Thursday | 10.01
What: Carín León
When: 7
Where: Ball Arena
Why: Carín León is a bonafide international star who built his career on performing various styles of regional Mexican music like Banda, mariachi, norteño and combined that more traditional and folk music with R&B, rock and country into a highly accessible form that is essentially modern pop music. He may not be so well known in English playlist formats but he’s playing at Ball Arena in Denver and at The Sphere in Las Vegas and other large venues throughout North America a testament to his status as a commercially popular artist who has garnered Latin Grammy Awards as well as an appearance at Austin City Limits. His energy as a performer on both recordings and live has an immediacy and authenticity with an instant appeal. In 2026 he collaborated with Jelly Roll on the single “Lighter” for the official album of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. His new album Muda released May 7, 2026.
Thursday | 10.01
What: Plastic Mystic, Church Fire, Watch Yourself Die and Clay K & The Vertebrates
When: 7/7:30
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Four of the front range’s best bands on one bill on a Thursday night beginning with art rock/prog/post-punk band Clay K & The Vertebrates from Fort Collins. Watch Yourself Die is like if a noise rock prog band put the focus on confrontational performance art that is so committed it crosses over into a psychedelic experience. Church Fire is the premier political industrial dance pop band from Denver. Plastic Mystic is a spirited fusion of garage rock, post-punk, hardcore and grunge.
Saturday | 10/03
What: Candy Chic album release w/The CDs and Lu Lagoon
When: 7 ($10)
Where: Matchbox
Why: Candy Chic is celebrating the release of its new album B-Side Movies. The quartet is in the realm of indie rock but with clear inspiration drawn from 1980s synth pop and the new album as the title suggests has a cinematic aspect in its production and songwriting but also with the kind of earnest emotional expression that seems like more something from another era, not the performative earnestness that plagued a certain segment of indie rock in the 2000s. Throughout one gets the sense that the songs were written as the soundtrack to a coming of age movie or a film about navigating early adulthood perhaps written by Brian K. Vaughan. Live the band performs with the appropriate enthusiasm appropriate to such possible inspirations.
Saturday | 10.03
What: Denver Porchfest
When: 12-7PM
Where: Baker District Porches
Why: This inaugural edition of the one day, short form festival runs throughout the Baker Neighborhood and features 193 local bands with donations to benefit East 7th Arts which provides art and music therapy for children with autism. There will be some of the best local acts across various porches and please consult the website linked for more details and possibly check the social media of bands listed for when and where they will be performing.
Monday | 10.05
What: Automatic w/Donzii
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station Perplexiplex
Why: Automatic is a post-punk duo from Los Angeles comprised of Izzy Glaudini on synths and vocals and Halle Saxon on bass and vocals. Lola Dompé, daughter of Bauhaus/Love and Rockets drummer Kevin Haskins, is the group’s former drummer and vocalist. The 2025 album Is It Now? demonstrated the band was capable of creating evocative, atmospheric music with minimal elements. Opening the show is Donzii, an electro post-punk performance art No Wave-adjacent band originally from Miami. Jenna Balfe is a commanding and ritualistic singer whose dance moves are like something out of avant-garde dance theater, fun and pure rock and roll and bassist Dennis Fuller sounds like he studied heavily listening to John Taylor and Larry Graham before developing his own powerful style.
Monday | 10.05
What: Love Spells w/Orca
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Love Spells aka Sir Taegen Harris released his debut full length album Love Is the Law on July 24, 2026 via RCA. The artist grew up in and around Houston (now based in Los Angeles) and found solace in fantasy fiction as a youth but eventually discovered poetry as a vehicle to crafting lyrics for his early musical endeavors as a rap artist. Later in his teens he switched musical gears some and fused hip-hop production and more dream pop and indie rock style songwriting and the new album with his impressive use of falsetto vocals is a bit like if Prince came up on later R&B and dream pop and wrote emotionally vibrant songs about, frankly, similar subject matter like love, soul searing heartbreak and struggles with mental health. Isn’t that what “Let’s Go Crazy” is about?
Monday | 10.05
What: Shiner w/Criteria and Replica City
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Shiner is one of the secretly influential rock bands out of the 90s from Kansas City, Missouri. Its evolving sound is in the realm of post-hardcore and math rock but with deep atmospheric elements that crosses over into what was called space rock before everything in that realm of sonics got lumped in with shoegaze. Originally running from 1992-2003 the band reconvened in 2012 and has been putting out fascinating records since including its latest epic The Y Section (2026) that has more than a passing resonance with what Failure has been up to of late. Opening is Denver’s great post-hardcore/post-punk trip Replica City and Criteria from Omaha, the noisy post-punk band including former Cursive member Steve Pedersen and A.J. Mogis who runs Presto! Recording Studios with his brother Mike Mogis, a musician whose studio engineering credits are a not insignificant portion of modern indie rock.
Tuesday | 10.06
What: Big Thief w/Iris DeMent
When: 6:30
Where: Red Rocks Amphitheater
Why: Big Thief has become one of the biggest and most influential indie rock bands since its 2015 inception with both Adrianne Lenker and Buck Meek having noteworthy solo careers parallel with the band. Though its music is associated with Americana and indie folk there has been an ambitious songwriting instinct obvious from its early releases but all serving music that is brimming with raw emotions channeled into vulnerable, poetic expressiveness. With the release of Double Infinity (2025), Big Thief showed that it could work with many songs and hone a new kind of sound for the band that seemed to incorporate more of its electronic elements and a more edgy noisiness than was more obvious on earlier records. It also included extensive contributions from ambient/avant-garde legend Laraaji.
Tuesday | 10.06
What: Buzzcocks w/Minds Eye and The Pitch Invasion
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Foundational post-punk band Buzzcocks is celebrating its 50 years of existence with this tour. After it started in Manchester, UK in 1976 Buzzcocks were the first punk band with an independently released EP, Spiral Scratch (1977). Even that initial release was the sound for what was coming after punk with an knack for pop hooks and a different kind of sensibility that was solidified in subsequent albums so that it innovated one branch of post-punk and really early pop punk. Early singles like “Orgasm Addict,” “What Do I Get?” and “Every Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve)” are still staples of punk and post-punk playlists and sound just as exciting as when they were first released because Buzzcocks were seemingly not writing just for the late 70s. These days only Steve Diggle from the classic lineup is still in the band but it’s one that has released music since the tragic death of former lead singer and guitarist Pete Shelley in 2018 including 2026 album Attitude Adjustment.
Friday | 10.09
What: MVTANT w/Pink Stiletto, babybaby4ever, Velocity Garden and Kill You Club DJs
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: MVTANT is an industrial darkwave artist from San Antonio whose version of EBM is more steeped in the realm of techno and earlier progenitors of the style like Front Line Assembly and Fad Gadget. But in the dystopian dance music of the artist’s output you can hear the impact of electronic Krautrock and horror cinema soundtracks thus perhaps the title and themes of the 2024 album Electronic Body Horror. Pink Stiletto’s own darkwave flavor is more in line with a fusion of disco and synthpop. And babybaby4ever is the best modern synthpop artist most people outside of Denver haven’t had the pleasure of witnessing and Lily Conrad’s command of rich synth tone and playful stage performance is top tier.
Friday | 10.09
What: The Jungle Giants w/Morning Silk
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: The Jungle Giants are an indie rock quartet from Brisbane, Queensland, Australia who garnered a bit of international attention with the release of its 2013 album Learn to Exist noted for its irrepressible energy and creative hooks. In May 2026 the group released its first album in five years with Experiencing Feelings of Joy. The lead singles from the album showcased how The Jungle Giants aren’t just influenced by rock music and its vocal cadences have the hallmarks of hip-hop and R&B. All evident on previous releases but on the new album the songs have a richly developed atmospheric and production element that sounds geared for more mainstream appeal.
Saturday | 10.10
What: Pink Fuzz w/The Well and Tart
When: 7
Where: The Federal Theatre
Why: Pink Fuzz released its most recent single this week with “Don’t You Wanna Go To Heaven?” b/w “Manipulator” for digital download and streaming but also as a flexi disc. As usual the band lives up to its name with deeply hooky and melodic stoner rock. One of the opening acts The Well is from Austin and released its fourth full-length studio album …And Flames Ran Like Living Animals via Spaceflight Records on September 14, 2026. The trio’s burning, granular distortion puts into focus its heavy melodies and a knack for injecting pop hooks into metallic psychedelic rock. Fans of White Hills and the more urgent end of Black Mountain will appreciate the edge The Well brings to what feels like uplifting music. The band’s music video for “New Hallelujah for the Damned” was recorded at the SST warehouse and includes a cameo by Greg Ginn the founder of SST and, you know, Black Flag, Gone and several other bands over the years.
Saturday | 10.10
What: 49 Winchester w/Landon Smith
When: 7
Where: The Gothic Theatre
Why: 49 Winchester from Castlewood, Virginia has been growing its cachet as a country rock band since 2013. The sextet released its first three albums independently before being signed to New West Records in 2022. From its 2014 self-titled debut the band has show signs of the influence of music well beyond what one might assume like harder edged rock but the aesthetic and themes of the music is rooted in their background in Appalachia and the region’s genre eclectic musical traditions. The group’s new record Change of Plans is brimming with songs about transitional periods of life and how life events can drastically shift one’s outlook and give one perspective on priorities and the course of how you’re going through the world. The album includes a soulful rendition of one of the most bluesy of Black Sabbath song with “Changes.” It’s a song that seems totemic for where 49 Winchester is today and perhaps its own audience.
Saturday | 10.10
What: Die Spitz w/Farmer’s Wife
When: 7
Where: Boulder Theater
Why: Before its 2025 debut album Something to Consume even dropped, Die Spitz had major underground buzz for its spirited live show. Is Die Spitz punk or metal or just some hybrid of the two that isn’t beholden to either. The vocals on the song have the kind of thrillingly feral quality one heard in early Hole and any point in the Babes in Toyland catalog. They haven’t steered clear of guitar solos but use them creatively with a fiery flair that coupled with the urgent rhythms and the dual vocals bypasses expectations. Die Spitz also has wonderfully pointed yet thoughtful and heartfelt social commentary that fits well with how the music sears through any static of what the band is supposed to sound like and how some of the most exciting and edgy music now is supposed to be delivered other than with conviction and passion.
Monday | 10.12
What: Castle Rat w/Unto Others and Wrath Knight
When: 6:30
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Castle Rat wisely leaned into the fantasy imagery on stage and its lyrics from the beginning. The musicianship and well-crafted songs speak for themselves. The outfits, aesthetic and subject matter of the songs just make it more fun for people that show up to witness the spectacle. Many bands have tried a similar thing and found lacking because it is just cheesy or inept. Castle Rat’s debut full length The Bestiary (2025) offered tales of adventure and peril set to music that isn’t just trapped in doom or retro metal or heavy psychedelic rock but a fusion of all of that into its own flavor. Just look at press photos of the band and live footage on the internet and if that doesn’t seem appealing for some reason maybe don’t go but you might be missing out on one of the best live acts in the realm of metal going now.
Tuesday | 10.13
What: Sawyer Hill
When: 6:30
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Sawyer Hill got started playing in bars in Northwest Arkansas with a band of older kids before going solo and promoting his songs in social media where he garnered a wide fanbase. His song “Look At The Time” went viral and charted well with Spotify leading to signing to AWAL. His rich and charismatic baritone voice and passionate live performance can be heard fully utilized on Hill’s debut album Everybody’s Home, Nobody’s Happy (2026) where he somehow fuses some of his background in blues rock and perhaps gospel music and early Beck. But really Hill comes off like a singer from another era like a lost artist from the 60s or 70s who would have been sharing bills with honky tonk bands.
Wednesday | 10.14
What: zzzahara w/Faerybabyy and Bruha
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: zzzahara returns to Denver for a headlining show. They put out their album Distant Lands in June 2026 and its layered, bedroom pop style truly sounds like a dream-journey of self-discovery and healing. Inspired by a dream in which the songwriter spoke to their departed brother the record is steeped in embracing authentic feelings that we often keep buried as we hurtle through our lives. It is an album about reconnecting and perhaps growing from that process. It could be described as dream pop, shoegaze, psych and all the other atmospheric guitar genre tags you want but it also sounds like it’s informed by the possibilities of production and in some ways is like a pop cognate of They Are Gutting a Body of Water.
Thursday | 10.15
What: Raynes w/David Wimbish & The Collection
When: 7
Where: The Federal Theater
Why: The Los Angeles-based trio Raynes released its latest album Bloom in 2025 and further established its pop approach to songwriting. The group is often associated with folk due to its core of acoustic instruments and strong vocal arrangements. But Raynes has a backing of synths and a combination of live drums and electronic percussion. The result is what sounds like a fusion of chamber pop and bluegrass. Openers David Wimbish & The Collection released the album Heavy Love in 2026. Rooted in especially vulnerable and intimate songwriting style of folk pop, the new set of songs came about in the wake of Wimbish’s various life changes and challenges including dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in September 2024. And an often unspoken or explicitly dealt with in music directly aspect of being flooded with challenges is depression and the ways we employ to process those feelings. Whether through medication or various other approaches appropriate to given circumstances and nuances of what triggers the mind’s and body’s response to overwhelming, often prolonged, experiences. In delivering the music Wimbish and his bandmates involve the audience in putting together the set list and sharing stories from their lives for a kind of communal show and a way to bond with people that most artists wouldn’t attempt.
Friday | 10.16
What: REZN w/Lowheaven and BleakHeart
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Chicago’s REZN threads together doom and heavy rock with psychedelia and shoegaze into epic song cycles that explore transitional life phases and existential states reaching for an inner truth through honest experiences. Its latest album Cycles in the Infinite Dream isn’t as dark as previous albums but that’s like saying Kylesa’s later albums aren’t as heavy or as dark as the earlier records when that’s not so much true as the sound has evolved. Denver’s BleakHeart will open the show with its own radically vulnerable atmospheric heavy music somewhere in the meeting of dream pop, doom and post-punk.
Saturday | 10.17
What: The Wrecks w/Worry Club and Kid Sistr
When: 6
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Earlier in its career The Wrecks were more in the realm of indie/alternative rock seemingly influenced heavily by pop punk and emo. But its newer releases have incorporated what might be described as dream pop with greater attention to the atmospheric element of the songs and not a shoegaze adjacent sound so much. The band has been releasing singles over the past two years hinting at a new album on the horizon as the successor to 2022’s Sonder. Kid Sistr started out in New York near NYC but have been based out of Los Angeles for half a decade and its own music brings together punk-adjacent grit akin to 90s alternative rock, the kind of melodic immediacy and emotional uplift of Snail Mail and Soccer Mommy and a celebration of queer identity. The trio’s new EP American Teenage Prophecy is a vulnerably yet exuberant set of songs that lay out the struggles and triumphs of wading fully into one’s identity rather than one imposed by culture.
Saturday | 10.17
What: Fruit Bats w/Matthew Logan Vasquez
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Fruit Bats is the project of Eric D. Johnson who formed the band in 1997 in Chicago and enjoyed critical acclaim for a string of albums including a handful for Sub Pop before he dissolved the project in 2013 and performing as EDJ. But an offer to open for the 2015 My Morning Jacket inspired Johnson to reform the band. Since then the band has been prolific in its release schedule including 2026’s The Landfill. The record is like a companion to the 2025 album Baby Man which itself represented a shift in focus of Johnson’s songwriting to a more observational and stream-of-consciousness approach taking inspiration from his immediate environments with The Landfill seemingly drawing upon how landscapes in the midwest with hills such as they are more or less constructs of human civilization building upon the past and finding various uses for the land that change over the course of decades and centuries and the resonances we as individual humans have with that history and present in ways that aren’t always obvious but discernible if we take the time and develop the sensitivity to be aware. Musically it’s still in Johnson’s warmly folk style but coming across as even more like Bob Dylan than before.
Saturday | 10.17
What: A Strange Happening, Rowboat and The Picture Tour
When: 8 doors, 9 show, $10
Where: The Squire Lounge
Why: One of the best all local bills of the week with the indie, gritty dark American A Strange Happening whose songs are conceptual in terms of lyrics and as recording projects. The high concept approach isn’t obvious without a rewarding closer listen. Rowboat fuses folk based songwriting and deeply personal poetry infused with heartfelt social commentary. Yet also comes across like an intense, countrified shoegaze band. The Picture Tour makes no bones about being a dark post-punk band with elements of garage rock and shoegaze baked into its commanding and transporting songs.
Sunday | 10.18
What: Clejan’s “Strings of Valhalla” Tour
When: 1pm
Where: The Roxy Theater (2549 Welton St.)
Why: Clejan grew up in Atlanta and as with many kids he was urged into learning a classical instrument and for him that was the violin. But being in Atlanta as a kid in the 90s and 2000s he was exposed to the city’s hip-hop scene which was hitting the mainstream by the turn of the century and as a young person he was aware of the development of trap and as an artist himself he combined violin music with trap inspired in part by what he saw Lindsey Stirling blending her background in classical violin with pop, rock and EDM. Clejan released his new album Valhalla in 2026 and is currently touring in support of the album with this rare matinee show at The Roxy Theater near downtown Denver.
Monday | 10.19
What: Slow Pulp w/snuggle
When: 7
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Madison, Wisconsin spawned, Chicago-based indie rock band Slow Pulp recently issued its new album Melodie on Anti- September 18. 2026. The record sounds like a unification of the more indie folk flavor of its full-length debut Moveys (2020) and the more shoegaze/psychedelic rock style that informed the 2023 album Yard. But with more attention given to dynamic shifts and the textural and evocative possibilities of contrasting acoustic instruments and electronics. The album has a melancholic and reflective cast with explorations of self identity and how we move through the world and impact others with our self-perception and how that may differ from how we’re perceived. The mix of tender and effusive means the album doesn’t get stuck in a mood and reflects a yearning for reaching for one’s own potential and possibilities.
Wednesday | 10.21
What: MUNA w/hemlocke springs
When: 7
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Los Angeles-based synth pop trio MUNA met while students at USC and originally started making music in a more left field mode but shortly found more fruitful collaboration on material based in songwriting. Early in the band’s career they were signed to a major label and then dropped due to inadequate commercial performance, surely the sign of where major labels have been for years. But MUNA were signed to Phoebe Bridgers’ Saddest Factory Records (in partnership with Dead Oceans) in 2021 and subsequently released its two finest and commercially successful albums of MUNA’s career including 2026’s Dancing on the Wall. Commercial considerations aside because who cares about that if a band doesn’t have the goods. MUNA’s punchy songwriting, typically strong hooks, tonally rich vocal performances and infectiously upbeat songs on an album inspired by the immense challenges to democracy and civil society posed by the second Felon47 administration injects some joy into one of the darkest times in modern American history and fortifying a spirit of resistance thereby.
Thursday | 10.22
What: Lords of Acid w/Princess Superstar, Tony and the Kiki and Mz Neon
When: 6:30
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Lords of Acid has been running since 1988 from Antwerp, Belgium with a sound that early combined industrial dance music with acid house and techno. The band’s aesthetic might be described as hedonistic camp with often cartoonish songs about sexuality and drugs with the 1991 debut album Lust becoming landmark in industrial music. Led by Praga Khan with an evolving cast of collaborators across the last few decades the live show is a spectacle befitting the bombastic and outrageous lyrics. And yet the music itself is well crafted and aimed for a sweaty dance floor.
Thursday | 10.22
What: Ceremony w/Destiny Bond and Pink Lady Monster
When: 7
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Since 2004 Ceremony has been evolving its sound from an early more hardcore-inspired style to the noisy garage rock/post-punk of 2012’s Zoo and then more post-punk for L-Shaped Man (2015) and In the Spirit World Now (2019). With the new album Tell Me Your Dream Ceremony turns back to a more expansively aggressive sound while maintaining experimental elements that prevent the songs from sounding regressive. You hear keyboards accenting the angular, driving guitar and the guitar otherwise embracing unconventional melodic structures and the album ends on a melancholic, brooding, resigned note so as much as the record feels like a reconciliation with earlier impulses it also embodies and points in new directions. Opening is the great Denver hardcore band Destiny bond and Neo-No Wave legends Pink Lady Monster.
Friday | 10.23
What: Cop Killer, Team Nonexistent, Mouthful, Legs. The Band and Thinkdeath
When: 6/7, $15
Where: Ante Up
Why:With a name like Cop Killer you had better at least try to live up to what that sounds like and the Denver-based hardcore band does with lyrics that aim at take out authoritarian impulses in society. Team Nonexistent is a powerful amalgamation of grunge and riot grrrl. Legs. The Band is like a blend of garage-y blues rock and punk.
Friday | 10.23
What: Lesser Care w/Moonpool and Gooey Cookie
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Lesser Care has more or less quietly become one of the bands of choice for discerning fans of the post-punk and shoegaze crossover with a sound that is both ferocious and transporting. Its guitar tones are vibrant and not in the spindly post-punk style too many bands have adopted partly because Lesser Care is aiming to create deep and often dense atmospheres in which to get lost and dissolve the worst feelings in life. All of its albums are different and worth a thorough listen and its 2026 EP Lincoln Leather is one of its most sonically realized offerings to date introducing a decided post-hardcore element that brings more drive and push into the music that wasn’t already lacking it.
Monday | 10.26
What: Visceral Cuts w/Moon Pussy and Probes
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Visceral Cuts is a noise rock/metal/punk duo from Denton, Texas whose entire output is a tribute to horror cinema with song titles from classic horror films sublime to schlock, slasher to body horror, cosmic to creature feature with music to transform and honor the spirit of the films. Moon Pussy isn’t horror themed though from the name that sounds like a science fiction horror film. Instead it’s a mutant noise rock trio that has been responsible for some of the most potent and boundary defying music for nearly a decade.
Monday | 10.26
What: Failure w/Quannic
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Failure is one of the most influential bands that emerged in the wake of the alternative rock era that isn’t as well known as some of its peers like Tool. But when Haley Williams cites your band as a direct influence your reach is far beyond the cult following Failure has garnered across more than three decades. Its expansive guitar sounds, its cinematic yet intensely emotional songwriting that spans space rock shoegaze is like a modern version of art rock utilizing newer sounds and technology in crafting the band’s deep moods. Pick up any of its records and prepare for an engulfing sonic journey from its classic 90s albums including Fantastic Planet (1996) to its even more ambitious albums since reuniting after a 17 year hiatus in 2014 including the new record Location Lost (2026). With members of the band having experience in sound design both the records and the live show hit with a full spectrum of evocative sound and concepts.
To Be Continued…
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