Tuesday | 09.01
What: Anja Huwe w/Plague Garden and Weathered Statues
When: 7pm
Where: HQ
Why: Anja Huwe was the singer for the influential German post-punk band Xmal Deutschland. The latter were pioneers of Neue Deutschland Welle (the German New Wave) but with a darkly dramatic and moody music that seemed to be in a similar vein to UK bands Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Pop Group. After a handful of albums the group split in 1990. Following that breakup, Huwe focused on her visual art pursuits with great success until being convinced by her friend Mona Mur to revisit music and in 2024 she released her first solo album Codes via the Sacred Bones imprint and to her credit that album is like an electronic post-punk album that borders on industrial but without the seeming connection to that style of music since the early 90s and with more in common with dance music. Opening the show are two of Denver’s greatest post-punk bands of recent years with the New Wave adjacent Plague Garden and its ferocious energy and Weathered Statues whose minimal, deathrock-inspired version of post-punk has a clear line of inspiration to Huwe’s old band.
Wednesday | 09.02
What: Soft Palms w/babybaby4ever and Smear
When: 7pm
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Soft Palms is Julia Kugel-Montoya (of The Coathangers) and Scott Montoya (of The Growlers). With this new project it draws on the edge of garage punk and the moodiness and cinematic qualities of post-punk to create something new. Gloomy pop with some urgency. Along with the new record In Echo the duo published a book called How To Be Self-Reliant In The Music Business of which both musicians know more than a little. Opening is synth pop superstar babybaby4ever with better synth tone than most people you’ll see this year.
Thursday | 09.03
What: Bellhead w/eHpH and Hypersomnia
When: 7
Where: The Crypt, $12
Why: Bellhead is a post-punk band from Chicago whose style is darker and more caustic than the trendy post-punk with spindly guitar tone. It has more in common with industrial post-punk of the 90s and in some ways is reminiscent in sound of the more rock end of My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult. Its 2025 EP Threats includes remixes from Stabbing Westward, Clubdrugs and Frontal Boundary. EhpH is an electro-industrial duo from Denver whose own politically-charged songs are rooted in classic EBM and not the Future Pop strain, thankfully, with a theatrical live performance fronted by Fernando Altonaga of post-punk band Plague Garden.
Thursday | 09.03
What: Sweet Pill w/Deux Visages and Bike Routes
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Sweet Pill is an emo band from Philadelphia whose sound incorporates elements of math rock that fans of Wednesday and Speedy Ortiz may appreciate for the eclectic guitar style that isn’t trapped in genre tropes and seemingly more keyed into strong hooks. Deux Visages were once based in Miami but now out Philadelphia where their sound of fuzzed out shoegaze pop seems a good fit for a music scene that has given us the likes of the headliner for this show but also Her New Knife and They Are Gutting a Body of Water. The trio recently released a new single “Always You” and further established its knack for blending melancholic vocal melodies with sonic edge and grit, vulnerability with bombast and threading discordant sounds with the sublime.
Friday | 09.04
What: The Playground Ensemble: Unchambered 4.0
When: 7/7:30-9
Where: Leon Gallery
Why: This is the fourth edition of the Ensemble’s Unchambered event in which for an evening experimental and improvised electronic music created by the group’s composers can be experienced featuring home made instruments, interactive electronics, processed voice and other avant-musical weirdness and innovation.
Friday | 09.04
What: Have a Nice Life w/Drowse and Allison Lorenzen
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Allison Lorenzen is a Colorado-based ambient art folk artist whose pop songcraft is high but so is her highly emotional and the quality of her stylized performance. Drowse has been releasing some of the most experimental and engrossing post-punk bordering on ambient and field-recording infused pastoral tape music folk since the project’s inception. For this show the project will push those aesthetics further with a unique and boundary pushing performance. Have a Nice Life is one of the great cult post-punk bands from America that almost never plays live and even more rarely tours much less comes to Colorado. The band was last here in 2019 where it performed at the Hi-Dive cementing its reputation for exploding boundaries between emo, post-punk, industrial and ambient music.
Saturday | 09.05
What: The Serfs w/Pink Lady Monster, The Clue, Plastik Mystik and Kill You Club DJs
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Plastik Mystik fuses grunge, Wipers-esque punk and post-punk into a garage rock inflected set of music that has searing social commentary. The Clue is sort of a hardcore band but its sound is weirder and doesn’t really adhere to the aesthetics of that style of music yet its energy is very much in that vein. Pink Lady Monster and its No Wave funk art post-punk and poetry is arguably one of the best bands in Denver and America with live performances that are somehow both theater and a masterclass in musical technique. The Serfs from Cincinnati are a post-punk snobs favorite post-punk band with consistently fascinating records that blur the line between post-apocalyptic, bleak synth infused and arch political commentary the way Wire or Gang of Four would burn fascist impulses with creative lyrics. The Serfs sound like they read a lot of Ursula K. Le Guin’s more political novels, were inspired by the mood of Tarkovksy’s 1970s science fiction epics Solaris and Stalker and the crumbling post-industrial, late capitalist empire of America. There is no best place to start with The Serfs, just select a record and listen to their entire oeuvre.
Sunday | 09.06
What: Black Tapestry w/The Picture Tour, The Futons and Demi God Tezus
When: 7
Where: D3 Arts
Why: Black Tapestry is a synth punk duo from Sedona, Arizona who released their newest full-length Compartmental Illness in November 2025. Think like Youth Code but more rooted in The Yeah Yeah Yeahs than hardcore. The Picture Tour is a dark post-punk band from Denver with a clear command of atmospheric guitar tone and the aesthetics of night driving in the sprawl of American urban decay once banished in the wake of overdevelopment by private equity firms but on the horizon again due to the tech and real estate bubble collapse. The Picture Tour both embraces that nostalgia and seem to have seen into a dark future but romantic future. The Futons are a Denver band somewhere between garage psych and shoegaze. Demi God Tezus is a hip-hop artist in the more underground/alternative lane.
Tuesday | 09.08
What: greek w/Humble the Great
When: 7
Where: Moon Room at Summit Music Hall
Why: Michael Davie performing and releasing music as greek released his genre eclectic EP DANCE BREAK in August 2026. Coming up as a fledgling musician and making beats and writing songs through the use of production software that any teen might access, Davie found his voice as a talented purveyor of a kind of pop R&B benefiting greatly from his soulful and smooth vocal style. The music video for “HOLD ME” reveals a performer comfortable with the physical expression of the music and a playful sense of humor. The new EP builds on previous greek releases like the “THERE FOR YOU” single from 2024 that was in a more indie pop vein. The production on the new EP is more lush and immersive and the signal of a sophisticated talent in modern pop music.
To Be Continued…
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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