Fever, photo courtesy Johnny Lundock
Saturday | 07.18 What:Valley Fever, Rowboat and A Strange Happening When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Valley Fever from Tucson, Arizona is making a stop in Denver with its fiery blues rock. Think like a progression out of the boogie rock/classic rock throwback of a decade ago. If you go you can catch Johnny Lundock formerly of Futurebirds and Denver notables Houses, Rowboat and Blue Million Miles lend his considerable gifts behind the drum kit. Opening are Lundock’s old band Rowboat and its shoegaze adjacent, noisy indie rock with songwriting rooted in folk and literary lyrics that display Sam McNitt’s gift for sharp social commentary and emotional vulnerability. Also on the bill is A Strange Happening who somehow inject Americana indie rock with a cinematic conceptualization behind the songwriting that sets the trio apart from many of its peers.
Saturday | 07.18 What:Pink Hawks, Last Reel Hero and The Opalites When: 8 Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Room Why: A full show of Afrobeat with Pink Hawks and the more rocking end of ska with Last Reel Hero’s punk spirit driving the songwriting as well as the rocksteady stylings of The Opalites. Don’t go expecting it to be a super mellow affair as Pink Hawks tend to being an intensity to the performance and a righteously politicized sensibility and Last Reel Hero includes former Fanatics frontman Geoff Anderson.
Dildox, photo from Bandcamp
Saturday | 07.18 What: Dildox w/Hex Cassette, Watch Yourself Die and Insipidus When: 8/8:30 Where: The Crypt Why: Dildox is an electro-industrial post-punk duo from Los Angeles whose lyrics explore themes of trauma from living and surviving in the era of late capitalism and the inherent alienation therefrom society and ourselves. The band also delves into concepts of modern primitivism and the contrasts and contradictions of disconnecting ourselves from how humans have developed as animals through the process of civilization and reconnecting with our deep humanity. Definitely for fans of ADULT. and Youth Code. Opening are the “Satanic” shenanigans and brilliant darkwave beatmaking and performance art of Hex Cassette’s confrontational show. Watch Yourself Die takes that confrontational performance style to a different place with angular yet psychedelic noise rock and Ray Diess’ inspired breaking the fourth wall throughout the set. Insipidus is a great, progressive death metal band whose membership can be seen performing an entirely different (maybe not entirely) style of music in Pink Lady Monster.
Johnny Dynamite, photo from Bandcamp
Sunday | 07.19 What:Johnny Dynamite w/Tassles and Porcelain Horses When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Johnny Dynamite has been fusing decades and musical styles for several years and his most recent, self-titled, album from 2026 sounds like he’s absorbed chillwave nostalgia and mastery of atmospherics, 80s sophistipop and synthpop and channeled it into his own kind of melancholic post-punk with some clever turns of phrase and sly cultural references. Opening the show are Denver’s Tassles who started out as sort of a bedroom shoegaze project for singer Nick Tassinari but with the addition of bassist Molly McGrath and drummer Zach Johnson the music took on greater dimensions even though the songwriting preserved the core appeal of Tassinari’s introspective lyrics and unique guitar style. The current band has an unexpected power and gravity paired with transcendent melodies. Porcelain Horses is a darkwave/post-punk band that includes former Princess Dewclaw vocalist Amanda Gostomski.
Trace Amount, photo from Bandcamp
Tuesday | 07.21 What: Trace Amount w/Lunacy and Modern Devotion When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Trace Amount is an industrial noise and abstract metal project from Brooklyn, NY. Its 2025 album FLAGRANT is a thrillingly caustic and savage set of sounds that fans of Author & Punisher will appreciate. Lunacy is a like-minded artist but his industrial sounds are more in the realm of ambient and blown out shoegaze whose own new album The Crisis of Existence has a title apt for the current time and whose songs are like a bleak projection of the prospects for our immediate future. Modern Devotion is Adam Rojo of post-punk band Voight exercising his gift for crafting masterful ambient industrial techno.
Corrosion of Conformity, photo by Danin Drahos
Tuesday | 07.21 What:Corrosion of Conformity w/Whores and Crobot When: 6:30 Where: The Federal Theatre Why: Probably the band’s most ardent fans knew that Corrosion of Conformity still had one of its best albums waiting to be released and so the group delivered Good God/Baad Man on April 3, 2026. It is a blunt yet heavy and rife with some of the group’s heaviest psychedelic grooves. COC of course started off as a hardcore band but by the end of the 80s it had shifted into more sludgy metal but always out of step with trendy sounds and with lyrics that more than hint at social commentary hearkening back to its punk roots. Whores is a sludgy noise rock band from Atlanta whose own experiments in volume and psychedelic heaviness has left a mark in recent years with its seething fusion of industrial metal era Ministry and Unsane.
Kim Gordon, photo by Danielle Neu
Thursday | 07.23 What: Kim Gordon w/Sasami When: 7 Where: Ogden Theatre Why: Kim Gordon is of course a legend whose work in fine art, fashion, film and of course music is well-known. But in case someone reading this doesn’t know who she is, Gordon first came to the attention of a wide number of people was as the bassist/guitarist, singer and songwriter for influential alternative rock band Sonic Youth. Her calm presence, cool and raw emotional power and nuance and thought-provoking lyrics have influenced generations of musicians. And for that alone, Gordon would be an important figure. But her cultivation of younger and not-as-established artists along the way and has exerted a positive energy into the music and art worlds that might not have been there without her presence and advocacy. After Sonic Youth split Gordon continued to make genre bending and establishing work with Body/Head and under her own name pushing boundaries as she often did with Sonic Youth and other projects and her latest record Play Me proves that Gordon has been immersing herself in new musical ideas and incorporating some of those newer production methods and aesthetics into her own songwriting and soundcrafting imagination to produce one of the most fascinating records of 2026 with a set of songs deep in mood and inventive in beatmaking and might be considered industrial by some, trip hop by others but all Gordon’s own inimitable style. This is a rare chance to witness that music live in Denver.
Blucifer Fest, photo courtesy Gillian Pasley
Th-Su | 07.23-07.26 What:Blucifer Fest: Blucifer’s First Rodeo When: Varies Where: Denver DIY Spaces, Baker District, Baker House Shows Why: This is the newest music festival in Denver and one that was initiated and run by musicians in DIY fashion with an eye for an inclusive booking and an awareness of the types of small venues, DIY spaces and house shows that have made the music scene in the Mile High City vibrant the past few years and going back decades. The first night of the festival will take place in various DIY spaces in Denver, the second and third nights will be at small venues and spots in and near the Baker neighborhood in the center of the city and the final day will be at houses in the Baker district as well. The festival will feature a wide spectrum of the music in Denver’s underground/indie scene. You could literally wander to any venue during the run of the event and catch something worthwhile that you’ve never heard of before or catch up with some of your local favorites. Below is a short list of my picks by day. For more information and full schedule please visit bluciferfest.com
Thursday July 23 2026 7PM The Picture Tour at Ante Up! Monkey Man at D3 Arts Sun Swept at Squirm Dead Boyfriend at 7th Circle Music Collective
7:15PM head slug at D3 Arts 2
8PM Gartener at Ante Up!
8:15PM Soneffs at D3 Arts 2
9PM “Horse Girl” at Squirm
10PM Watch Yourself Die at D3 Arts Sonic Chick at Squirm
11PM Voight at Squirm
11:15PM GUNK! At D3 Arts 2
Friday July 24 2026 6PM White Rose Motor Oil at Wax Trax Broadway Bazaar Chella & The Charm at Hi-Dive Nina de Freitas at Bar404 Joshua Trinidad at HQ The Milk Blossoms at Skylark
7PM Modern Leisure at Adrift Tiki Bar Silver West at Chaos Bloom Jaguar Stevens at Li’l Devils Pleasure Prince at Wax Trax Broadway Bazaar Pink Hawks at HQ
8PM Chroma Lips at Li’l Devils Look at Fiona at Skylark Bluebook at Hi-Dive The Tammy Shine at The Saint Mary The Savage Blush at HQ
9PM Wheelchair Sports Camp at Hi-Dive Munly J Munly at The Saint Mary Circling Over at Import Mechanics Summer Bedhead at Adrift Tiki Bar Autumnal at Bar 404
10PM Circling Girl at Bar 404 Patrick Dethlefs at Chaos Bloom Dressy Bessy at Hi-Dive Suicide Cages at Import Mechanics Hex Cassette at The Saint Mary
11PM Pink Lady Monster at Skylark Los Mocochetes at HQ babybaby4ever at The Saint Mary SPELLS at Hi-Dive blankslate at Bar 404
12AM Cheap Perfume at Skylark Sell Farm at The Saint Mary Ritmo Cascabel at HQ Bud Bronson & The Good Timers at Hi-Dive
1AM DJ Kay Bay at The L
Saturday July 25 2026 6PM Wave Decay at Adrift Tiki Bar Fresh Fruit! At Hi-Dive Moonlight Bloom at HQ Bun Bun at Wax Trax Broadway Bazaar [SALT] at Bar 404
7PM Deth Rali at Wax Trax Broadway Bazaar Mr. Shrimp at Li’l Devils Shady Oaks at HQ In Plain Air at Hi-Dive
8PM Blood Oath at Hi-Dive Datamen at Li’l Devils Insipidus at Ritual Tattoo Gallery Dollpile at The L Cobranoid at Import Mechanics
9PM Cherry Spit at Hi-Dive Your Friend Nirantha at Chaos Bloom Tassles at The L Sour Magic at Adrift Tiki Bar sunstoney at Skylark
10PM Blackberry Crush at The L Divingbell at The Saint Mary Plastic Mystic at Bar 404 Bitchflower at HQ Abrams at Import Mechanics Mainland Break at Irish Rover
11PM Julian Street Nightmare at Hi-Dive Travel Kit at Adrift Tiki Bar Tiny Tomboy at HQ Night Fishing at Import Mechanics Claruin at The Saint Mary moonpool at The L
12AM MF Ruckus at Bar 404 Team Nonexistent at Hi-Dive Vegan Gore at The Saint Mary Horse Bitch at HQ Shadow Work at The Skylark
1AM Neoma at HQ
Sunday July 26 2026
Baker House Shows Big Dopes, Church Fire, Don Chicharron, Geno Beach, Mouth Cathedral, SeFa-LoCo, Totem Pocket – Venues to be announced to wristband holders
After Fest Shows at TrashHawk Tavern Gion Davis & The Designated Strangers 9:30 Caspar Milquetoast 10:30 Clementine Was Right 11:30
Twin Shadow performs at the UMS 7:25PM at Showcase Stage, Saturday 7/25/26
F-Su | 07.24-07.26 What: Underground Music Showcase When: Varies Where: RINO District Why: Underground Music Showcase reconstituted this year but now taking place in the RINO neighborhood. It will still feature some of the premiere Denver underground bands as well as out of town headliners across small venues and two outdoor stages this year along Larimer Street. A short list of the highlights of this year’s fest according to me below. Venues italicised.
Friday July 24 2026 Bierstadt Lagerhause RAREBYRD$ 8PM
CAMPGROUND Yugs 10PM
Finn’s Manor Travel Kit 9PM
Improper City Izcalli 9PM
Matchbox Battle Pussy 8PM
Ratio Beerworks Macheté Mouth 9PM Animals in Exile 10PM Cleaner 12AM
Two Moons DNA Picaso 10PM
Saturday July 25 2026 Showcase Stage Twin Shadow 7:25PM
Underground Stage Rubedo 3:50PM Snooper 6:10PM
CAMPGROUND Legs. The Band
Finn’s Manor Bad Boy Bug 4PM Nina de Freitas 8PM
Larimer Lounge NIIS 7PM
Matchbox May Be Fern 9PM Erin Stereo 10PM
Ratio Beerworks Pleasure Prince 6PM Colfax Speed Queen 8PM The Photo Atlas 11PM
Two Moons Venus Cruz & Super Distant Boyfriend 5PM Covenhoven 7PM Bluebook 9PM Ritmo Cascabel 12AM
Ratio Beerworks Lost Relics 4PM Rugburn 6PM The Death Chat 8PM Plastic Mystic 9PM
Black Moth Super Rainbow, photo courtesy the artist circa 2018
Friday | 07.24 What:Black Moth Super Rainbow w/Giant Day When: 7 Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Black Moth Super Rainbow has done an wide national tour in several years but with the release of its 2025 album Soft New Magic Dream, its first in seven years, the group delivers a more clear-toned set of songs with themes of being lost in coping with the multiple layers of late capitalism’s caustic effect on civilization and individual human life. The distractions, the dissociating behaviors and desperation for something more imaginative, fulfilling and vital in times when the most celebrated social and cultural rewards are a dullened, diminished, infuriating version of what one would hope it could be and how it’s all a big farce and rip-off compared to what’s possible if we had the collective will to create and sustain even an okay world. The album is an escape from that and a critique of the same and a declaration of a need to aim for something much more inspirational than what is widespread in the American and even international zeitgeist. But that aside it’ll be a strange show with beautiful and rich psychedelic sounds like something from another era and a better imagining of existence.
Allison Russel, photo by Marc Baptiste
Tuesday | 07.28 What: Sarah McLachlan w/Allison Russell When: 6 Where: Red Rocks Amphitheater Why: Sarah McLachlan is an award winning, celebrated songwriter with a long career and the founder of touring festival Lilith Fair that from 1997-1999 brought some of the most prominent female artists in music of that time around the country in a well curated and successful series of events at large venues. But McLachlan’s own songwriting has been imbued with a striking honesty and deeply atmospheric production that takes nothing from the intimate quality of McLachlan’s performances. For this tour she brings with her another prominent Canadian artist, Allison Russell. The latter had distinguished herself as a member of acts like Birds of Chicago and Our Native Daughters. But her solo albums beginning with 2021’s Outside Child revealed Russell’s versatility as a songwriter and singer with her signature soulful melodious vocals that fit whatever specific style she chooses to delve into. Her latest record is In the Hour of Chaos out July 10, 2026. The album showcases Russell’s mastery of pop folk songcraft but also incorporates more experimental production and unconventional song structure without sacrificing the immediacy of the music. It’s a diverse record that finds a way to describe the current era and its perils and the importance of love and recognizing hope and goodness when they are presented to you.
MaryAnne Muglia, photo courtesy the artist
Friday | 07.31 What: MaryAnne Muglia w/Lonely Choir and Kat Goblin When: 8 Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Room Why: MaryAnne Muglia is an Arizona-based composer, arranger, pianist, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist. For this tour she’s traveling with her husband and their children in an RV as an way for family and music to coexist rather than needing to choose between the two for something like a tour. Muglia released her latest EP Try Hard – Pt. 1 on March 18, 2026. Her bright and focused vocals are placed within fairly dreamlike retro pop music like something one imagines from a 2000s underground indie pop world before everyone discovered Laurel Canyon and retro synths and made imaginative music drawing on memories of summer nights and having the time and psychological space to stretch into pondering existential questions and the nature of one’s feelings for a beloved other and really both feel it all and thing it through with poetry and finding the right tones and paces to express it in song. That may not be the intention and certainly not the creative process of Muglia’s EP but its orchestral songwriting conveys so much and evokes another time much less compressed and desperate as things feel today and listening to music with that resonance is a gift. This show gives you the opportunity to experience it live.
When “Greasy Comb” starts you might think J’cuuzi is doing a lo-fi cover of “Edge of Seventeen” mixed with Sparks. But both impressions fade when the song picks up speed and the bass line waxes more funky and the vocals come in with ominous tones and a second set of vocals, or the first, processed as though through a vocoder. As the song progresses like a mutant post-punk song born of a mix of !!! and Black Moth Super Rainbow it swings into a nearly industrial beat with tracers of distorted, glitched out, melodic vocals as notes. Then the song’s layers of sound drop out into the creeping vocals spare percussion for a moment. The effect is psychedelic and like the band listened to a lot of Tran Am’s 2000 album Red Line. Live the band makes its own outfits and makes a performance art presentation of the music and even the recorded output is an embodiment of a willingness to push beyond genre limitations and standard music forms and structures. Listen to “Greasy Comb” on YouTube and follow J’cuuzi at the links below.
“All on Black” finds evrshde in a fully somber mood. Like a brooding combination of the darker end of Fiona Apple and the more piano-driven side of Nine Inch Nails but infused with a downtempo jazz energy. There is a great spaciousness to the song even as it sounds like the late night musings of someone who felt like they took a lot of risks and none of them feel like they paid off and it’s beyond bitterness and rallying to do better in the future. It’s the sound of feeling that moment of utter defeat completely because to do otherwise would be dishonest and an excuse for false hope leading to delusional behavior. It’s a hard place to be but the song and its ethereal synth melody drifting through personal darkness with the weight of yes personal demons but those fed on a sense of crushing failure compounded by the knowledge that being who you are with your own foibles is what lead here. But then what? The song implicitly puts that question out there and leaving any ultimate conclusions what comes next. The line “The pain’s the only reason you know you’re still alive” is most telling for anyone that has sunk that deep into murky psychological recesses and worse and struggled to come out of it because that level of depression doesn’t feel like pain but a seemingly endless nothingness, a personal emotional nullification and the capacity to still feel something at all is a reminder that you’re still around and often it’s just getting through these seemingly hopeless expanses of spiritual grayness is matter of having patience and doing regular life activities that might in the moment feel meaningless. The song thankfully doesn’t sound like a reflection of that headspace so much as expresses a solidarity with anyone who might also be similarly suffering. Listen to “All on Black” on Spotify and follow evrshde at the links below.
Bad Flamingo continues its streak of musical evolution and surprise with its latest single “Velvet.” Not only is there an enigmatic, noir video with grainy visuals like something captured in the 90s on Super-8 or DV but for this song the duo introduces more full use of synth/keyboards to create mood, texture and an emotional resonance that is both reflective, romantic and sultry. The cascading keyboard figure and the spare percussion subtle bass work coupled with vocals that go far wider than the band has typically gone in the past from vibrant lows to soaring highs like Martha Davis from The Motels. It’s more like a dark dream pop New Wave song than some of the more gritty blues pop of a good stretch of the band’s earlier songs yet it preserves the band’s gift for making love sound like a deliciously forbidden but pure and beautiful thing all at once. Watch the video for “Velvet” on YouTube and follow Bad Flamingo at the links below.
The spare acoustic guitar figure and percussion that introduces New Wolves’ “We Are Crowds” is a fascinating contrast with the falsetto vocals that almost sound more processed than they already are. Like intimate folk and a futuristic ghostly figure working together with some minimal synth flourishes entering the soundscape later in the song. In that way it feels like a cinematic composition almost more than a song with the way the elements sync together and interact. The song is a creative take on the natural desire of the individual to maintain a coherent identity and to stand out in a world where technocratic aspects of society seem to work to undermine the significance of individual lives and perspectives and unique personalities and impose an interchangeability of people into essential insignificance. But the refrain of the song “I want to live” isn’t merely about survival but really living and to embrace what that means for each of us and not as a statistic in an algorithm in which only the oligarchy has actual agency. It’s not an aggressive song, in fact it is gentle in its energies, but it is a song about resistance to the process of making the bulk of us anonymous and, to employ an older parlance, cogs in a world machine. After all, all collectives are comprised of individuals who should value their own existence and unique contribution to the whole. Listen to “We Are Crowds” on Spotify and follow New Wolves at the links provided.
The urgent and melancholic guitar melodies in Kallsup’s “Kino” layered with sustained rhythm guitar distortion sets the mood for when the vocals come in with a passionate energy that suggests a will to break free from a situation one has outgrown. The lyrics are in Swedish but the emotions come across with an immediacy that brings you along for a journey through personal struggle. The music video is set in a dark space but with vivid, cool colors that lend the presentation of the song a dreamlike aspect that contrasts well with its headlong pace. Fans of Ladytron will appreciate the moods Kallsup strikes in the song and its fusion of personal darkness and uplifting rhythms. Watch the video for “Kino” on YouTube and follow Kallsup at the links provided. The band’s album Alldeles för nära is set for release in fall 2026.
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