Queen City Sounds and Art

Saturday | 11.01
What: Moon Pussy w/Old Deer
When: 3
Where: Mutiny Information Cafe
Why: This is your last chance of 2025 to see the noise rock juggernaut trio Moon Pussy. Whereas many noise rock bands are a permutation of post-hardcore and sludge metal, Moon Pussy is genuinely strange and both humorous and ferocious which is not a combination one sees often enough. Vocalist Crissy Cuellar’s on stage banter and absurdist (in the delivery) jokes does little to mask how smart the band’s music is or its inherent sophistication of concept and execution. Old Deer brings the doom to posthardcore in its own weighty style of noise rock.

Saturday | 11.01
What: Native Daughters, Abrams and BleakHeart
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Instrumental, heavy noise core outfit Native Daughters doesn’t play out often these days and usually at bigger venues. But its epic, cinematic sprawl of post-rock post-metal has evolved to a degree of highly expressive and vivid sonic storytelling without words. Abrams is the perfect amalgamation of shoegaze and atmospheric post-hardcore like Torche and Cave-In. Fantastic, melodic harmonies and transporting guitar streams in heavy momentum and luminously gritty leads. BleakHeart will likely be in its new manifestation but probably still have the gorgeously dark and orchestral fusion of dream pop and heavy post-rock.

Sunday | 11.02
What: Ada Lea w/Porlolo and Autumnal
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Ada Lea released her third album when i paint my masterpiece in August 2025 and further established her status as a modern master of finger picking style with expressive and beautifully intricate guitar work paired with her delicate yet assured vocals. She is currently signed to Saddle Creek Records which is fitting since an act to which she might be favorably compared is Azure Ray. Porlolo is the indie/acoustic band from Denver whose own aesthetic is adjacent to that of the headliner but Porlolo has been around considerably longer as a live act. Erin Roberts’ existential and poignant lyrics and occasionally dryly humorous stage banter with commanding vocals is what has keep the project a local favorite. Fort Collins’ Autumnal comes out of the indie folk corner of the Colorado music universe but its songs will assuredly appeal to those with a taste for pastoral slowcore and the tenderest of indiepop.

What: Ryan Davis & The Roadhouse Band w/Caspar Milquetoast
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Acclaimed songwriter Ryan Davis and his band released one of the secretly great albums of 2025 with Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band “New Threats from the Soul.” On the surface it’s like some indie Americana thing but not long into the first song it becomes apparent that what you’re hearing is weirder and more creative but not in expected ways. It has the dapple lap steel flourishes enhancing the melodies like you’d expect from a solid country record but there are synths in the mix and tape loops so that at times things seem otherworldly and unpredictable but in the pocket of strong songwriting. It’s a fascinating effect. Plus Will Oldham contributes vocals to the album so you know it’s definitely coming from a different kind of place. The lyrics are also like something out of a Cormac McCarthy novel but sung like an artist out of the whole Laurel Canyon scene of the early 1970s.

Tuesday | 11.04
What: they are gutting a body of water w/Fib
When: 7
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: For several years Philadelphia’s they are gutting a body of water has been stirring noise and grime into drifty, warping shoegaze to create something like the equivalent of a lo-fi cassette only release by one of those weird late 2000s bands that would have belonged on Siltbreeze. Like Times New Viking or Eat Skull. But if those bands were more into Slint and Planning For Burial. Crush yet transcendent guitar tone, left field rhythmic structures or none at all and just stretches of raw sound that drops into fragmented melodies like these people listened to a lot of Canadian band Women coming up as well. The group’s new album LOTTO pushes the songwriting into even more unpredictable territory.

Wednesday | 11.05
What: Martin DuPont w/Church Fire and French Kettle Station
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: After a nearly 25 year hiatus, French coldwave/New Wave band Martin Dupont re-emerged as a live project in 2023 and a new album of re-recordings of older songs titled Kintsugi. In 2025 a record of new material dropped called You Smile When It Hurts establishing that the members of the group were capable of crafting quality resonant songs on part with its acclaimed earlier material. Church Fire is Denver’s premiere industrial dance pop group. The impassioned performance style of the band always made it a standout but with expanded production as a trio and a dynamic light show Church Fire brings a large stage show visual impact to any venue. French Kettle Station is a one-man New Age dance project with no small amount of visceral energy of his own even when he’s triggering prepared electronic passages or performing live synth.

Thursday | 11.06
What: Packaging w/Barbara, Paw Paw and DJ Ryan Wong
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Packaging is the new group formed between Daniel Lyon of Spirit Award and Daniel “Connor” Birch of Flaural. Their debut, self-titled album dropped October 10 and no surprise, perhaps, its lush and enveloping psychedelic pop benefits from the contributions of multiple artists out of the wider indie rock realm including Luke Temple (Here We Go Magic), Ash Reiter (Sugar Candy Mountain), James Barone (Beach House), Andreas Wild (Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats), Curt Kiser (Carriers) and Andy Rauworth (Gauntlet Hair). Its luminous melodies and melancholic urgency helps to set the music apart from yet another post-2010s psychedelia project. Its songs have emotional heft and the music is entrancing and commanding.

Friday | 11.07
What: Death to All playing Spiritual Healing and Symbolic w/Gorguts and Phobophilic
When: 6
Where: The Gothic Theatre
Why: Death to All features former members of foundational extreme metal band Death including Gene Hoglan, Steve DiGiorgio and Bobby Koelble as well as former Cynic member Max Phelps on guitar and vocals. This tour the assembled band will perform the classic albums Spiritual Healing (1990) and Symbolic (1995), both albums that represented a progression of the band in new directions that would shape where technical death metal of the future worth listening to would go. Anyone that has caught the Death to All tours in recent years can attest to how legit the presentation and musicianship has been with some of the greatest heavy music of all time getting a live performance treatment that honors the legacy of founder Chuck Schuldiner’s vision with some of the only musicians that can make it happen.

Friday | 11.07
What: Hi-Dive 22 Year Anniversary Night 1: Nuclear Daisies, Cleaner, American Culture and Supreme Joy
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Hi-Dive has arguably emerged as the premiere small club in Denver with solid bookings every week across a fairly broad spectrum of genres, styles and subscenes. Pick any week and there is at least one show that’s worth going to but probably really a few. It has had some of the best sound in a room of its size with a skilled sound crew. This two night celebration of Hi-Dive begins with sets from garage-psych giants Cleaner, shoegaze/indie pop legends American Culture, left-field post-punk/post-garage phenoms and headlined by noisy shoegaze dance dream pop group Nuclear Daisies.

Friday and Saturday | 11.07 and 11.08
What: Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country Tour w/The Fretliners
When: 7
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Daniel Donato started developing ideas for his version of “cosmic country” while playing in bands around Nashville and coming up with a fusion of country, rock and roll, the free associating improv he heard in the Grateful Dead and folk psychedelia. Think a sound and vibe more like a honky tonk end of Gram Parsons and you’ll have an idea what you’re in for. The live shows are imbued with a spirited creativity in the performance and inspired free flowing improvisation that goes beyond where most bands operating in musically adjacent territory seem to be able to conjure. The band is currently touring in support of its 2025 album Horizons.

Saturday | 11.08
What: Melodies Never Lie, Salads and Sunbeams, Mouth Cathedral at Squirm Gallery, benefit for Jeanette Vizguerra
When: 7
Where: Squirm Gallery
Why: Jeannette Vizguerra was detained by ICE on 3/17/25 with the aim of deporting the well-known immigration activist and remains in custody at the ICE detention center in Aurora. Her case received some press attention and despite the charges against her, Vizguerra’s situation parallels that of many others who are struggling with a broken and now very punitive system of immigration in the USA particularly with the involvement of the militarized and extremely politicized ICE organization which is an extension of the failed and catastrophic “War on Terror” that is now being used to persecute thousands in America and is essentially a private army of the most corrupt president in US history employed to terrorize people living in America. So this show is a benefit for one of the most visible people targeted by ICE and will hopefully help to create a ripple effect of resistance to the wave of fascism and tyranny plaguing not just America but the world. For more information helping Vizguerra click on the link in the band names. Melodies Never Lie is the ambient indie pop shoegaze solo project of Isaac Rivera whose roots in Denver underground pop, experimental rock and avant-electro goes back two decades. Salads and Sunbeams is the finely honed psychedelic indiepop group from Denver whose members came up in the DIY world and the underground scene developing skills and aesthetics that incorporate classic songwriting methods with modern sensibilities. Mouth Cathedral creates gorgeously transporting, ethereal dream pop.

Saturday | 11.08
What: Hi-Dive 22 Year Anniversary Night 2: Glacial Tomb, Palehorse/Palerider, Mournful Ruin and Eagle Wing
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: This second night of the Hi-Dive anniversary celebration features music on the more heavy side. Glacial Tomb is a long-running death metal doom trio from Denver. Palehorse/Palerider makes a cinematic, unclassifiable heavy music that blends psychedelic, dark Americana and tribal post-punk. Mournful Ruin is more on the grindcore-influenced end of sludgy death metal. Eaglewing is a sort of throwback to early New Wave of British Heavy Metal sound akin to Judas Priest in moments and includes Yancy Green formerly of Aberrent and now of Roskopp.

Saturday | 11.08
What: All Through the Night and Steven Lee Lawson
When: 3
Where: Mutiny Information Cafe
Why: All Through the Night is an Americana band that sounds like it makes music for a Jim Jarmusch film set in the highways and byways of Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming meaning moody, emotionally immediate and drawing from eclectic roots rather than a more traditional country or rock and roll base. Steven Lee Lawson is a brilliant songwriter, lyricist and multi-instrumentalist whose music is also tending toward an Americana sensibility but he clearly draws inspiration from the likes of Harry Nilsson and 60s psychedelia.

Saturday | 11.08
What: Ax and The Hatchetmen w/Kids That Fly
When: 7
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Chicago-based Ax and The Hatchetmen haven’t been around long enough to have played the legendary Chicago venue Lounge Ax but its brand of melodic indie rock with elements of jangle-y psychedelia wouldn’t have been out of place had the club endured through to today. Though the band has been around since 2018 its debut album So Much to Tell You debuted on October 24 via Arista Records. But the group has had EPs and singles along the way and the whole early pandemic stretched everyone’s timelines a bit so this band had time to incubate and hone its songwriting. The new record showcases how the band is able to orchestrate diverse influences into a sound that feels like a blend of power pop, turn of the century New York post-punk, soul and garage rock.

Sunday | 11.09
What: Emergence w/Voicecoil and Absynthe of Faith
When: 8
Where: Club 404
Why: Emergence was one of the prominent EBM/industrial bands of the 2000s that went on hiatus toward the end of that decade. The band commanded large audiences at the time in Denver and toured nationally before splitting around 2005. In 2024 the core of the group with new collaborators reconvened to re-start Emergence with a new sound palette.

Tuesday | 11.11
What: Agriculture w/Rhododendron and Clarion Void
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Agriculture is the black metal band from Los Angeles whose sound struck a chord among fans of noise rock for its forays into wild sonic strangeness in its songs. The group’s new record The Spiritual Sound isn’t short on classic thrash style riffs and melodic breaks yet still feral rawness in the vocals and the erupting and imploding song dynamics and escalating sense of surreal hysteria. Agriculture is currently touring in support of its excellent new album The Spiritual Sound. Presumably Rhododendron is the experimental prog noise thrash band from Portland, Oregon and Clarion Void the death/blackened doom/sludge metal band from Colorado Springs.

Thursday | 11.13
What: Boris w/Cloakroom
When: 7
Where: The Gothic Theatre
Why: Boris is celebrating the 20 year anniversary of the release of its 2005 album Pink. The sprawling epic of a record was and still is a peak for the group in its complete disregard for needing to fit in with being a metal band, a shoegaze group, a heavy psych blues outfit, a noise project or post-rock. The sounds have grit and edge while simultaneously ethereal and uplifting and dense with tone and texture that swims and hurtles in often unpredictable directions. Pink sounds like it could have come out in the late 70s, the early 90s or in any of the most recent two decades and still come off as something mind-altering in its maximalist sonics. Opening is the Indiana-based heavy shoegaze band Cloakroom whose 2025 album The Last Leg of the Human Table proved it was capable of not only searing and transporting psychedelia but also pop hooks worthy of the best indie rock bands. Something about Cloakroom’s music feels like it’s coming from a near future science fiction universe where the world is both in deep civilizational decay and an underground cultural renaissance transmitting the kind of music we want to hear.

Thursday | 11.13
What: King Princess w/spill tab
When: 7
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: King Princess has built a body of work that uses lush production and introspective lyrics to explore the nuances of personal psychology, social dynamics and relationships with creativity and sensitivity. The latest album Girl Violence and its masterful use of saturated synths, tonal processing and layers of atmospheric noise help to place the singer’s soulful vocals in settings that immerse the listener in the emotional moment of the song. It’s a bit of a journey of a record with contributions from Joe Talbot of IDLES fame.

Friday | 11.14
What: Underworld
When: 7
Where: The Fillmore Auditorium
Why: With the 1994 release of its landmark album Dubnobasswithmyheadman, Underworld helped to usher in an era of music fusing progressive house, techno, ambient, downtempo and psychedelic electronic music that proved influential on at least a generation of like-minded artists. The record is structured to be a little like experiencing the music at a rave with expert pacing and layers of rhythm and atmosphere to craft a sustained mood of sensuous transcendence. The duo’s latest album Strawberry Hotel (2024) is decidedly less dark and brooding than the aforementioned but still brimming with mysterious moods and the completely enveloping production one would hope to get from masters of the art.

Friday | 11.14
What: Kill You Club 8 year anniversary w/Nuxx, Puerta Negra, Lazer Bullet and Severed Reality
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Kill You Club has been bringing some of the most interesting and cutting edge darkwave/Goth-adjacent bands to Denver for several years now. The kinds of artists the more traditional Goth scene seems to bypass and be unaware exists until a half decade or more later. Possibly because Brian Castillo has his finger on the pulse of what’s cool in that realm of music whether the more electronic end or the post-punk acts that are pushing the boundaries of what that music has been. Headlining this night is the edgy, synthwave punk/industrial trip hop artist Nuxx.

Friday | 11.14
What: Felly w/Breakup Shoes and Lady Denim
When: 7
Where: Fox Theatre
Why: Felly released his latest album Ambroxyde in June further solidifying his reputation as an artist who can take the gentle and delicate and turn it into something feels like it has some emotional substance even as his vocals are often bordering on the ethereal. The title track sounds like it coalesced out of the surrounding weather and that’s a feeling you get from the new album. It’s like something that feels instantly comfortable yet able to build in energy and enthusiasm without losing a sense of intimacy. It makes the music impossible to simply dismiss as another indie folk thing as the songwriting itself is more lush and sophisticated than appears on the surface.

Saturday | 11.15
What: Suzanne Ciani w/Clarice Jensen
When: 7
Where: Central Presbyterian Church
Why: Suzanne Ciani is an innovator in synthesizer music composition with an influential career spanning more than fifty years. Her work, musical and sound effects, has been featured on soundtracks, television and in a pinball machine game called Xenon. In the 1980s her compositions became associated with new age music and by extension modern ambient. Ciani in recent years seems to have expanded her live performance itinerary and her 2023 appearance at this same venue showcased her gift for imaginative soundscaping on a large format with an inherent sense of play in the performance and songcraft.

Saturday | 11.15
What: Broken Record album release w/Precocious Neophyte and Safekeeper
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Room
Why: Broken Record is a Denver-based band that formed after singer/guitarist Lauren Beecher and bassist Corey Fruin moved to the Mile High City from Connecticut in 2017. Both had roots in the underground and DIY scene in and around New Haven and in forming Broken Record around some material Beecher had been working on what emerged was music that reflected the influence of punk and hardcore, certainly in the ethos of the group, as well as the atmospheric melodic qualities of The Cure. If you caught the band early on you might be excused to hearing in the music a touch of Hüsker Dü’s emotionally rich and fierce yet gentle aesthetic. The fledgling outfit found a home in the local hardcore scene and played early shows with the likes of then relatively newly founded bands like Destiny Bond and Ukko’s Hammer. And yet Broken Record never seemed out of place even though the catharsis of its music wasn’t formed from the same set of sounds but the emotional core of the songwriting shared a similar vulnerability and intelligence in expressing emotion with a keen sensitivity in the language of emotionally charged rock music.

The quartet released its debut full-length I Died Laughing on April 24, 2020 and of course could not tour around the record due to the global pandemic. But on that album one hears the knack for melodic jangle and shimmer embedded into earnestly energetic hooks with the expert pacing and Beecher’s warmly thoughtful vocals that strike the perfect emotional coloring for songs that are often poignantly melancholic and always deeply observant. For the 2023 album Nothing Moves Me the songwriting seemed to experiment further with tone and style incorporating delicately minimal guitar leads and triumphant choruses while seeming to be able to mine the more interesting ends of adolescent angst as a lens by which to understand the sometimes disillusioning aspects of adulthood. Like an entire record of what your teenage self might have to say about your current adult self. The 2025 album Routine and its cover of suburban American would-be normalcy takes the band’s established themes further to seemingly comment with great insight into the compromises and perils of navigating life in late capitalism and how that can cast a pall over your life if you’re not equipped to find some meaning in a socioeconomic environment seemingly designed to erode your joy and ability to live a full and dignified life. But also on the album the band seems to find the threads of psychic resistance to it all in creative acts and writing songs that feel like a shaking off of the gloom with music that feels like an expression of basic human solidarity.

Saturday | 11.15
What: The Green Typewriters, Mr. Pacman and Pythian Whispers
When: 7
Where: Feldman Mortuary
Why: A rare show at a mortuary in Denver with psychedelic, experimental indie pop group The Green Typewriters. The band’s songs seem to stem from philosophical concepts as projected through the lens of analog human experience and emotions. Mr. Pacman is visionary blend of synthwave and punk with performance costumes like video game characters. Pythian Whispers is a psychedelic ambient cinematic noise prog band.

Saturday | 11.15
What: Cap’N Jazz w/Rainer Maria
When: 7
Where: The Summit Music Hall
Why: Cap’N Jazz only released one full-length album, 1995’s Burritos, Inspiration Point, Fork Balloon Sports, Cards in the Spokes, Automatic Biographies, Kites, Kung Fu, Trophies, Banana Peels We’ve Slipped On, and Egg Shells We’ve Tippy Toed Over – often called Shmap’n Shmazz. But that record proved to be a template for a realm of math rock, emo and indie rock in all its messy and frenetic glory and its core of earnest emotions seemingly unleashed at once across twelve songs in thirty-one minutes, ten seconds. It sure wasn’t for everyone because those more into pristine arrangements and established, classic pop/rock songwriting structure and sounds probably found it just completely amateurish—which is an essential part of its appeal for others. When the group split in 1995 its members went on to groups like The Promise Ring, American Football, Joan of Arc and Make Believe. Cap’N Jazz has reunited a few times since it first broke up but this is its first wider tour since the 90s and along for this journey is Rainer Maria whose own poetic emo/space rock sound seems to resonate with the emo and shoegaze fusion that has been bubbling in the past several years.

Tuesday | 11.18
What: Brighde Chaimbeul
When: 8
Where: The Bug Theatre
Why: Brighde Chaimbeul is a Scottish musician who grew up in a musical family and herself learned fiddle and piano before setting out to play the smallpipes and bagpipe for which she is perhaps most well-known these days. She has worked with experimental pop artist Caroline Polacek and composer Colin Stetson and she recently released her latest album Sunwise. It is a rousing journey of a record that establishes a strong mood with drone and folk minimalism. It helps to expand the aesthetics of ambient with a profound sense of place through unconventional instrumentation for a sound one immediately associates with that broad genre of musical experience. It has a folkloric feel like the sense one gets when watching the 1970s films of John Boorman. It’s a deep record and one whose songs performed live are sure to mesmerize in this rare performance at one of Denver’s premier venues for the avant-garde as presented by Creative Music Works.

Tuesday and Wednesday | 11.18 and 11.19
What: PORTUGAL. THE MAN w/Ya Tseen
When: 7 both nights
Where: Fox Theatre (11.18) and Mission Ballroom (11.19)
Why: PORTUGAL. THE MAN has offered plenty of left field indie/psychedelic/hard rock/punk over the years with a body of work that is immediately identifiable if not so easy to pigeonhole into a simple marketing category. In 2025 the band has released one of its albums in its 21 years with Shish. The record is an endearing and at turns entrancingly melodic and harrowingly intense tribute the band’s home state of Alaska and the search for meaning not just in an edge of the world place like Alaska but in the tentative state of the world in general perhaps as embodied in the challenges of living in a place that is often so isolated and laden with snow. Jack London would certainly recognize what PORTUGAL. THE MAN is putting out there on Shish.

Wednesday | 11.19
What: The Beths w/Phoebe Rings
When: 7
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: The Beths are an acclaimed power pop band with a noteworthy career offering memorable songs often informed by a euphoric sense of joy in the performance even when the subject matter waxes heavy. But there’s something different about where the music is coming from partly because the group hails Auckland, New Zealand and its members have backgrounds in jazz. So the intricacy and attention to the delicacy of the performances comes off as natural and confident and fans of Kiwi rock in general and C86-era indiepop will immediately connect with its music. The band is currently touring behind its new album Straight Line Was a Lie which is rich with heartfelt lyrics, unconventional hooks and a keen ear for small sonic details that make the songs linger with you.

Wednesday | 11.19
What: Diles Que No Me Maten, Pink Lady Monster and Sunswept
When: 7
Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Room
Why: Diles Que No Me Maten from Mexico City is a band that on the surface is an odd psychedelic rock band with roots in Krautrock. But a closer listen and witnessing a live performance reveals the group seems to be coming from a background/interests in No Wave, experimental poetry and the more odd post-punk of The Fall with vocals that are part singing and part spoken word. So a good fit with Denver No Wave funk poetry weirdos Pink Lady Monster and the avant-folk psychedelia of Sunswept.

Friday | 11.28
What: Juliet Mission, In A Darkened Room and Redwing Blackbird
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Room
Why: Juliet Mission is the secretly great shoegaze/alternative rock band from Denver with one of its bonafide guitar heroes Doug Seaman who among other projects was and still is in influential alternative rock band Sympathy F. Tony Morales from that group is also in Juliet Mission and its exquisite soundscapes and emotionally expansive songs are rooted in Denver’s long tradition of moody, atmospheric rock partly in helping to establish that sound inspired by late nights and the former sprawl of urban decay inviting the imagination to project one’s dreams upon forgotten and neglected spaces. Redwing Blackbird is a darkwave band more in the vein of The Cure with the sparkling guitar jangle and mastery of melodic tone.

Saturday | 11.29
What: Malkasian – Heavy Blues album release, Riff Dealer and A Strange Happening
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Malkasian released its latest album Heavy Blues on October 22, 2025 but you can get a copy of the vinyl at this show. The band could be described as heavy, psychedelic blues rock but it is weirder than that simple designation suggests. The vibe with its references to the occult and, um, “Long Pig,” suggest that the title of its previous album Macabre wasn’t just a throwaway descriptor. The mood is reminiscent of the 1989, spooky debut album by stoner rock pioneers Masters of Reality. A Strange Happening must be friends of someone in one of the other bands but even if not its own ambitious alternative pop songwriting and high concept storytelling in an Neil Young-esque gone indie rock vein is strong recommendation in itself.