Best Shows in Denver and Beyond December 2024

Xeno & Oaklander perform at Hi-Dive on December 12, 2024, photo by Liz Wendelbo
Joseph Lamar, photo by Tom Murphy

Sunday | 12.01
What: Machete Mouth, Joseph Lamar, S.T3V
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: An evening of the best local, left-field/experimental R&B. Go and witness the soulful downtempo ambient style of Machete Mouth, the IDM psychedelic soul performance art leanings of Joseph Lamar and indie rock/shoegaze/abstract folk sounds of S.T3V.

Anthony Raneri, photo by Acacia Evans

Wednesday | 12.04
What: Anthony Raneri w/Brother Bird
When: 7
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Anthony Raneri is perhaps better known for being the singer and songwriter in punk/emo band Bayside. But his solo work is more countrified yet atmospheric and his latest record Everyday Royalty is an introspective reckoning with how one’s life suddenly feels like your mistakes or at least the areas you’ve been neglecting more than you realize catch up to you emotionally, psychologically and even physically. Whereas Raneri’s brash and cathartic songwriting has its own psychological cleansing on stage, Brother Bird’s songs are more delicate and in the realm of folk but her production is around the edges gives the songwriter’s music a cinematic yet intimate quality that unfolds across a song like her own kind of confessional and self-examination that too feels relatable on a very human level of navigating life with an imperfect set of tools and capacities to do so.

Lightning Bolt, photo by Nick Sayers

Thursday | 12.05
What: Machine Girl w/Lightning Bolt and Kill Alters
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: For over a decade Machine Girl has been developing its own brand of breakcore/digital hardcore/glitch industrial sound. Famously the duo performed a show at a house in Denver and caved in the floor because of the intensity of the dancing. And the group does go hard but its electronic soundscapes are very in the vein of drum and bass and jungle with the relentless beats and tranquil/chill passages. Lightning Bolt is the legendary noise rock band that got started in Providence, Rhode Island in 1994. Along with other local music weirdos like artist and former member of Mindflayer and Forcefield Matt Brinkman Brian Chippendale and Brian Gibson of Lightning Bolt formed the iconic and influential DIY space Fort Thunder. In its 30 years together Lightning Bolt has been known for preferring to perform at unconventional spaces if appropriate and available and if not, turning a more conventional venue into something of a performance art event with its frenetic and borderline chaotic live shows that often feel like the noise rock equivalent of free jazz or conceptual as much as musical use of noise incorporating the energy of everyone that shows up.

Greet Death, photo from Bandcamp

Friday | 12.06
What: Greet Death w/Cherished and Prize Horse
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Greet Death made its reputation as a band that fused heaviness with ethereal shoegaze tonality. But since then its music has drifted in even more melodic and melancholic. More slowcore in its arrangements and thus hazily psychedelic but not bereft of a sonic freakout when the moment calls for it. Opening the show is Denver’s post-punk-turned-shoegaze band Cherished whose lyrics give a glimpse into a side of America all of us probably recognize but with a perspective that’s very real and non-judgmental. Prize Horse from Minneapolis has a sound that sits at the crux of shoegaze, post-rock and the more interesting 90s emo.

A Place For Owls, photo from Bandcamp

Friday | 12.06
What: A Place For Owls, Corsicana and INNS
When: 7:30
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: A Place For Owls is refreshingly a raw and heart on sleeve emo band of the current wave variety meaning its influences span beyond the influx of math rock and vulnerability and occasional forays into atonality. APFO’s guitar work is elegant and inviting and its whole vibe is one inviting listeners to share in these previously private moments that might help to illuminate one’s own feelings about complicated situations. Corsicana is the dream pop band from Denver.

Maria Bamford, photo from mariabamford.com

Friday | 12.06
What: Maria Bamford
When: 6:30
Where: The Paramount Theatre
Why: Maria Bamford is one of the great, living stand-up comedians whose surreal yet sharply observed humor has shed a light on American folly and the darkly absurd side of capitalism and wellness culture. Part of Bamford’s appeal is how open and vulnerable she is regarding her own struggles with mental health and trying to fit in with a warped and demented culture and presents it with her inimitable style.

King Cardinal, photo from kingcardinal.com

Saturday | 12.07
What: King Cardinal
When: 10 am
Where: Swallow Hill
Why: It is a free show but it’ll be one of Denver’s better Americana/roots rock bands, King Cardinal. 2024, though, saw the release of he band’s most recent album Land Lines which waxes well into the realm of cosmic country at times but otherwise is full of the band’s well crafted story songs and uplifting presentation.

Weird Al Qaida, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 12.07
What: Weird Al Qaida w/Pythian Whispers
When: 9:30
Where: Mutiny Information Cafe
Why: Experimental psychedelic noise band Weird Al Qaida makes a rare appearance in the basement of the new location of Mutiny Information Cafe. Expect multi-media performance elements, pitch shifted vocals and a fusion of psychedelic folk, art rock and outsider pop. Opening is psychedelic ambient and noise project Pythian Whispers which includes Tom Murphy who is writing this.

Church Fire, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 12.07
What: Nova Fest: Church Fire, Night Fishing, The Photo Atlas, Post/War and Gifter 8 at Hi-Dive
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Nova Fest returns with a stacked lineup including industrial dance revolutionaries Church Fire, psych doom band Night Fishing, the resurrected dance punk band The Photo Atlas back from Denver’s 2000s indie rock heyday and the shoegaze-y Post/War.

Franz Ferdinand, photo by Fiona Torres

Thursday | 12.12
What: Franz Ferdinand w/almost monday and Losers Club
When: 6
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: The new Franz Ferdinand album The Human Fear doesn’t come out until January 10, 2025 but for this show there’s a better than half a chance you’ll get to see some of that material live. The Scottish post-punk band first made major waves with its 2004 self-titled album and breakout single “Take Me Out.” The then post-punk revival was well under way and the group got lumped in with “dance punk” perhaps not unjustifiably and its subsequent albums proved the band had more in their repertoire than a trendy style. Its funky power pop has had underpinnings of influence from literature and dub and has evolved in ways that have refreshingly not been so obvious. For example the 2015 album as FFS when the band merged with glam and art rock legends Sparks for a unique album for which they toured doing sets of their own and together as the supergroup. There’s something vital in what the band has had to offer from the beginning and its live shows have been proof positive.

Xeno & Oaklander in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Thursday | 12.12
What: Xeno & Oaklander w/Spiritual Poison and Terravault Network
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Modern cold wave legends Xeno & Oaklander return to Denver for a show at Hi-Dive in support of its latest album Via Negativa (in the doorway light). The duo has innovated in its use of analog and digital synthesis to craft evocative soundscapes as conceptual pop songs since its 2004 inception and the new record is reminiscent of what might happen if Chris & Cosey and Giorgio Moroder collaborated on an album of gorgeously icy synthpop.

Logan Farmer, photo by Jared Meyer

Thursday | 12.12
What: David Eugene Edwards w/Logan Farmer
When: 8: 30
Where: Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox
Why: David Eugene Edwards established his dark folk and post-punk bonafides as a member of influential Gothic Americana band 16 Horsepower and further with Wovenhand. His 2023 solo album Hyacinth is imbued with the kind of gravitas and grandeur one has come to expect from the songwriter and its lush arrangements don’t feel stripped down even if not expressed with the same level of sturm and drang as his other projects. The emotional intensity and vibrant poetic sensibility and insight is very much running through the songs. Opening the show is Fort Collins-based songwriter Logan Farmer whose luminously atmospheric variety of folk songcraft is transporting and soothing. His most recent album 2022’s A Mold For The Bell includes contributions from avant-garde harpist Mary Lattimore and saxophonist Joseph Shabason. It’s an album of great subtlety, nuance of expression and great depth of mood that rewards patient listening.

Limbwrecker in 2023, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 12.14
What: Limbwrecker (final show) w/Sugar Skulls & Marigolds, Rico Predicate and Corpsewhale
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Denver-based grind/powerviolence band Limbwrecker is taking the stage one final time for a set of furiously noisy and cathartic, metallic post-hardcore and confrontational antics. They will be joined by fellow perpetrators of sonic violence with crafters of epic, instrumental, post-metal journeys Sugar Skulls & Marigolds, death grind thrashers Rico Predicate and industrial noise artist Corpsewhale.

Pink Lady Monster, photo by Tom Murphy

Sunday | 12.15
What: Church Car, Pink Lady Monster, The Trappings, Hippies Wearing Muzzles
When: 7:30
Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Room
Why: Church Car might be the new manifestation of avant-garage soul artist Big Daddy Mugglestone but don’t bother trying to run the new name through a search engine. There are plenty of other reasons to go to this show like to see the spectacular No Wave free jazz dream psychedelia group Pink Lady Monster and blend of allure and menace. Hippies Wearing Muzzles is the solo analog synth composition project of Lee Evans who some may know from his long tenure as the bassist in indie pop group Kissing Party. The Trappings is a lo-fi experimental pop project of Adam Baumeister, the man behind the lathe cut imprint Meep Records and his own music is worth a deep dive in its own right for the sprawling and exploratory nuggets of imaginative music making therein.

Emma Ruth Rundle, photo from Bandcamp

Monday | 12.16
What: Emma Ruth Rundle w/Stonefront Church
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Emma Ruth Rundle has made a name for herself as a writer of richly emotional and introspective, darkly atmospheric songs that blur and break the edges of strict genre. In her more recent albums Rundle’s gift for weaving soundscape-y, even ambient folk expressions of how the inner life finds resonance with the mythical in a synergistic and transformative way. Her most recent album, 2022’s EG2: Dowsing Voice, seemed to draw upon deserty sounds and textures to delve into themes of ancient trauma and self-rediscovery.

Lanx Borealist in 2015, photo by Tom Murphy

Thursday | 12.19
What: Weirdo Music: Rooster Jake, Lanx Borealis, Brotherhood of Machines
When: 7
Where: Fort Greene
Why: This showcase of local experimental music will feature the left field hip-hop of Rooster Jake, the synth-driven and organic soundscapes of Lanx Borealis and Brotherhood of Machines’ deep house/abstract electronic dance oriented compositions.

Vatican Vamps, photo courtesy the artists

Saturday | 12.21
What: New Verbs w/Cactusheads and Vatican Vamps https://globehall.com/event/new-verbs-w-cactusheads-vatican-vamps/globe-hall/denver-colorado/
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: New Verbs are an indie rock band from Denver/Boulder who if you dissect their sound a bit you’ll hear hints of the influence of The Fall, Deerhunter and 2010’s psych rock. Maybe Cactusheads are literally operating out of a garage in preparing to take the stage, like many bands, its musical roots seem to have at least evolved beyond the ragged amateurishness of well-intentioned miscreants into writing solid melodic hooks to go along with the grit. Vatican Vamps are a post-punk band from Denver that released its self-titled debut full length in March 2024 showcasing its dusky, atmospheric and earnestly weighty post-punk.

Replica City, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 12.21
What: Broken Record, Curious Things, Replica City and The Gentlys
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Broken Record blurs the line between melodic post-hardcore and shoegaze with delicate emotional colorings. Curious Things is a trio of former members of The Gamits, The Dead Girls and Lawsuit Models whose songs are an appealing blend of power pop and emo. Replica City delivers a noisy, angular post-punk post-hardcore style with vocal performances both vulnerable and confrontational. The Gently’s is the latest band to include Dameon Merkl, the charismatic frontman of dark Americana legends Bad Luck City and Lost Walks.

Lost Relics, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 12.28
What: Cheap Perfume, Arson Charge, Lost Relics and Brass Tags
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: At the top of the bill is political/feminist punk band Cheap Perfume with its heartfelt and often refreshingly wickedly and pointedly humorous lyrics still incredibly relevant in light of the seeming slide of world society in the past few years steeply in the wrong direction. Arson Charge is a punk band including members of other acts from Denver including SPELLS singer Ben Roy. Brass Tags is a post-hardcore band in the vein of melodic practitioners of noisy punk like Jawbox. Lost Relics split the difference between sludge metal akin to Melvins and heavy noise rock reminiscent of Unsane.

Slim Cessna’s Auto Club in 2023, photo by Tom Murphy

Monday and Tuesday | 12.30 and 12.31
What: Slim Cessna’s Auto Club w/Rattlesnake Milk and DJ Ryan Wong
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Denver pioneers of Gothic Americana Slim Cessna’s Auto Club play their two night run at the Hi-Dive. If you’ve seen the group in the past several years it’s become obvious the Gothic part is perhaps less accurate than comparing the live show and music to a kind of Western Vaudeville with music inspired by literature and theater infused with local cultural flavor and a flair for the dramatic and inventive, lively songwriting that is as life affirming as it draws upon any traditional sounds and style. Rattlesnake Milk from Texas is straight up cowboy western plains style country music.

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond December 2022

Palm performs at Larimer Lounge on December 6, 2022, photo by Eve Alpert
Wild Pink, photo courtesy the artist

Thursday | 12.01
What: Wild Pink w/Trace Mountains and Knuckle Pups
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Wild Pink’s John Ross wrote one of the great story albums of recent years with 2021’s A Billion Little Lights and its themes of coming to terms with adulthood while staying connected with one’s creative life and navigating the temptations to ditch music as the occupation of adolescence. And how through creative work one can explore an evolving sense of meaning that hits you throughout your thirties and the rest of your life. 2022’s ILYSM (an acronym for “I Love You So Much”) takes that perspective to examine the details of life that deepen one”s bond with the people in your life. Knuckle Pups in from Denver released a deeply self-reflective album with 2022’s TV Ready in which the ambitious pop band fuses radical vulnerability with a compassionate honesty that is not nearly common enough in the realm of indie rock or any form of music today. Sometimes earnestness can seem like a pose but with Knuckle Pups it seems inspirational in its lack of pretension.

Cold Cave in 2011, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 12.02
What: Cold Cave w/Voight and Hex Cassette
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Wesley Eisold of Cold Cave has been mostly been releasing singles and EPs since the most recent full length album Cherish the Light Years came out in 2011. His most recent Fate in Seven Lessons (2021) is well within the realm of modern darkwave post-punk with his usual gift for teasing grit and darkness out of the songwriting although plenty of the music has a beautifully melodic melancholia reminiscent of New Order. Eisold has also been involved in a bit of writing including his work with the late, great Mark Lanegon on the book of poetry Plague Poems (2020). Opening the show are two Denver acts. Hex Cassette’s confrontational industrial dance music challenges notions of the role of artist and audience and breaking that barrier for a collective experience. Voight seems to be making good on its threat of completely injecting techno into its own searing shoegaze-infused post-punk and emotionally intense music.

Cannibal Corpse, photo by Alex Morgan

Friday | 12.02
What: Decibel Magazine Metal & Beer Fest Denver 2022 Day 1: Cannibal Corpse, Dark Funeral, Immolation, Black Anvil, Onyx and In The Company of Serpents
When: 5
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: This unique event includes some pretty extensive beer tasting for those so inclined but the real reason is to get to see some of the great extreme metal acts of today. That includes death metal legends Cannibal Corpse whose over the top gory lyrics have been banned in various countries despite how obviously absurd they are in the vein of the most demented horror movies of the 80s but really just more creative than a lot of those films. And the music itself stands up well in upholding the brutality of the lyrics with a technical proficiency worthy of the name of the band. Get there early to catch the bluesy, cinematic doom band from Denver In the Company of Serpents who don’t play Denver as much as they once did these days.

Wayfarer, photo courtesy the artists

Saturday | 12.03
What: Decibel Magazine Metal & Beer Fest Denver 2022 Day 2: Pig Destroyer, Skinless, Wayfarer, Of Feather and Bone and Wake
When: 4
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Day two of this event includes more noteworthy acts out of the broad world of extreme metal including performances from Denver’s masters of cinematic doom, Wayfarer, the caustic death grind onslaught of Of Feather and Bone, the blackened grind of Calgary’s Wake and grindcore legends Pig Destroyer whose contorted and savagely brutal music is a fitting companion to JR Hayes’ darkly incisive lyrics about human experiences on the edge.

Soccer Mommy, photo by Sophie Hur

Saturday | 12.03
What: Soccer Mommy w/TOPS
When: 7
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Sophia Allison has been writing music and performing as Soccer Mommy since she was in college before dropping out and moving back to Nashville to pursue her career as a musician full time. It helped that she had a record deal with Fat Possum which released her debut album Clean in 2018 before she turned twenty-one. The album’s emotional openness and unabashed embrace of unconventional melody and song structure while crafting undeniable hooks garnered the record widespread critical acclaim. The most recent Soccer Mommy album Somtimes, Forever (2022) was produced with Daniel Lopatin aka Oneohtrix Point Never and the team-up brought to Allison’s particularly confessional lyrics and always imaginative guitar work an experimental edge and sound design element for the songwriter’s most musically adventurous recording of her career thus far. Additionally, the lyrics probably startled listeners that expect artists to be vague in their sentiments in a pop song setting but hasn’t Allison been poetically pointed and vivid in her words all along? Opening the show is Montreal’s indie pop band TOPS whose gentle yet passionate compositions seem like they’d be pretty light and airy live as well but at the show the band seems to exude an unexpected vitality.

HaemoGoblin, photo courtesy the artists

Saturday | 12.03
What: HaemoGoblin and Fast N Loose at L. Lazer art opening
When: 9
Where: The Crypt ($10 cash)
Why: HaemoGoblin is an electronic duo that will be performing what it calls a ritualistic invocation. Calling the performance “Inauguration” what you will see is a “mini stage play set to music, designed to disorient, disturb and ‘shake awake’ the audience for a half hour or longer.” What will this look like? Well, veteran carnie frontwoman Ortenzia von Deadworry and S.S.G. her “summoned demon” synth player will definitely bring some theater to an often very predictable local music scene. Also on the bill for this art opening featuring the work of L. Lazer is Fast N Loose is a Motorhead tribute band.

The Soft Moon in 2015, photo by Tom Murphy

Sunday | 12.04
What: The Soft Moon w/Nuovo Testamento and Kill You Club DJs
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Luis Vasquez was a little ahead of the curve when he launched The Soft Moon in 2009. Originally a solo project, The Soft Moon evolved to become more of a live band that brought Vasquez’s songs of nervy energy and anxiety-purging urgency to life. His most recent album is 2022’s Exister which in the wake of one of the most challenging periods in recent world history on a wide scale is a catharsis of overcoming the enervating influences that come your way and considering the mere continuation of existence a triumph in itself. The songs seem to have leaned more into the industrial side of Vasquez’s songwriting with some real visceral power driving the moody atmospherics. Los Angeles-based darkwave/synth pop band Nuovo Testamento opens the show.

Hembree, photo by Jonny Marlow

Sunday | 12.04
What: Hembree w/Little Hurt, False Report and Mae Mae
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Hembree from Kansas City, Missouri that formed in 2015 and its big break to a national audience was the placement of its single “Holy Water” in an Apple ad during Super Bowl LII. The group’s tight rhythms serve as a foundation for the rest of the songwriting to stretch out whether into focused, unadorned rock songs or expansive, moody pieces and the techno-underpinned indie funk that is at the core of its sound. The group’s new album It’s a Dream! is a record tinged with nostalgic examinations of the roots of current anxieties and insecurities expressed in hazy melodies and resonating tones driven by a hypnotic beat. On the surface it may sound like another current indie rock offering with more than its fair share of more imaginative songwriting but Hembree really charts an internal journey in which one is prepared to exit the gauntlet of lucid dreams trapped in feeling everything until it makes sense and after one is able to move through tangled emotional memories.

The Lemonheads, photo by Barry Brescheisen

Monday | 12.05
What: The Lemonheads w/Bass Drum Of Death and On Being an Angel https://www.bluebirdtheater.net/events/detail/443688
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: The Lemonheads are one of few still extant bands to have come to prominence during the alternative rock era that didn’t quite fit in with the more trendy subgenres that made that era one of the most vibrant in the history of popular music. Its own brand of power pop was a vehicle for the songwriting of only constant member, singer and guitarist Evan Dando. The latter seems to have an ability to look into situations and people and extrapolate poetic insights with a compassionate perspective. The title track of the group’s 1992 breakthrough album It’s A Shame About Ray isn’t just about a troubled person who doesn’t fit in with any school and its politics, it’s about feeling like a perpetual outsider and the rest of the songs on the record are vivid stories about people we all know and might even be in a way that didn’t comport with the tales of desperation one heard in a lot of grunge and too “dark” for more faux posi faire of that era to now. Ever since The Lemonheads went on hiatus in 1997 and returned to operations in 2005, the group hasn’t been prolific with original material but Dando’s interpretations of artists that have influenced him on Varshons (2009) Varshons 2 (2019) have been a peek into what Dando’s brain has latched onto for inspiration and perhaps for this performance we’ll get to hear what the veteran songwriter has been up to in recent years. One thing is for certain his own songs have aged far better than those of many of his contemporaries owing in part to the gentle but raw honesty of the songwriting. Also on this bill is Bass Drum of Death originally from Oxford, Mississippi whose blues tinged noisy garage rock has a refreshing level of grit and menace befitting the name of the project.

Monday | 12.05
What: W.A.S.P. w/Armored Saint
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: W.A.S.P. is the kind of band out of the glam metal era in Los Angeles of the 1980s that more than any other group out of that world that courted controversy. Its music was and is a spirited, melodic hard rock with a strong sense of theater even in the songwriting. Sure its cover art for its debut single “Animal (Fuck Like a Beast)” with the circular saw codpiece offended people that took it more literally than could even remotely be intended. Certainly former guitarist Chris Holmes looked the buffoon drunk in a pool with his mother sitting by in the 1988 documentary The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years seemed to affirm the extreme and self-destructive hedonism associated with the band. But at its best W.A.S.P. were avatars of a music scene that could be cartoonish, bombastic and puerile while offering an alternative to a conformist puritanical culture with its lurid and triumphant storytelling. Perhaps co-headlining though less notorious is Armored Saint who also started in 1982 in Los Angeles and also pre-dated glam metal though often associated with that world of music due to the big hair and knack for solid melodic hooks. But like W.A.S.P. there was something with more edge than most of its glam rock contemporaries. While never quite having any mainstream breakthrough hits, Armored Saint was a staple of 1980s metal that has held up better than much of the music out of the 1980s Los Angeles heavy metal scene has.

Water From Your Eyes, photo by Ana Fangayen

Tuesday | 12.06
What: Palm w/Water From Your Eyes
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: As Water From Your Eyes, Nate Amos and Rachel Brown have made a career of using an eclectic and ever evolving palette of sounds to explore ideas and concepts through what could be considered dance pop. That is if your frame of reference might be the experimental electronic and punk out of New York and Los Angeles of the last fifteen years. Its 2020 album 33:44 is something you’d expect more out of a band on the Northern Spy label with its beautifully dire, ambient and modern classical soundscapes that are almost an homage to Penderecki’s “Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima” crossed with Howard Shore’s work for the films of David Cronenberg. But the duo’s most recent album Structure at times sounds like what might have happened if Aphex Twin in writing Selected Ambient Works Volume II had decided to turn those into pop songs. Except that Water From Your Eyes inserts enigmatic spoken word elements that serve as a a meta narrative that re-configures traditional album structure and gives the whole album a non-linear quality made cohesive by reimagining the nature of how creative work is structured. Fitting that this arty yet incredibly accessible group is sharing the stage with Philadelphia’s art rock weirdos Palm touring in support of Nicks and Grazes, an album that sounds like the band challenged its members to go on separate retreats to clear their minds of contemporary influences and to immerse themselves in non-musical art forms and come back to make the kind of psychedelic rock record that comes across like a collage of playful daydreams and arranged in a way that brushes aside conventional structure itself.

OFF! photo by Jeff Forney

Thursday and Friday | 12.08 and 12.09
What: OFF! w/Zulu
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: OFF! is of course the newer hardcore project fronted by legendary vocalist Keith Morris formerly of Black Flag and of Circle Jerks. The current lineup includes founding member Dmitri Coats of Burning Brides on guitar and as of 2021 Autry Fulbright II on bass and Justin Brown on drums. After an eight year hiatus on releases, OFF! released Free LSD in 2022. It’s still the searing hardcore sound you’d expect from the group but there are some clear differences with what sounds like synth and other ambient sounds giving the songs a psychedelic feel that wasn’t so much a part of its earlier sound. A refreshing update for a band that still maintains the intensity and edge without being stuck in a stylistic rut. Opening both dates at the Hi-Dive is anti-racist powerviolence band Zulu which injects its music with R&B samples and eschews the tough guy stance of hardcore.

Pond, photo by Matsu

Friday | 12.09
What: Pond w/Cryogeyser — rescheduled to April 16, 2023
When: 8
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Pond has shared membership with Tame Impala over the years with lead singer Nick Albrook being involved with both bands for a few years and Kevin Parker serving as drummer in earlier years and as a producer until 2020. The polished psychedelic pop of its first eight albums was helped in no small part due to Parker’s influence in the production department but with the 2021 album 9, Pond has given us its most interesting record to date with more grit in its overall sound, some edge to its funk elements and a willingness to embrace some rawness in its sound as well as take its atmospherics into a realm flirting with space rock. Los Angeles-based jangle fuzz trio Cryogeyser opens the show with its melancholic, lo-fi dream pop.

Obituary, photo by Tim Hubbard

Friday | 12.09
What: Obituary w/Amon Amarth, Carcass and Cattle Decapitation
When: 5:30
Where: The Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Obituary is touring ahead of the 2023 release of its new album Dying of Everything. After nearly 40 years as a band exploring the outer edges of the death metal format and pioneering some of that aesthetic it can be challenging to have something new to say with your music and a return to form can be tedious. But Obituary this time decided to stick to writing a strong set of material worthy of its pre-1997 split output. The dire messaging delivered with still convincingly brutal vocals but without cartoonish lyrics. Rounding out the bill are Seattle grindcore outfit Cattle Decapitation who are somehow both keenly aware of the absurdity and cruelty of modern human civilization and the need to ridicule the hubris of our species without making light of the situation in which we and other animals find ourselves due to a tolerance for savage forms of economic and social organization. And yes, grindcore/death metal legends/pioneers Carcass and Swedish, melodic death metal group Amon Amarth and its proclivity for lyrics about the Viking Age and a time before the Christian domination of Nordic culture.

The Smile, from the band’s Facebook page

Saturday and Sunday | 12.10 and 12.11
What: The Smile w/Robert Stillman
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: The Smile is Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead fame with drummer Tom Skinner of Sons of Kemet. The trio made its debut at Glastonbury Festival in 2021 and its music produced during the limitations of association and collaboration during the COVID-19 lockdown emerged as an intimate and spacious, lonely set of melodies and fragile emotional expressions. In 2022 the group released its debut album A Light for Attracting Attention. The record is contemplative as one might expect with the musicians involved but also vulnerable and open in sentiments embracing a massive level of uncertainty and peril that continues to flow seemingly unchecked in a world beyond the ongoing pandemic and perpetuating a sustained anxiety that will have untold impacts for decades to come and written about in history books or their equivalent in some future time should such indulgences be permitted in a post-authoritarian era. The Smile seems to have written a record from the perspective of people keenly attuned to these concerns and not knowing if they’ll live long enough to see better days but not being attached to a sinking spirit of despair.

Bartees Strange, photo by Luke Piotrowski

Wednesday | 12.14
What: Bartees Strange w/Pom Pom Squad and They Hate Change
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Bartees Leon Cox Jr. has worn various hats in his career both musical and otherwise. But he is perhaps best known for his music under the moniker Bartees Strange following his stint in in the post-hardcore band Stay Inside. With the release of his 2020 debut Live Forever, Cox has proven himself a master of writing emotionally nuanced and vulnerable pop songs that incorporate elements of indie folk and, synth pop and hip-hop but with a production element that seems to make the music and its complex arrangements hit with a stirring immediacy. Fans of Twin Shadow will hear some similar sonic touchstones and the sophomore album Farm to Table (2022) revealed more of Cox’s gift for genre bending to great effect in delivering songs that are at once deeply personal and politically charged.

Twin Tribes, photo from Bandcamp

Thursday | 12.15
What: Twin Tribes w/Dancing Plague and Plague Garden
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Twin Tribes from Brownsville, TX have garnered no small amount of buzz for its blend of minimal synth and post-punk and a kind of vitality amid melancholic tones. Its most recent studio album Ceremony (2019) sounds like songs written during a flurry of peak emotions and capturing the urgency and desperation of a recent breakup. In most cities of size, Twin Tribes is performing in medium sized clubs but in Denver we’re fortunate to be able to catch the popular band in a small club like HQ. Dancing Plague is a darkwave solo act from Portland, OR whose dusky synth pop is like a darker OMD with some touches of influence from John Maus. In the interest of full transparency, the author of this blurb is in Plague Garden, a noteworthy post-punk/New Wave band from Denver.

ABANDONS, photo by Tom Murphy

Thursday | 12.15
What: ABANDONS w/Old Soul Dies Young, Almanac Man and Fainting Dreams
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: This show is a nice split of experimental noise rock and shoegaze. ABANDONS might at another time be considered a post-rock band but in its mix one hears bits of post-metal, noise rock and ambient and it live shows have a visceral quality with music that one might more expect to be performed in a more meditative spirit. Old Soul Dies Young is the kind of band that happens when guys who were way into post-hardcore and doom drop that sound palette for something more melodic and atmospheric but with the same level of sonic bombast. Almanac Man is like a collision of doom and borderline aggressive, Chicago style noise rock. Fainting Dreams is the kind of dream pop band that comes about when its members maybe came up through hardcore and death metal and are shedding the aggression and mathematical precision and heaviness for radical vulnerability and dreamlike tones.

Organ, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 12.16
What: Sounds for Charity: Avarice, Organ, No More Cheering, Gabriel Albelo
When: 7
Where: Glob
Why: Proceeds from this show go to Colorado Coalition for the Homeless. Warm weather gear and hand warmers also accepted. For your donation you can catch the glitch industrial dance stylings of Organ, Gabriel Albelo’s solo performance of his heavy psychedelic rock, Avarice’s dark, menacing industrial techno and the prepared noise environment soundscapes of No More Cheering.

Meet the Giant in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 12.17
What: Love Stallion w/Shanghai Metro Temple and Meet the Giant
When: 8
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Love Stallion is basically an 80s style glam metal band and if that’s your thing they’re definitely on the better end of the modern version of that with of course stage antics and style and the level of musicianship you’d expect. Shanghai Metro Temple is a fairly straight ahead indie rock band that sounds like it is heavily influenced by late 90s alternative and hard rock. Meet the Giant fuse downtempo electronic pop with post-punk, heavy shoegaze and imaginative soundscapes on the production end.

Wave Decay in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 12.17
What: Bluebook w/Wave Decay and Mon Cher
When: 8
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Bluebook these days isn’t the experimental indie folk jazz band of its early days. Instead there is a darkness and not so buttoned downed, controlled intensity to the performances. Seems like Julie Davis is letting her flaws, anxieties and dreams hang more loosely with this version of the band and that has just meant its music has blossomed more and its sound palette greatly expanded with the inclusion of formery Monofog and Snake Rattle Rattle Snake singer Hayley Helmericks on drums and backing vocals, Jess Parsons on keys and other instrumentation and maybe even Anna Morsett on guitar. Wave Decay is the kind of band that sounds like it took the door through psych garage into more shoegaze sounds and all the better for it. Mon Cher’s music is a particularly transporting and lies somewhere between dream pop and downtempo jazz.

Milk Blossoms in 2021, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 12.17
What: Milk Blossoms w/Meek and Knuckle Pups
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Knuckle Pups write radically vulnerable and thoughtful indie pop in the classic mold and its 2022 album TV Ready is both heartbreaking and uplifting. Milk Blossoms play a rare show with Michelle Rocquet now that she spends much of her time in New York City for professional and academic pursuits. So with this configuration of the band you’ll get the full dual vocal effect of powerfully rendered, tender pop songs that are irresistibly twee and cathartic.

Master Ferocious in 2021, photo by Tom Murphy

Sunday | 12.18
What: Never Kenezzard w/Zingaro, Sea of Flame and Master Ferocious
When: 3
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Never Kenezzard don’t really fit in with the metal scene so much though its blend of progressive rock sensibilities, doom and psychedelia finds it in a particularly more interesting corner of that realm of music. Sea of Flame are a sludge rock/doom band whose epic arrangements are not the rote edition of what doom has become. Master Ferocious somehow mix classic power metal with glam rock without seeming corny because the musicianship is so strong and the performance bordering on theatrical.

Alaska Thunderfuck, photo by Albert Sanchez

Sunday | 12.18
What: Alaska Thunderfuck Presents: The Red 4 Filth Tour
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Alaska Thunderfuck is perhaps best known for her competing in RuPaul’s Drag Race but over the last several years she has cultivated a pop music career. Steeped in modern electronic pop and a showcase for her outsize stage persona. Her latest album Red 4 Filth leaves behind some of the camp and humor of previous releases with a more obviously sincere set of pop songs that bring together sounds from hip-hop and classic modern pop including a cover of “All That She Wants” by Ace of Base.

Faceman in 2013, photo by Tom Murphy

Thursday | 12.22
What: FaceMan Western Jupiter vinyl release, Tivoli Club Brass Band and Anthony Ruptak
When: 7
Where: The Skylark Lounge/Bobcat Club
Why: Faceman celebrates the release of its latest album on vinyl as well as making available on vinyl for the first time its 2016 album Wild and Hunting. The band fronted by Steve Faceman has long offered finely crafted pop Americana with an experimental edge though its new album Western Jupiter shows an embrace of a more straightforward approach to songcraft. But every release is fulled with songs that have heartfelt and sharply observed lyrics in stories about life that feel like they’re part of your life because Steve has honed in on an aspect of culture and social reality that seems to be in the air in that moment. In years past Faceman has put on theatrical performances with set pieces and costumes that help to illustrate the music in dramatic fashion in collaboration with local visual artists who have helped to make these outfits and elaborate sets and pieces of artwork like the stage Megalodon of several years ago or the huge tornado of paper made for the epic Faceman’s 100 Year Storm event of 2016 at The Oriental Theater in which Faceman invited 100 bands to perform. So there’s a bit of community involvement and creative vision behind what drives the band even if it’s not necessarily abundantly obvious from listening to its excellent songs on their own.

SORROWS, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 12.23
What: Baby Baby, Gila Teen, SORROWS and Ray Diess
When: 7
Where: Enigma Bazaar
Why: Baby Baby is the indie dream pop project of Lily Conrad. Reminiscent of bedroom pop artists of the late 90s and 2000s and has the aesthetics of lo-fi but with better sound production than much of that stuff often had. Gila Teen is the genre defying emo-shoegaze-post-punk band whose eccentric songs nevertheless always seem to be a direct line into the anxieties and affections coursing through the cosmos at the given moment of the performance. SORROWS is an emotionally charged downtempo band comprised of vibrant vocals, elegantly crafted rhythms and electronic production. Ray Diess is one of the Denver scene’s most compelling darkwave pop artists operating today.

Julian Street Nightmare, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 12.23
What: Fast Eddy, Julian Street Nightmare and Morning Oil
When: 8
Where: Globe Hall (free)
Why: When garage punk and the more mundane end of psychedelic rock collapsed under the weight of its own hubris and fake excitement some of the people who were on one end of that broader scene with any talent or imagination had to do something different and Fast Eddy came out of that milieu as a solid power pop band. Julian Street Nightmare create music from a thrilling nexus of post-punk, surf rock and art rock. Morning Oil sounds like it took some bit of inspiration from the better part of 80s glam metal and The Dead Boys.

Tuesday | 12.27
What: The Roots and BIG K.R.I.T.
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: The Roots are the influential, jazz rooted hip-hop band from Philadelphia that many may also know for serving as the house band on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Its use of live musical instrumentation has always set The Roots apart from most hip-hop groups whose use of samples is most often used to craft the beat and thus its live performances have a powerful physical presence that is impossible to duplicate otherwise. Big K.R.I.T. is the acclaimed rapper and producer from Mississippi whose eclectic production and socially conscious lyrics seem to hit at a very grassroots level of appeal with an accessible sound and a way of presenting heady ideas in a way that is both creative and personally relatable.

Voight, photo by Tom Murphy

Thursday | 12.29
What: Watch Yourself Die, Voight, Sell Farm https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sell-farm-voight-wyd-at-the-mercury-cafe-tickets-481076160747?aff=ebdshpsearchautocomplete
When: 8
Where: Mercury Café
Why: Watch Yourself Die is kind of a post-punk supergroup comprised of members of Hex Cassette, Ray Diess and Julian Street Nightmare. Voight has long blurred the line between shoegaze, post-punk, darkwave and techno and infused it with emotionally intense live performances. Sell Farm might be an indiepop band but one that doesn’t see a reason why heavy dub and industrial music can’t be a part of the overall wheelhouse of sounds going into the project’s eclectic but always interesting songwriting.

Thursday | 12.29
What: Discomfort Creature w/Curious Things, Nightfishing
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Discomfort Creature is a punk band from Denver whose lineup includes current and former members of Gamits and Uphollow and this show signals the vinyl release of its 2021 self-titled debut on Snappy Little Numbers now that Chris Fogal is back in town for the occasion from his current residence in Switzerland. The record is an energetic fusion of pop punk and the more angular, Dischord-esque variety of punk.

Brotherhood of Machines at Deep Club event in 2014, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 12.30
What: FOANS, Brotherhood of Machines (album release) and Luxury Hearse
When: 9
Where: Broadway Roxy
Why: FOANS is the brainchild of producer Andrew Dahabrah whose melancholic house and techno music has been at the center of Denver’s underground dance music world for several years. Luxury Hearse is the project of Dan Coleman (Blank Human) and Rin Howell (Psychic Secretary) that breaks the barrier between techno, ambient and musique concrète. Brotherhood of Machines is apparently returning with its first new release and album in over six years. The project live has been a mysterious and sonically rich example of where ambient, abstract industrial, techno and noise converge to produce a sound that establishes a deep sense of mood and place.

To Be Continued…