Andrew Warner – Queen City Sounds and Art

Weathered Statues in 2023, photo by Tom Murphy

Weathered Statues is a post-punk band from Denver whose sound is more in the deathrock vein with clear roots in punk with an edge in its overall sound. The quartet got its start in the mid-2010s when singer Jennie Mather’s previous band Cloak of Organs dissolved and she, original guitarist Jason Heller and then (and current) drummer Andrew Warner reconvened as Weathered Statues, borrowing the name from the 1982 T.S.O.L. EP. The group played its first shows by spring of 2017 and was immediately striking for not really fitting in with the ascendant darkwave scene but very much in the post-punk vein of dark tones and an exceptional rhythm section. The following year the band released its debut LP Borderlands via Finnish label Svart Records and toured Finland and Europe in the wake of that release. But within a year or two Heller dropped out of the band, Andrew Warner took a bit of a hiatus during which Clusterfux guitarist Justin Lent filled in on drums before taking over on guitar when Warner returned to the fold and syncing perfectly with Bryan Flanagan’s creative and powerful bass lines.

Since the current lineup has gelled in the last few years Weathered Statues has released the Desolation EP (2019) and played numerous shows and expanding its sound some with Mather taking on the role of keyboardist as well. The band’s music hasn’t always fit in neatly with a subscene in Denver because it isn’t a darkwave band but whose emotionally resonant songs, reminiscent of Xmal Deutschland, Christian Death and Skeletal Family, is clearly adjacent to the sounds of modern darkwave and post-punk groups but its guitar tones tend to be more robust than one often hears among many bands out of that movement and Mather’s vocals more passionate. All the members of the band have been veterans of the Denver music scene with Lent as a member of the aforementioned, long running punk outfit Clusterfux, Mather and Flanagan having been members of punk group The Nervous and Warner in numerous noteworthy rock and experimental bands over the years (including Bad Luck City, Red Cloud, Snake Rattle Rattle Snake, Dormition and currently Slim Cessna’s Auto Club) which goes some way to explaining why Weathered Statues isn’t much like its presumed peers but that storied lineage has also not instilled in the members of the band a sense of resting on its laurels or riding a trend it helped to establish. Its songwriting and commanding live shows speak to deserving that recognition on their own. Expect a new Weathered Statues album by summer or fall 2024.

Listen to our interview with Jennie Mather and Justin Lent of Weathered Statues on Bandcamp and follow the band at the links below. You can catch the outfit live on Saturday, December 30, 2023 at the Hi-Dive with Moon Pussy opening for Denver Americana legends Slim Cessna’s Auto Club and Thursday, February 22, 2024 at HQ with Circling Over, Summer of Peril and Mood Swing Misery.

Weathered S tatues on Instagram

Weathered Statues on Bandcamp

Church Fire, photo by Tom Murphy, concept by Church Fire

Church Fire is a trio from Denver, Colorado that formed around 2010. It’s sound is “…equal parts industrial synth pop, hyperkinetic dance punk and dreamlike ambient 8-bit EDM doom,” or so this author wrote some time back. The project began as a duo of Shannon Webber and David Samuelson originally calling itself Sew Buttons on Ice Cream and performing shows in the local underground and DIY circuit. Samuelson had been a member of art rock bands Bangtel and Dinner With Cannibals and Webber in political noise punk trio Dangerous Nonsense (which she would continue to front until the mid-2010s). The latter and Samuelson’s previous bands were welcomed by the local, weirdo art rock scene of groups with a penchant for the mutant sounds of artists like Mr. Bungle, John Zorn, Chrome and Frank Zappa that once had a loose affiliation as the Denver Art Rock Collective before that fizzled out in the early 2010s.

In 2012 Church Fire dispensed with its odd assortments of instrumentation and focused on the more electronic songwriting with Webber’s commanding and emotionally electrifying vocals and stage presence and changed its performance moniker to its current form. The name seeming to reflect the band’s anti-authoritarian spirit and its always creative and earnest anti-patriarchal critique. Its developing sound then was more in line with what was going on in the nascent darkwave scene of which Church Fire was not a part and which didn’t have a strong showing in Denver. So the band garnered its own following in Denver aside from what one might presume to be its scene with always strikingly powerful live shows and its undeniably compelling dance beats, entrancing and transporting melodies and rare fusion of joy and righteous anger. All qualities that have remained an aspect of the band’s sound and performance style even as it has evolved.

Around the time Church Fire took on its then new name it shared bills with other acts emerging in new forms and under new names like The Milk Blossoms who had once been called Architect (in which Samuelson plays bass) and Mirror Fears, the solo project of Kate Warner, formerly of dream-pop/indie rock band Talk All Night. Webber and Samuelson grew up south of Denver and Warner grew up on the north side in a family that encouraged creative endeavors and with siblings who made a mark in music in their own right, her brother Andrew now in Slim Cessna’s Auto Club and Weathered Statues and having been in groups like Bad Luck City and Snake Rattle Rattle Snake. There seemed to be a natural affinity and stylistic compatibility between Church Fire’s music and that of Mirror Fears. Warner had played keyboards and synth in Talk All Night but for Mirror Fears she learned electronic production/composition and principles of audio engineering (in part from doing live sound and trouble-shooting gear for a local rehearsal studio and various events) further and her emotionally rich and vulnerable voice has a unique resonance that transcends any specific musical style. In the summer of 2019 Warner had joined Church Fire and put Mirror Fears on hiatus.

As a trio Samuelson took up drums with a rigorous practice regimen that honed a precision and power suitable for the band’s existing music with Webber and Warner experimenting with combining and playing off each other’s strengths as vocalists while taking the group’s songwriting in new directions and maintaining an inspiring and engaging live show. You can go to a Church Fire and be guaranteed to see a fiery performance that invites you along for a shared catharsis. To date the band has played hundreds of shows and released four full-length albums, an EP and a few singles, all worthwhile listens with memorable songs throughout.

Listen to our interview with Church Fire on Bandcamp and follow the trio at the links below. Chances are if it’s a month, Church Fire has a show or two. But the next two shows are on Saturday, December 23, 2023 at The Broadway Roxy with The Milk Blossoms, Curta and Debthedem0 at 8:30 pm doors, 9pm show and Saturday, December 30, 2023 at The Skylark Lounge with Watch Yourself Die, Voight and Horse Girl 8 doors, 9 show.

churchfiremusic.com

Church Fire on Bandcamp

Church Fire on Instagram

Church Fire on Facebook

Church Fire on Twitter