Dead Pioneers – Queen City Sounds and Art

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond September 2025

**múm performs at Meow Wolf Perplexiplex on Tuesday, September 30 , photo by Ben Raymer**

Young Widows at Hi-Dive for Ghost Canyon Fest in 2024, photo by Tom Murphy

Wednesday | 09.03
What: Young Widows w/Moon Pussy and Almanac Man
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Young Widows is a noise rock/post-hardcore trio from Louisville, Kentucky that emerged from the the remains of influential mathcore group Breather Resist. The new band was more overtly melodic but retained the energy and intensity of the earlier group. In March 2025 Young Widows released its new album Power Sucker, its first record in 11 years. It dives headlong into existential crises and meeting the challenge of finding meaning when so many things in modern life seem to undermine finding a secure footing in a rapidly changing social and economic landscape. Almanac Man is the angular noise rock threesome from Denver that includes Ghost Canyon Fest founders Brian Dooley and Sean Dove. Though clearly influenced by DC post-hardcore its core sound is rooted in the heavier end of noise rock. Moon Pussy is almost less a band than a glorious and awe-inducing sonic science experiment gone off the rails but so right and always an entertaining and riveting live act.

Thursday | 09.04
What: An Evening with Lydia Lunch (film, spoken word, Q&A) w/Redwing Blackbird and DJ Christina Graves
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Lydia Lunch is the legendary and foundational artist that first came to wider circles of awareness via her connection with the No Wave scene of New York City with her bands Teenage Jesus and the Jerks and 8 Eyed Spy. But throughout the 80s and 90s she made major waves as a spoken word performer, actress, writer and maker of avant-garde music. Since the 90s Lunch has built on her reputation for challenging social commentary delivered with her creative and confrontational style. For this show Lunch will screen her film with Jasmine Hurst called Artists, Depression, Anxiety & Rage.

Thursday | 09.04
What: Slow Pulp w/She’s Green
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Madison, Wisconsin’s Slow Pulp headlines this show with its charming blend of pastoral Americana and shoegaze. Its 2020 album Moveys (which got a major re-issue this year with live tracks) is brimming with hazy melodies and introspective lyrics that pair with a sound that might also be described as psychedelic slowcore. She’s Green from Minneapolis is a fitting opener for this show with its tranquil dream pop and slowly-unfurling dynamics. Its own soundscape is more gossamer in tone and texture with sparkling streams of tone that take on a vibrant warmth through a touch of fuzz tone. The band’s new EP Chrysalis sounds like a missing link between Slowdive and Letting Up Despite Great Faults.

Friday and Saturday | 09.05-09.06
What: Colorado Goth Fest
When: 6 pm
Where: The Pearl
Why: In its tenth iteration Colorado Goth Fest is split between two nights at The Pearl fka The Mercury Cafe. The first night kicks off with sets from dance-industrial revolutionaries Church Fire, electro-industrial project Clockwork Echo, synth pop band Cruel Mourning, darkwave/prog adjacent group Future Club from Albuquerque and synthwave outfit Tetrakroma Saturday night is headlined by influential U.K. post-punk/death rockers Ausgang after performances from premier deathrock/post-punk/New Wave hometown heroes Plague Garden, horror punkers America’s Most Haunted, Seattle-based Goth rock band Eve’s Black Heart and Xmal Deutschland-esque, dark post-punk band Funeral Process hailing from Albuquerque.

Plague Garden in 2023, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 09.06
What: Japanese Breakfast w/Ginger Root
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: The fourth Japanese Breakfast album For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women) was, according to a piece in Stereogum, inspired in part by Michelle Zauner’s reading of a John Cheever short story collection and thus the title and its almost archaic literary pretensions, tongue firmly in cheek. The sounds are a little softer in some of the vocal inflections but the songwriting is just as finely crafted with the sounds balancing the organic, the atmospheric and the textural perfectly with the usual expansion of the sound palette. Elegant piano figures grace the songs like something out of a late 80s Talk Talk record and on songs like “Honey Water” you can hear Zauner stretching as an artist into ambitious sonic territory with the instrumentation soaring as high as it did on Soft Sounds From Another Planet (2017). And yet this set of songs seems very grounded and personal as well.

Saturday | 09.06
What: Slow Teeth w/The Milk Blossoms and Nina de Freitas
When: 7
Where: Better Barnum Animal Center
Why: Slow Teeth is a shoegaze-adjacent indie folk band from Durham, North Carolina whose 2025 album I simmers with soaring vocals and cinematic soundscapes in a post-rock mode. Nina de Freitas’ husky and soulful vocals lend her delicate guitar work and psychologically insightful lyrics an emotional power that hits you unexpectedly as her songs progress. In her music you hear a touch of blues, jazz and R&B but all channeled through a more sonically expansive creative lens. The Milk Blossoms have been crafting their most heart-searing and experimental music thus far with its new songs not yet on a record. The stories speak to the exploration of the ghosts that haunt our waking memories from which we can’t escape into a flight of imagination except to use our creativity to alleviate some of the worst emotional pain of our lives. The music is masterfully arranged and orchestrated to really express that shadow work in real time making the songs both unforgettable and deeply affecting.

W-Th | 09.10–09.11
What: Ani DiFranco w/Tune-Yards
When: 6
Where: Chautauqua Auditorium
Why: Ani DiFranco is the popular and influential alternative folk artist whose early DIY ethic was rooted in the same values as punk and her spirited performances garnered her a cult following long before any labels came sniffing around. Selling albums out of the trunk of her car after shows and the like. DiFranco’s own Righteous Babe Records imprint she launched in 1989 at age 19, showing more initiative than a lot of young artists. 20 albums and thirty-some years later DiFranco is still playing high energy, charismatic shows with wit and thoughtfulness. Opening the show is art pop duo Tune-Yards. The latter first made waves for its innovative use of loops and transforming the use of vocals and ukulele into almost a samples-based songwriting approach so that a Tune-Yards song with Merrill Garbus’ soulful and layered vocals lending an R&B flavor with a touch of psychedelia. In 2025 Tune-Yards released its first record in four years with Better Dreaming. The record is an attempt to dive into deep focus in an age of distractions in the face of fascism and to deliver uniqueness and joy when a lot of what is being fostered is perilous conformity and destruction. The unconventional rhythms and melodies going into the album and its emotional honesty make a solid case for an effort in at least turning the internal tides against despair which is where it needs to start.

Bellhoss at Sarahfest 2024, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 09.13
What: Sarah Fest: Sunstoney, Machetè Mouth, Soy Celesté, Bellhoss, Fair Elle, DJ sets by Mis/s Flowers and clexstial 10
When: 10AM into the evening
Where: Manos Sagrados
Why: The femme-forward DIY music festival Sarah Fest is taking place for its second year but moving operations to Manos Sagrados in downtown Aurora. The lineup is no less noteworthy. The whole affair begins with workshops during the day and food trucks, vendors, tattoos, yoga, tarot and a size-inclusive clothing swap will be part of the event. Sunstoney’s bedroom/dream pop sound is soul-inflected and like the kind of music that would be perfect for modern, late night, roller skating. Machetè Mouth doesn’t fit into a genre box but Elise’s powerful and emotionally rich vocals imbue its hybrid of dream pop, blues, synth pop and R&B with a commanding energy that is vulnerable, vibrant and inviting. Soy Celesté is a punk artist whose lyrics are filled with a spirit of personal liberation that speak powerfully to the oppression of culture and toxic relationships of all varieties. Bellhoss writes the kind of indie rock that sounds like it came out of a youth spent listening to pop punk songs about heartbreak and the more poetic, Americana-tinged indie music like Rilo Kiley that sketches out the granular details of lingering melancholia but delivered with a defiant exuberance. Fair Elle is a singer-songwriter whose luminous R&B songs sound like anthems to overcoming soul searing heartsickness by discovering some forgotten lightness within oneself.

The Picture Tour in 2024, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 09.13
What: Owosso and The Picture Tour
When: 3
Where: Mutiny Information Cafe
Why: Owosso includes former O’er the Ramparts and Magic Mice member Aaron Betcher who is curating some of these afternoon shows at Mutiny Information Cafe since March pairing bands that might not be much alike but should be playing together. Owosso is like a combination of Guided By Voices-inflected noise rock and DC post-punk. The Picture Tour is the project fronted by former Emerald Siam guitarist and The Bedsit Infamy songwriter/producer/multi-instrumentalist Billy Armijo. For this band he is able to unfurl the shoegaze and moody-post-punk fusion that has been at the root of his more rock-oriented sound but informed by his gift for hooks and pop songcraft.

Saturday | 09.13
What: Circling Girl album release w/Genevieve Libien and Look at Fiona
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Denver-based dream pop group Circling Girl is celebrating the release of its latest album this night. Its intertwining, melodious guitar work and ethereal tones are reminiscent of an unlikely fusion of Throwing Muses, Lush and The Sundays but with songwriting and structures more in line with more modern indie rock blending of aesthetics and the songs sound like they were worked out on acoustic instruments to lock in naturally complementary dynamics. Look at Fiona is one of the few Denver bands in the shoegaze realm that seems to have studied how classic bands like Slowdive and Pale Saints sculpted soundscapes into the shapes of songs to get lost within and swept away by and then injected it with their own idiosyncratic sensibilities.

Saturday | 09.13
What: Indie 102.3’s Indieverse OK Go w/Dehd, Bartees Strange, Dead Pioneers, Pink Fuzz
When: 4
Where: Levitt Pavilion
Why: Denver’s indie music radio station Indie 102.3 is having this sort of capstone event at Levitt Pavilion to close out the summer. Headlining is the renowned, Chicago (now based out of L.A.) rock band OK Go. The group endeared itself to fans of early 2000s indie rock with its earnest and fresh melding of Kinks-esque Mod pop and high energy power pop. Its eccentric and elaborate music videos helped to popularize the band in an organic way that predated “going viral” in the way of social media marketing since the early 2010s. OK Go seems to embrace its eccentricity and its presentation and live shows invite the audience to do the same and have fun along with them. In April 2025 the group released its first album in eleven years with And the Adjacent Possible. Also on the bill is post-punk band Dehd (also from Chicago), soul-inflected, experimental indie pop genius Bartees Strange, politically-charged punk ragers Dead Pioneers and psychedelic stoner rock trio Pink Fuzz.

Saturday | 09.13
What: The Milk Blossoms w/Holy Garden District and Babelshack
When: 8:30
Where: The Broadway Roxy (free and all ages)
Why: Holy Garden District is an instrumental rock band including producer and musician Ben Clary based out of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Think something like a post-rock late 70s Genesis but imbued with pastoral aesthetics and an undeniably haunted quality that courses though its often gentle, glimmering and moody compositions. Babelshack sounds like they listened to a lot of 90s grunge, the better stuff like Mudhoney and the more post-punk and garage rock end of that like Gas Huffer and Love Battery. The Milk Blossoms close out the night with its deeply affecting songs with vivid storytelling and memorable melodies that convey a rare emotional complexity that upon repeated listens opens up depths of feeling and poetic expression of the nuances of human experience that may not have been immediately obvious the first time or three hearing the music and experiencing it live.

Saturday | 09.13
What: Deftones w/IDLES and The Barbarians of California
When: 5:30
Where: Ball Arena
Why: Deftones are one of the most popular bands in modern heavy music. But the group switched gears in a major way with its 2000 classic album White Pony when the music took on a more soundscape-y feel and was more like a heavy shoegaze sound before that fully became a thing a decade or so later. On subsequent albums the band continued experimenting and couldn’t safely be pigeonholed in terms of genre, a good place to be if you’re a band that doesn’t want to get bored as the years go on. One of the opening acts IDLES is indisputably the most popular post-punk band of the current wave of that thing out of the UK. The group’s songs are informed by a compassionate and working class ethos but the live show is a barn burner with Joe Talbot relating heartbreaking and life-affirming stories in the songs that hit with a vulnerable immediacy that has endeared the band to increasingly larger audience since the group began touring small clubs pre-pandemic. Embracing a critique of white privilege, the cruelty of traditional masculinity and an examination of class and support for immigrant communities, IDLES minces no words and does so with a spirited delivery.

Fred Frith and Janet Feder, photo courtesy the artists

Tuesday | 09.16
What: Janet Feder and Fred Frith
When: 6
Where: Bug Theater
Why: Janet Feder is considered one of the world’s most inventive and innovative guitarists and she has been a fixture of Denver’s local avant-garde/experimental music scene for decades as a musician, songwriter and educator. Her prepared guitar technique has yielded a sound like a miniature orchestra of sounds, textures and rhythms. Feder grew up playing music in a more traditional style as a guitarist including folk and rock styles but discovered a new world of technique and creative outlet upon witnessing a Thinking Plague show and seeing Mike Johnson and the band going beyond mere progressive rock to something that challenged even what that could sound like. From there Feder became part of the Denver avant-garde as a respected artist in her own right. The guitarist has several albums to her name going back to the mid-90s including collaborative albums with the likes of Mighty Fine Productions head and sound engineer/multi-instrumentalist Colin Bricker, composer Paul Fowler and the legendary Fred Frith. The latter was a founding member of Henry Cow, one of the leading lights of the “Rock in opposition” movement turning convention on its head. His list of collaborations are lengthy and include working with and/or contributing to the works of The Residents, Jad Fair, John Zorn, Brian Eno, Bill Laswell, Robert Wyatt and Mike Patton. In 2006 Feder and Frith released an album called Ironic universe that showcased their chemistry as high level practitioners of improvisation and imaginative musicianship.

In 2017 Frith and Feder performed at show at the studio space for Mighty Fine Productions and recreated the magic of that collaborative album while hinting at further refinements in their technique developed during the intervening years. On September 16, 2025 the two guitarists perform live again at The Bug Theater in Denver for another display of left field musical creativity and practice courtesy Creative Music Works.

Listen to our interview with Janet Feder on Bandcamp.

Wednesday | 09.17
What: Sextile w/Automatic and Mick Jeets
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station Perplexiplex
Why: Early on, Los Angeles-based band Sextile had more of a shoegaze-adjacent post-punk sound that swung more moody and dark by the end of the 2010s. But by the time of its 2023 album Push the influences on the group’s sound were clearly 90s Big Beat, 2000s deep house and dance-infused ambient music of the 2010s and 2020s. The 2025 album yes, please delves further into the kinds of aesthetic that would have been entirely welcome in underground raves of the past decade and a half as well with expertly crafted, kinetic beats like a more psychedelic form of gabber.

Thursday | 09.18
What: The Rapture
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: The Rapture were one of the early groups out of what was called then and retrospectively as the post-punk revival. But The Rapture’s core sound was something more experimental and while undeniably creating infectious dance grooves indulged in a gloriously disorienting noisiness. Like they took inspiration from the more wild edges of what The Gang of Four was doing on its first four records. Live the band also had an unhinged energy that delivered at what the records merely hinted at, securing The Rapture as one of the great live acts of the 2000s. Its singles like “House of Jealous Lovers” and the title track to the 2003 album Echoes are bonafide classics of post-punk. Not so long ago it was assumed The Rapture was completely defunct but in 2025 singer and guitarist Luke Jenner announced The Rapture would be doing a series of live dates even without longtime members Vito Roccoforte and Gabriel Andruzzi and this is your chance to see the new incarnation.

Friday | 09.19
What: Everclear Sparkle and Fade 30th Anniversary Tour w/Local H and Sponge
When: 6:30
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Everclear’s second album Sparkle and Fade (1995) broke the band to the mainstream with the single “Santa Monica.” At a time when the alternative rock wave was breaking and fading into relative irrelevance, the spirited performances on the album, its undeniable hooks and lyrics that were passionate yet vulnerable meant the band would survive the then burgeoning backlash in mainstream culture to “alternative rock.” Singer and songwriter Art Alexakis during interviews came across as such a genuine and thoughtful person it added a dimension to the music the revealed that source of the pain, perseverance and sensitivity in the songwriting transcended obvious commercial appeal. As with tours in recent years Everclear is bringing along other noteworthy bands of the 90s and this time out peers like Local H and Sponge who came up around the same time as Everclear and who probably toured the same circuits in the early days and well into the 90s so the spirit of camaraderie will probably permeate the show.

Friday and Saturday | 09.19 and 09.20
What: The Federal Theater Grand Opening
When: 7 Friday 6 Saturday
Where: The Federal Theater
Why: The Federal Theater re-opens with two free shows (with registration) this weekend with local heavy hitters in psychedelic rock and punk both Friday and Saturday. Izcalli and Los Mocochetes grace the stage on Friday night with hard rock and Chica-inflected psychedelia. Cobranoid’s hardcore and thrash infusion alongside the punk of Clusterfux, The Pitch Invasion and Vitrify bring the fire on Saturday.

Saturday | 09.20
What: Hooper and Dulled Arrows
When: 3
Where: Mutiny Information Cafe
Why: Hooper is the kind of band that formed over a decade ago before the emo and melodic hardcore fusion came back into vogue and so its sound is not fully grounded in either and has touches of Americana in the mix. Some nice shimmer in the rhythmic guitar leads like its own taste in emo was more in the realm of Hum and Sunny Day Real Estate. Dulled Arrows come out of a similar realm of local post-hardcore with a lineup that includes former Ghost Buffalo and Jagtown musician Tom Ventura.

Saturday | 09.20
What: B.E.E.F. LLC, Emmanuel Looney, Modern Devotion and Staggered Hook
When: 7
Where: Pablo’s (East Colfax location)
Why: All forward thinking, richly conceived experimental electronic projects in the realms of industrial techno and gabber.

Saturday | 09.20
What: Dildox (Los Angeles), Deth Rali, Plague Garden and As In Heaven As in Hell
When: 7
Where: The Crypt
Why: Dildox is an industrial post-punk act from Los Angeles whose immersive darkwave dance sound is reminiscent of early, electroclash Ladytron and early ADULT. Deth Rali is a psychedelic, glam rock post-punk band from Denver with a flair for the performance art-adjacent on stage presence with costumes. Plague Garden is probably Denver’s best deathrock band with rich New Wave and industrial synth soundscapes and commanding vocals. As In Heaven As In Hell is the project of John Bueno who used to be in punk bands and was one of the great local comics artists but with this he straddles the line between noise, industrial post-punk and dark synthwave.

Saturday | 09.20
What: Hibou w/Corsicana
When: 7
Where: Better Barnum Animal Center
Why: Hibou used to be based out of Seattle but now hails from the South of France and his new album It Seems To Me (2025) sounds like a complete fusion of his early bedroom pop material, chillwave and some kind of immersive ambient dream pop of the moment now. Corsicana is on the more delicate end of shoegaze with some roots in more indie folk sounds and sensibilities and chamber pop aesthetics.

Sunday | 09.21
What: Jillith Fair
When: 6
Where: Elaine Wolf Theater 350 S. Dahlia
Why: This showcase benefit Jill Sobule’s It Was a Good Life Foundation put together by Doug Gertner and Tim Campbell, hosted by Ron Bostwick from 105.5 The Colorado Sound, performances from Hal Aqua, Liz Barnez, Rabbit Joe Black, Mollie O’Brien & Rich Moore, Carla Sciaky and Tony Trischka possible Harry Tuft health permitting. Sobule was the beloved singer-songwriter whose heyday was adjacent to that of the alternative rock era and her social commentary, thoughtful lyrics and unique songwriting garnered her a much-deserved cult following. Sobule passed away on May 1, 2025.

Monday | 09.22
What: Pulp
When: 7
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Pulp was a post-punk band from Sheffield influenced by that city’s experimental rock and pop scene of the 70s and 80s and outside of some perhaps local notoriety didn’t make many waves until its spectacular 1994 album His ‘n’ Hers and its great leap forward in songwriting and storytelling although the 1992 album Separations was plenty promising on its own. But from then on Pulp became a bit of a phenomenon in the Britpop world and its tales of working class British life struck a resonant chord beyond the band’s home country. 1995’s Different Class rendered Pulp legends of the time with heartbreaking portraits of class and love and yearning and striving for living a life with some meaning and inherent dignity and showing a way to have some of that for yourself against the odds. Then in 2002 and 2 later albums Pulp went on indefinite hiatus until 2025 with the release of its new album More. which hearkens back to the themes of its 90s records but updated for more adult, mature sensibilities but everyone that isn’t dead inside probably feels some of the same romantic yearnings, has the capacity to find a vital strand in their soul to cling onto when the world seems to horrible at times and Pulp’s music is now and always has been a bit about these eternal truths of the human spirit of wanting to feel the vitality of life and all the good things that come with that.

Wednesday | 09.24
What: Oracle Sisters w/Sabrina McCalla and Casey Jane
When: 7
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Oracle Sisters is a band based in Paris, France but its members are from elsewhere in Europe (Denmark, Northern Ireland and Finland) and its sound seems to tap into a sort of 1970s, hazy folk pop aesthetic with a dreamlike aspect to the backdrop of its expansive melodies. The songs on its new album Divinations are both introspective and outward looking. The music videos for the album are reminiscent of late 60s Godard films but more whimsical and as playful as the music. There is something inherently hopeful to the band’s songs that even when they wax melancholic it’s implied that the low times are as impermanent as anything else in life can be.

Thursday | 09.25
What: Sunday Mourners, Tassles, Critter and Sonic Chick
When: 7
Where: Squirm Gallery
Why: Sunday Mourners from Los Angeles bridge the gap between upbeat power pop and moody post-punk with a sound like they could have come out of the late 60s but would have seemed like aliens from another era. Tassles is a bedroom synth pop/lo-fi shoegaze artist from Denver whose 2025 album net worth is one of the most refreshingly unvarnished pieces of psychedelia-adjacent indie rock to have come out since chillwave first burst onto the scene eighteen years ago.

Thursday | 09.25
What: The Haunt w/Magic Whatever
When: 7
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Florida’s The Haunt recently released its new album New Addiction. The sounds somehow successfully blend glitchcore and grungy-punk so that it sounds simultaneously like an alt-pop band and something more in the realm of what might be called industrial garage rock. That the group is difficult to pin down to something we’ve heard done so often before is part of its appeal. Its ability to project vulnerability and ferocity simultaneously with lyrics about struggling with interpersonal adversity is a formula that has garnered the group a bit of a cult following.

Friday | 09.26
What: Cherry Spit, Replica City and Scorplings
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: If one were to make a short list of Denver’s best post-hardcore/post-punk/noise rock bands every one of these acts would be on it. Cherry Spit is a little more wild in its guitar gyrations and feverish energy and confrontation. Replica City a little more angular, a little more DC 90s, a little more Pacific Northwest 90s underground too. Scorplings dip into that mid-west, math-y, jangle-jagged guitar noise that waxes into left field psychedelia around the edges.

They Might Be Giants, photo by Jon Uleis

Friday and Saturday | 09.26 and 09.27
What: They Might Be Giants
When: 7
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: They Might Be Giants from Brooklyn, New York is one of the few acts to pre-date the alternative rock era of the early 90s and made it through the end of the decade and maintained some critical and commercial success through to the present. Its clever, catchy, eccentric and endlessly creative songwriting and approaches to songcraft have evolved over time and thus while there is a musical essence at the core of the band that comes from a spirit of playfulness and a capacity to write sensitively about difficult subjects and with an absurdist fervor when the occasion calls for it, you can expepct that every album will be an exploration of ideas that invite you along for the ride. And the live shows are a reflection of all of that and extravaganza of sights and sounds that is endearingly idiosyncratic.

Saturday | 09.27
What: Almanac Man and Burning Sister
When: 3
Where: Mutiny Information Cafe
Why: Almanac Man is the Denver band whose angular take on post-hardcore noise rock is reminiscent of both Bay Area and DC post-punk. Burning Sister sounds like it listens to a whole lot of White Hills, Bardo Pond and Sleep. Its “Lethe//Oblivion” single was mastered by Tad Doyle of Tad which says a whole lot for the roots of the band. Also a little like if you slowed down a fast Butthole Surfers song in moments for a bit of the group’s output.

Saturday | 09.27
What: Swans w/Little Annie & Paul Wallfisch
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Swans is the legendary New York City band that influenced generations of not just noise rock, post-punk, industrial and any band doing left field music that defies easy categorization and which challenges musical orthodoxy. Its early records were abrasive, punishing and inspired in their evocation of human spiritual agony and expression of resistance to the oppressive cultural environment of the 1980s. Later in the decade when the lineup had changed some and included former singer and multi-instrumentalist Jarboe. The latter brought an elegance of vocal expressiveness and a new realm of melodic transcendence that helped to broaden the appeal of the band’s instincts for experimenting in musical form and style. The band’s first run ended by the late 90s following the tour for its ambient/industrial masterpiece Soundtracks For the Blind (1996). But in 2010 Swans reconvened without Jarboe and has since released seven ambitious albums that expanded its avant-folk palette and rhythmic layers while maintaining lyrics of literary sophistication that have delved into mortality, spiritual struggles and commentary on the nature of human society and civilization. By the time of Leaving Meaning. (2019), Gira had changed the nature of the band with various members being part of future albums not unlike the members of a jazz band but for experimental rock. The latest record Birthing (2025) seems to take on themes of personal mythology in a simultaneously symbolic and vividly concrete and human terms. This is supposedly the group’s final full tour and along for this jaunt the opener if Little Annie & Paul Wallfisch. Little Annie is the musician that in the late 70s and early 80s was part of the NYC post-punk underground who has worked with the likes of Current 93, Coil and Nurse With Wound.

Saturday | 09.27
What: Slow Crush w/Faetooth and NVM
When: 6
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: On August 29, 2025 Belgian, heavy shoegaze band Slow Crush released its new album Thirst. Even more than its excellent previous releases the material for the new album showcases how the band perfectly balances dense atmospheres with engulfing melodies and weighty yet dynamic rhythms. Live the band’s sound is oceanic and uplifting with melodies that move through your body that only the type of shoegaze with a keen ear for low end can accomplish. Faetooth from Los Angeles also engages in the use of heaviness in its own “fairy doom” style that blurs lines between dream pop and gritty doom metal. Its album Labyrinthine (2025) is a record that seems to explore themes of beginnings, endings and the mysteries of transcending the usual experiences of mortal existence. Definitely for fans of SubRosa.

Saturday | 09.27
What: Big Wild w/Shallou
When: 8
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Big Wild is the stage name of Jackson Stell who cut his teeth making hip-hop beats as J Beatz in his early teens. But by the time he graduated from college and moved to Los Angeles he had cultivated an interest in electronic music, which of course these days is a natural progression from hip-hop beats in the modern era and a transition that seems to have suited his eclectic style. In August 2025 the new Big Wild album Wild Child dropped and revealed even more of the artist’s gift for updating a fusion of downtempo and the kind of dance music people like Fatboy Slim and Moby were bringing to wide audiences in the late 90s and early 2000s. But Wild Child adds a kind of smooth psychedelic mood to the music that gives it unique twist.

Saturday | 09.27
What: Samia w/Renny Conti
When: 7
Where: The Gothic Theatre
Why: Samia’s new album Bloodless (2025) has the hallmarks of her previous records with the exquisitely crafted guitar shimmer and texture and her warm melodic vocals delivering emotionally vivid lyrics and creative storytelling. But if you see any of the music videos and artwork you come to appreciate that the artist is going for something darker like she’s leaning into the edges of personal darkness and how that can haunt you like an “elevated horror” film. But the music doesn’t sound like that sort of thing and the contrast is what lends the new material a creative dimension that perhaps Samia hasn’t explored as a songwriter as much in the past.

Bonnie “Prince” Billy, photo by David Kasnic

Saturday and Sunday | 09.27 and 09.28
What: Bonnie “Prince” Billy w/Tim O’Brien and Jan Fabricius
When: 7
Where: Swallow Hill
Why: Will Oldham is one of America’s most acclaimed songwriters and performers whose musical curiosity spans decades and styles though he is perhaps most best known for his work in the realms of folk and country whether with his old project Palace (and its various monikers) or under his adopted name Bonnie “Prince” Billy. His catalog is prolific and you could start anywhere and find something worthwhile and fascinating. But his latest, The Purple Bird, though expressed in the language of bluegrass and a kind of left field Americana has some of the most poignant and pointed social commentary to be put on a record in 2025 or in recent years and that alone in the form of immediately accessible music is no mean feat.

Sunday | 09.28
What: Rico Nasty w/SadBoi
When: 7
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Rico Nasty was shifting away from her signature sugar trap sound with her 2022 album Las Ruinas with forays into post-punk and industrial in the mix. Her new album Lethal (2025) consolidates her creative impulses as an artist while incorporating noisier glitch pop sounds so that her trap beats don’t sound stuck in the late 2010s and early 2020s when that music was sounding stale. Rico Nasty and her producers have instead crafted an entrancing set of soundscapes perfectly suiting the rapper’s swagger-laden stories of self-affirmation and catharsis.

Monday | 09.29
What: CJ Boyd, Church Fire, Luke Leavitt and Quinn Boudeleaux
When: 8
Where: Glob
Why: Composer, bassist and ambient artist CJ Boyd spent roughly a decade on what he called the “InfiniTour” from 2008 playing DIY spaces, art galleries and other DIY situations with his experimental soundscapes and pastoral avant-folk songs as well as deep forays into non-Western music and abstract jazz. He is now on tour again (but not on a permanent basis) with a stop in Denver with old friends the industrial dance trio Church Fire, avant-garde funk/ambient composer Luke Leavitt and multi-media electronic soundtrack artist Quinn Boudeleaux.

Tuesday | 09.30
What: múm w/Mr. Silla
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf
Why: Icelandic dream pop experimentalists múm released its first album in 12 years, History of Silence on September 19, 2025. The album has a minimalist yet orchestrated feel like something that might be offered by an avant-garde chamber pop band. But the songs feel like the snapshots of dream-like meditations on love, yearning and affection. Its organic elements are perfectly melded with the more transcendently electronic harmonics that have been one of the band’s charms since its early days as well as unconventional sound sources and a sense of being welcome into emotionally intimate and tender psychological spaces. The live show is sure to reflect this and the group hasn’t been to the Denver area since playing the Gothic Theatre in 2007 so here’s your chance if you’re in town.

Mannequin Pussy, photo by Millicent Hailes

Tuesday | 09.30
What: Turnstile w/Mannequin Pussy, SPEED and Jane Remover
When: 6
Where: Denver Coliseum
Why: Turnstile is the Baltimore-based melodic hardcore band whose style has evolved so much from its early days that is new album Never Enough is practically a punk infused shoegaze albums with moments of ethereal dream pop. In that way it has been on a similar arc as bands like Nothing and Ceremony but with more extensive and obvious use of synth melodies to lend the music a touch of psychedelia. Mannequin Pussy from Philadelphia started the same year as Turnstile (2010) and more than likely crossed paths in the endless tracks of the underground American touring circuit. Its own raging punk rock and willingness to indulge atmospheric melodies inside indisputably cathartic songs against the trespasses of sexism, religious trauma and other forms of abuse one can be subjected to as a young woman. The group’s 2024 album I Got Heaven is a revelation of some of the most righteous invective recorded by a band of recent years paired with memorable hooks and melodies.

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond April 2025

clipping. perform at Larimer Lounge on April 27, 2025, photo by Daniel Topete

Tuesday | 04.01
What: Refused are Fucking Dead w/Quicksand and Cleaner
When: 7
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Sweden’s Refused are now in the middle of their farewell tour at a time when its music and professed politics are needed as the polar opposite of global fascism. The group pioneered subgenres of punk in the 90s culminating in the influential 1998 The Shape of Punk to Come that in a way presaged where punk and hardcore would go afterward even if Refused didn’t strictly innovate all of those styles of screamo, metalcore and the like. One of the top tier live acts of the past 30 years just go expecting greatness and be open to your expectations being exceeded if you haven’t seen the band before. Opening are NYC post-hardcore legends Quicksand whose own DNA in angular DC post-punk they have evolved into their own sound. Interestingly enough Quicksand formed shortly before Refused, split around the same time in the late 90s and re-formed in 2012 as well. Might be something in the universe but both are a welcome catharsis from the ambient dread and anxiety coursing through the world. Denver’s garage punk greats Cleaner will start things off which includes former and current members of Dirty Three and Muscle Beach.

Tuesday | 04.01
What: Hinds w/Mamalarky
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station
Why: Hinds are an indie rock band from Madrid, Spain that have garnered a bit of a following since coming to the attention of an international audience around 2014 with the release of its early singles. Its 2024 album Viva Hinds is a solid manifestation of the group’s eclectic stylistic leanings blending hearty garage rock, ethereal dream pop and charmingly lo-fi indiepop in the classic vein from the 80s and 90s. Opening the show is Mamalarky. The psychedelic pop band is also one that has hit upon its own sound that seems to have incorporated the kind of jazz and prog sounds one might expect out of a group of people that listen to a ton of Stereolab, library music and left field jazz. Its new record Hex Key is set to release on April 11, 2025 and for this show you’re more than likely to hear the new music and witness a band that has mastered the art of fusing transporting melodies with rhythms that sound assembled with choice stops and starts as if the people in the band are also very into Dilla and Palm.

The Bug Club, photo courtesy the artists

Tuesday | 04.01
What: Ducks Ltd. w/The Bug Club and Mainland Break
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Sure Ducks Ltd. sound like its members grew up on a steady diet of C86 and Sarah Records and adjacent bands like The Pastels, The Clean and Talulah Gosh. To the extent the group is derivative at least its songwriting is worthy of being in such company and worthy of the comparison for its exquisite guitar work and pop songcraft. The band’s 2024 album Harm’s Way built upon the significant virtues of its previous output with irresistible energy and shimmery melodies that take the band’s tales of struggle and maintaining in a world that is undeniably crumbling into a lesser version of an already flawed version of itself. The Bug Club is a Welsh band that is a great fit for this bill with its raucous and noisy garage pop about everyday life which makes the title of its 2024 album On the Intricate Inner Workings of the System seem appropriately cheeky but is it? Yes, but because the inner workings of the systems we all live in are impossible without the contributions of people you may never know or encounter or you’re one of those people who doesn’t get recognition while all the credit goes to phony visionary billionaires.

Wednesday | 04.02
What: Kraftwerk
When: 7
Where: Ellie Caulkins Opera House
Why: Kraftwerk helped to popularize electronics in popular music with its influential and oddly popular avant-garde albums of the 1970s and this tour the group celebrates 50 years of its landmark 1974 album Autobahn. The latter pushed Kraftwerk into an international and even mainstream audience when it got radio airplay well outside of the band’s home country of Germany. The album also marked the shift of Kraftwerk being more conscious of their look as a band and a conscious effort at incorporating pop music concepts into its songwriting. If you’re wondering if visually the show will be interesting, yes. Will it sound rich and immersive? At this venue yes as well. If you’ve not seen Kraftwerk before best to check them out before it’s too late.

Friday | 04.04
What: ALO w/Cris Jacobs Band https://cervantesmasterpiece.com/event/alo-w-cris-jacobs-band/cervantes-masterpiece-ballroom/denver-colorado/
When: 7
Where: Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom
Why: ALO aka Animal Liberation Orchestra celebrates the release of its new album Frames (Brushfire Records) with a show in Denver. The band has evolved considerably since its core formed in 1989 while Zach Gill, Steve Adamsn and Dan Lebowitz were in middle school as Django. Of course when you transition into high school and then into your 20s your musical tastes will develop and change particularly during that period when popular music was turned on its early when alternative rock exploded in 1991-1992. What is often missed is how jam band music as we know it now came together around that time as well with groups like Widespread Panic and Phish emerging from the 1980s with albums and tours proving that improvisational music with roots in jazz, progressive rock, funk, folk and psychedelia could be made accessible to a wide audience beyond Deadheads. ALO’s earlier albums had a more experimental bent clearly influenced by that realm of music but by the late 2000s the group seems to have honed in on crafting ambitious pop songs that benefit from masterful musicianship. The early singles from Frames confirm that ALO’s attention to production detail has certainly resulted in music that is expertly layered and imbued with an accessible immediacy that will be on full display at this show.

Saturday | 04.05
What: Barbara (album release) w/The Milk Blossoms and Flutter
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Denver’s Barbara is releasing its new album SO THIS IS LIVING. The album sounds like a much more original fusion of hazy 1970s folk rock and deserty shoegaze. The rhythms are seemingly as tapped into Bossa Nova as standard pop song time. The psychedelic soundscapes shift mood and mode seemingly effortlessly so that there is a surprising depth to the music in which the breathy vocals perfectly evoke a dreamlike perspective suiting the themes of the record. Lyrics about disillusionment and wanting to cast off shallow and associations and trying to remain connected to what feels most vital and meaningful in life make up a solid portion of the album like an existential crisis examined from various perspectives of the lived experience. It’s a pleasantly surprisingly ambitious and actualized work of songcraft with a deep resonance sonically and emotionally. So it’s only fitting that another band well versed in poetic evocation of vibrant emotional openness and experimental, atmospheric pop, The Milk Blossoms, are on the bill as well bringing a full set of radical vulnerability. Flutter opens the proceedings with its jangle-y power pop seemingly steeped in the sounds and sensibilities of the likes of Big Star, The Posies and Teenage Fanclub.

A Strange Happening, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 04.05
What: A Strange Happening, Steven Lee Lawson and El Dolor
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Club
Why: A Strange Happening, go expecting to see the live band equivalent of an old time radio play mixed with a gritty, indie Americana band with all of the more ambitious storytelling required in the songwriting. There is a touch of vaudeville to the live show and the music in the best since of the band’s style being eclectic and refreshingly not really cribbing the style of another band. Steven Lee Lawson is one of Denver’s best lyricists and songwriters on his own with his own flavor of Americana borne of maybe listening to a lot of Neil Young and Sparklehorse early in life but Lawson is also someone who honed his ear and musical instincts being around the record store world and his poetry by living for a time in rural Colorado and daring to follow his dreams as a songwriter to Portland where it didn’t take root but which pushed him to setting aside his gift for a time before coming back to it seemingly more creatively focused in recent years.

Sunday | 04.06
What: Greg Norton & Büddies w/Black Dots and Valdez
When: 5
Where: HQ
Why: Greg Norton is the bassist of Hüsker Dü and this show will be him and members of Drag the River doing some of his old band’s music with openers in melodic punk group Black Dots and the solo work of soon to be former In the Whale guitarist Nate Valdez as Valdez. This project is more moody singer-songwriter material that in its own way is equal in quality to his more well known punk project with broad vistas of sound in the songwriting.

Monday | 04.07
What: Bestial Mouths w/The Siren Project
When: 8
Where: The Crypt
Why: Bestial Mouths is the long-running project of Lynette Cerezo whose alchemical blend of electronic industrial soundscapes, ritualistic rhythms and psychedelic tribal vocals has yielded a career of cathartic music that serve as a scathing critique of the destructive aspects of our civilization and culture on the personal and the societal level. The music is dark but Cerezo’s commanding presence as a performer seems more life affirming than melancholic. The Siren Project has been playing mostly in and around Denver since 1998 but it has also been one of the best and most compelling bands in the Mile High City though pretty much sticking to the Goth underground. This show is a surprising foray into the more indie American underground rather than the more traditional lanes tread by the band. With the Siren Project think something like a dream pop band that is influenced equally by the likes of The Cure, Cocteau Twins and Skinny Puppy with strong vocals and rich electronic atmospherics.

Dead Boys circa 2017, photo by Jeff Fasano

Wednesday | 04.09
What: Dead Boys w/Burn Kit and King Rat
When: 6
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Dead Boys came about properly when punk was becoming a thing identifiable as such but have a leg in what might looking back seem like proto-punk. But after splintering off from the influential Rocket From the Tombs Dead Boys had a thrillingly scuzzy sound with poetic and borderline nihilistic lyrics that manifested perfectly on its 1977 debut album Young, Loud and Snotty and the 1978 follow up We Have Come For Your Children. Then the band split for many years as an active thing with lead singer Stiv Bators going on to form the also influential Gothic rock band Lords of the New Church before passing in 1990. Since 2017 Dead Boys have been back active with talk of a new album in the works although not without some controversy doing with A.I. for the vocals but this show will have a real live singer. King Rat is one of the classic Denver punk bands in the retro rock vein but with a passionate performance style and surprisingly literate lyrics for songs that often have to do with the usual rock and roll subjects.

Wednesday | 04.09
What: Archer Oh w/Couch Dog and Bruha
When: 7
Where: The Black Buzzard
Why: Archer Oh are a garage rock band originally from the Inland Empire but not in the vein that was popularized so much in the 2010s. If its new album The Internal Album is any gauge the group was more inspired by Gothic rock, 1960s pop, maybe The Walkmen and modern retro-garage bands like Shannon and the Clams. Meaning more than an average amount of reverb in the vocals and a willingness to head into distorted vocal territory in delivering its emotionally-charged songs.

Thursday | 04.10
What: Beth Gibbons w/Cass McCombs
When: 6:30
Where: The Paramount Theatre
Why: Beth Gibbons is the legendary singer of influential trip-hop band Portishead. With the latter Gibbons’ passionate, broadly expressive voice brought the soul and humanity to the group’s brilliantly ethereal music and a performance style that felt elemental as well. She sang that music with her entire being in the live setting. With her 2024 album Lives Outgrown Gibbons delivers an even more intimate sound with organic, acoustic sounds establishing the settings for her affecting songs of grief and loss. Anyone of a certain age gets to that part of their lives, particularly if you’re in the realm of creative types, that good friends and associates seem to pass away with alarming frequency and with a seeming cruelty of suddenness. It’s one of her most rewarding records of her long career and one imbued with a poignancy and compassion for human fragility. By all accounts the live performances of this music is as transporting and as emotionally cathartic as one might hope for.

Friday | 04.11
What: Bob Mould w/Craig Finn
When: 7
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Bob Mould has somehow had an entire career of solid songwriting and live performances from his early days with foundational early alternative rock/post-punk band Hüsker Dü to Sugar’s amped power pop to albums under his own name with the always inventive and creative guitar work and knack for commenting on American culture with great insight and making it somehow personally resonant. In 2025 Mould released the excellent Here We Go Crazy and cementing himself as an artist that still finds a corner of sound and rhythm that he hasn’t completely worn thin and something to say about life worth uttering.

Friday | 04.11
What: Black Ends w/Supreme Joy, Team Nonexistent and Head Slug
When: 8
Where: Squirm Gallery
Why: Seattle’s Black Ends gets compared to grunge a lot because of where they’re from and probably because of the choice use of distortion. But listen to the songs on any of their releases and you hear a band that seems to be deconstructing rock music a little, dips into psychedelic microwormholes of tone bending, discordance built into melodies and off center yet commanding vocals that lean into the swaying and torrent of the songs’s unconventional structures. Refreshingly different from bands trying to be in an established style. Supreme Joy is the great, post-punk, post-garage band from Denver, Head Slug is a hybrid of noise rock and abstract pop and Team Nonexistent although from Denver and not the PNW seems most rooted in the realm of 90s grunge and punk but also without coming off stale.

Salads and Sunbeams, photo courtesy the band

Saturday | April 12
What: Salads and Sunbeams album release w/Angel Band and Rabbit Fighter
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Club
Why: Into the Starless Night is the name of Salads and Sunbeams’ 2025 album out now on purple vinyl, digital download and likely on streaming platforms. The latter is stated that way because this band’s songwriting is steeped in an aesthetic and sensibilities of a more analog time and universe. Its warmth and lingering emotional coloring weave perfectly into its fine crafted melodies. Nathan Barsness has been in and around Denver in bands like the art punk pop band Insider Spider, the indiepop groups The Pseudo Dates, Games For May and Fingers of the Sun. All with fine releases along the way. But the new record is arguably the best set of music with which Barsness has been involved with along with his bandmates Suzi Allegra and Joshua Taylor. The songs all tell stories that embrace an adult version of the kind of fanciful whimsy and indulging the imagination as an attempt to hold on to the vulnerable and emotionally open aspect of one’s humanity. Its as much a work of literature as music. Angel Band sounds like it dropped right out of the C86 era with a stop in early 2000s Denver had they hung out with The Maybellines—so indiepop in the classic sense with the wonderful twee sensibilities that made so much of that late 80s and early 90s music on labels like Sarah Records and Slumberland so enduringly appealing—tender ballads and magnetically delicate melodies. Rabbit Fighter is similarly minded but its own songs have a bit more grit and rough edges in a way one might expect from the realm of all that great music one heard out of K Records and Kill Rock Stars.

Sunday | 04.13
What: Matt Andersen w/Julian Taylor
When: 6
Where: Swallow Hill
Why: Canadian blues musician Matt Andersen is touring ahead of the April 25 release of his new album The Hammer and the Rose. The title track is now available to check out as a single with a performance video that showcases Andersen’s emotional and tonal range as a songwriter. Andersen’s hearty vocals and energetic performance style is present on the album but the title single reveals Andersen’s level of nuance as a songwriter with vulnerable lyrics and command of atmosphere in the context of a song that transcends the style one might assume is his repertoire. While Andersen is no stranger to bringing a soulful tenderness to his vocals and musicianship, the new record’s level of sonic detail is impressive in how each element serves to make the songs memorable.

Tuesday | 04.15
What: Rosegarden Funeral Party w/Missing and Summore
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Rosegarden Funeral Party is Gothic post-punk band from Dallas that seems to weave in a much more tonally rich guitar sound than many of its peers seem to these days, borderline shoegaze. And with vibrant vocals reminiscent of a band out of the Los Angeles Paisley Underground with a similarly fearless incorporation of an eclectic palette of songwriting styles without losing a compelling moodiness. Missing from New Orleans struck a chord in its opening gigs with The Chameleons in 2024 and its album of the same year Nocturnalia represented well the depth of moody atmospheres and beautifully layered guitar work that elevated what might be solid post-punk band into something more epic in scope and creatively ambitious. Summore is a darkwave duo from Columbus, Ohio whose saturated synth tones and richly melodic vocals made its 2021 album Surfaces a standout of minimal synth dance pop.

Thursday | 04.17
What: Sean McConnell w/Amy Martin
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Sean McConnell is a veteran songwriter who has been a contributor and collaborator with the likes of Tim McGraw, Martina McBride and Rascal Flatts. But since 2000 he has released albums of his own. At the end of February 2025 McConnell offered his eleventh album Skin. These songs find the artist expanding his style while really opening up for a listen that is both bold and intimate as he reflects on his life as a musician and family man and the challenges and revelations that come about as you try to do your best in the role of the latter and finding new ways to grow as the former. McConnell’s attention to sonic subtlety as someone steeped in country and folk is there but in moments such as the fiery “Demolition Day,” McConnell comes off like one of those great power pop rock artists of old but imbued with a refreshing immediacy.

Saturday | 04.19
What: Pale Sun and The Picture Tour
When: 3
Where: Mutiny Information Cafe
Why: Pale Sun is the non plus ultra space rock and shoegaze band from Colorado that includes former members of Bright Channel and Space Team Electra. Theirs is a dense and emotionally charged sound that carries you along to emotional depths and sonic heights. Billy Armijo may joke about being dark and Goth and his work with The Picture Tour is steeped in the gloomy melodic atmospheric rock you’d expect from someone who spent some time in their youth honing their guitar sound and style binge listening to The Cure, My Bloody Valentine and on an edgy day The Jesus and Mary Chain. But Armijo has songwriting chops that he put to great use in his old pop band The Bedsit Infamy and refined to even greater effect with his current band with wonderfully melancholic melodies and robust guitar tone that more bands that are dipping into the more interesting realm of post-punk should try to emulate. Catch both bands at a rare time during the day in a venue that isn’t a dark dive bar or their ilk.

Mogwai at Ogden Theatre in 2017. Photo by Tom Murphy.

Sunday | 04.20
What: Mogwai w/Papa M
When: 7
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: The title of Mogwai’s new album The Bad Fire is a Glaswegian term for Hell. Sounds like the members of the band were going through a tough spell. But these days doesn’t it feel like we all are to varying degrees? Reliably the band’s epic soundscapes take us through a catharsis of these feelings with expansive melodic vistas. This time out the group includes even more vocals than before and the songs sound more ethereal and fragile, brighter even at their most menacing. Somehow more cinematic than recent albums and among the band’s most creatively daring mixing expert use of space and an almost sound design approach to the mixing of elements. Papa M is legendary musician David Pajo formerly of Slint, Gang of Four, Dead Child. Papa M’s catalog is so diverse that saying you can expect this or that seems unfair to Pajo’s immense talent as an artist and songwriter, just go expecting something excellent and different. His new album Great Escape Artist brings together Chrome-esque noisy guitar fugues and Eno-esque guitar acrobatics alongside Motorik beats.

Dead Pioneers, photo courtesy the artists

Sunday | 04.20
What: Dead Pioneers w/Cheap Perfume, SPELLS and I Am the Owl
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Dead Pioneers released its incendiary new album PO$T AMERICAN on April 11, 2025 and probably landed its members on a plane to a death camp in El Salvador. But that’s the risk you take when you write a noisy punk record that is beginning to end inspired invective against American exceptionalism built on a legacy of genocide and patriarchal racism. What was slavery after all but genocide directly fueling capitalism and practice for the modern capitalism we’ve been living under our whole lives? It’s astonishing the number of ways the band has found to educate and smash American myths and cherished notions built on the most flimsy of foundations. There’s a song called The Caucasity and while it contains a humorous message told in surrealistic and Alice Donut-esque fashion fitting the title it really does take down a far too prevalent phenomenon in American culture. So go expecting solidarity against everything that makes America kind of a terrible place too often but a place that can, we hope, improve. But wait the openers are also worth your time among some of Denver punk’s best as well as the fiery Colorado Springs political punk quartet Cheap Perfume, some of the best to ever do it.

The Backseat Lovers, photo by Allyson Lowry

Sunday and Monday | 04.20 and 04.21
What: The Backseat Lovers w/Jonny’s Day Out
When: 7
Where: The Fox Theatre
Why: The Backseat Lovers haven’t toured in a couple of years and make a two night stop at The Fox Theatre. The group from Provo, Utah first made a splash with audiences outside of their region with the release of their 2019 album When We Were Friends and breakout hit “Kilby Girl” (with its nod to the longest running all-ages and essentially DIY venue in SLC Kilby Court). Though the band is known for its live stage show its songs have an intimate quality with hushed melodies and vulnerable tenor and well orchestrated atmospheric elements that lend the perhaps more indie folk underpinnings of some of the songwriting an added dimension so that the band’s songs even in their occasional simplicity take on an epic quality that introspective musings often can in your own mind. The group hasn’t released an album since 2022’s Waiting to Spill so who can say what you’ll get to see at this show.

Tuesday | 04.22
What: Snooper, The Nervous, The Clue and Pink Lady Monster
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Nashville’s Snooper is a punk band in the sense that noisy weirdo eccentrics No Age are a punk band. Utilizing lo-fi electronics, frantic energy and surreal imagery the band sounds like a No Wave band had it discovered 2000s Memphis punk first and then went weird. The Nervous is a ferocious punk band in the thorny 90s vein that was decidedly and refreshingly not pop punk. Pink Lady Monster are definitely plugged into the No Wave, weirdo funk, jazz and noise pop thing with playfully imaginative lyrics and an undeniable groove even though the band’s music is gloriously yet elegantly splayed.

Wednesday | 04.23
What: Djo w/Post Animal
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Djo aka Joe Keery is perhaps more known to the world as an actor who has a recurring role on the hit science fiction series Stranger Things and was seen in the fifth seen of the TV series Fargo. Before his commitments to Stranger Things and acting generally took up more of his time and focus and need to be away from Chicago from 2019 onward, he was a member of psychedelic garage prog greats Post Animal. Keery released his first album as Djo Twenty Twenty in 2019. The music is more stripped down than what he did for Post Animal but it was clear Keery had maintained his ear for unconventional melody crafting with sounds that dip into non-Western psych and fuzzy stoner rock-inflected garage and richly realized synth-driven atmospheric passages like something out of a 1970s art rock record. In April 2025 Djo released his new album The Crux, an effort that showcased Keery’s gift for humorous couplets and self-aware observations. Post Animal got lumped in with a lot of the 2010s garage psych bands of that time but anyone that saw the band could tell there was something different about what they were doing and where they were coming from even if it wasn’t obvious. Something heavier, more rooted in hard rock with chops but also with the spontaneous energy that made that decades garage rock bands worth seeing. Though it’s been a few years since Post Animal’s most recent album it was announced that the group will be releasing its new album IRON on July 25. The record brought all six original members of the band together including Joe Keery and the lead single “Last Goodbye” sounds like the band has further evolved its sound into the realm of cosmic Americana. Expect a Post Animal headlining tour in fall 2025.

Thursday | 04.24
What: Spiritual Poison, Compactor, Maltreatment, Dead Hawk and Fauve at Glob
When: 7
Where: Glob
Why: Spiritual Poison is Ethan Lee McCarthy’s dark ambient project. Compactor is a New York based death industrial artist that uses outmoded machines and other objects to make uniquely unsettling sounds. Maltreatment is the solo project of Brandon Artus who is in Vermin Womb with McCarthy and it’s some harsh noise, tape manipulation and samples sound collage. Dead Hawk from Colorado Springs seems to create soundscapes to fit titles that are a poignant and pointed commentary on the destructive effects of late capitalism and social neglect. Fauve is probably not the French multimedia collective but a noise artist with connections the better end of the local metal scene.

The Velveteers, photo by Jason Thomas Geerin

Friday | 04.25
What: The Velveteers w/Tiny Tomboy and May Be Fern
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: The Velveteers are headed out for a couple of big dates with The Black Keys but headlining this hometown show at The Bluebird. The band that fuses heavy blues rock, psychedelia and electronic pop recently released A Million Knives that showcased the band’s evolving into that expanded palette of sounds and modes of expression. Tiny Tomboy recently released its own album 2025 Psychic Scar showcasing knack for combining grunge/noise pop grit and shoegaze-inflected pop songcraft. May Be Fern is a talented band that seems at home playing a variety of musical styles landing somewhere in both funk and indie rock.

Saturday | 04.26
What: Clementine Was Right w/The Milk Blossoms and Silver West
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Clementine Was Right sounds like a band that came up listening to a lot of alt-country and decided some of it was better than other aspects and discovered ample fodder for songwriting for turning memories of growing up in rural California into surreal poetry and with real immediacy that would be recognizable to anyone that came up under less than ideal circumstances. Didn’t most of us? All of us? The Milk Blossoms always sound like it came out of finding the tender places in the psyche after examining the experiences that seem to stick out in our minds for all manner of reasons and transforming those nuggets into ear worms to soothe the thorny spots in our brains. Silver West is a solo cosmic country and folk project from photographer and sound mixer Hali Webb.

Saturday | 04.26
What: Cryogeyser w/Flooding and Flesh Tape
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Los Angeles-based Cryogeyser has a sound that fits somewhere in the realm of desert-y dream pop and introspective dream pop though its live shows tend to feel more visceral. Its self-titled 2025 album finds the band heading into more sonically elevated territory in moments when it leans into the raw emotional lyrics more heavily and with elegantly crafted, spacious guitar work. Flooding is like if a dark folk band embraced black metal aesthetics to pair with songs about the collective trauma late capitalism is inflicting on everything and everyone. It’s elemental and enthralling stuff and as pointed as it is cathartic. Flesh Tape from Fort Collins is an amalgamation of noise rock and the shoegaze end of emo.

Saturday | 04.26
What: Jan Jelinek/Andrew Pekler w/sleepdial, virga delta & Mitch Smith
When: 7
Where: Aztlan Theater
Why: Jan Jelinek and Andrew Pekler are both composers from Berlin who in their separate endeavors have mastered their individual aesthetics of ambient and minimal techno. Both masterfully weave field recordings and processed samples into their soundscapes with inspired collages of sound to create greater emotional resonances. Denver’s sleepdial will put in a rare performance of abstract post-rock expressionism.

Sunday | 04.27
What: L.A. Witch w/DAIISTAR
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: L.A. Witch has never really been content to languish in a stylistic rut but it has always been able to maintain a sort of mystique with albums that explore themes through concepts that on the surface are easy to understand and reveal their complexity and richness the further you go in. The band’s new album DOGGOD was recorded in Paris rather than the band’s home city of Los Angeles and the songwriting isn’t short on the economical use of elements to craft expansive songs that has kept the band interesting all along. This time out the guitar lines are slinky and dark and trace new paths to an existential psychedelia via Krautrock-esque rhythms that easily go off the beaten path and back. In moments it sounds like if The Cure came up through garage rock and went weirder with that aesthetic. On this tour you also get to see Austin’s DAIISTAR whose melding of 60s psychedelic rock, Madchester and synth-infused space rock sets it apart from its peers with shades of BJM and Indian Jewelry on the edges of that sound.

Sunday | 04.27
What: clipping. w/Counterfeit Madison
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Los Angeles hip-hop experimentalists clipping. have truly been pushing the artform to new realms from the beginning. But its new album Dead Channel Sky sounds like it’s anticipating a renaissance of tapping into the ideas and hybrid styles inherent to the literary form of cyberpunk for inspiration. The touchstones are all over the record but taken to a new level. The title of the album alone is a clear nod to the iconic first sentence of William Gibson’s influential 1984 novel Neuromancer. There’s a song called “Mirrorshades pt. 2 (ft. Cartel Madras)” that is an obvious reference to Bruce Sterling’s 1986 landmark cyberpunk Mirrorshades anthology. And the other allusions are so on point for the present with some furious updates to big beat sounds that groups like Sextile and Jockstrap have been incorporating into their own music but clipping. is using these concepts and sounds to make a commentary on how the dystopian science fiction of another era while it never quite happened the way it was presented but that our world has manifested an even darker vision of the extreme corporate Libertarian nightmare that Gibson, Sterling, Lewis Shiner, Pat Cadigan, John Shirley, Rudy Rucker and he godfather of that movement Philip K. Dick had projected onto the future. With rapidfire rapping worthy of Busdriver, Dead Channel Sky finds clipping. delivering music even more relevant than when it was showing other hip-hop artists the way over a decade ago. Counterfeit Madison is a Chicago-based composer, pianist and soul singer whose forceful and heartfelt vocals and performances likely landed her on this bill.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor, photo by Tom Murphy

Monday | 04.28
What: Godspeed You! Black Emperor
When: 6
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Godspeed You! Black Emperor is of course the legendary and even foundational post-rock band from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. For those unaware the band’s music though generally functionally instrumental with some vocal samples included as part of the music has from its early days included social and political commentary into its album and song titles whether directly, poetically or creatively or all. Its latest album is 2024’s “NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD” which is more than likely a reference to the Palestinian genocide ongoing and the relative apathy or disregard the world powers have shown to halting those events and how the allowance of that genocide is a precursor to conflicts to come and a sign of the hollowing out of even the conceit of international law much less human rights. It’s a set of mournful pieces imbued with great delicacy of feeling that expresses the horrors and despair of the moment but indulges a moment of hope in the end.

Tuesday | 04.29
What: Korine, Johnny Dynamite & The Bloodsuckers and Uhl
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Philadelphia’s Korine has been offering a gorgeous fusion of shoegaze and synthpop that fans of M83 will appreciate. Its new album A Flame In The Dark is even more deep into the realm of chillwave. Live the band comes off as an especially sonically present and emotionally charged post-punk band if the members had come up on emo and discovered post-punk and its immediate pipeline to dream pop and shoegaze.

Wednesday | 04.30
What: Dummy w/Supreme Joy, Cherry Spit and Sun Swept
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Dummy from Los Angeles only has two albums out so far but both are examples of how you can completely embrace pop songcraft, experimental soundscaping and art concepts and make something mysterious and entrancing. Musically the group often remind one of what would have come next out of the indie underground of the 2000s had too many parts of that not been overshadowed by the glut of garage rock. Colorful melodies, layered rhythms not all steeped in the Western mode and a willingness to overlap retro sounds and modern production techniques. Maybe these people listened to a lot of Stereolab and Broadcast but also stuff like Zero Zero and Peaking Lights. If not the emotional and sonic resonances are there for fans of any of that. Supreme Joy is like a post-punk band if it came up through garage rock and Pavement. Cherry Spit is an explosive hurricane of noise rock. Sun Swept is the Denver-based cosmic ambient project of Sarah Christiansen.

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond August 2024

**Bikini Kill performs at Mission Ballroom on August 27, photo by Debi Del Grande**

Brotherhood of Machines in 2016, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 08.02
What: Brotherhood of Machines (album release), Seance, Snowswept and Aloe Static
When: 8/8:30
Where: Glob
Why: Brotherhood of Machines is the project of Tyler Knapp who has been crafting haunted experimental electronic music for years in Denver alone. You wouldn’t call his music ambient though adjacent, not beat driven dance music though those influences are present and not noise though aspects of his compositions incorporate what often sound like field or otherwise repurposed recordings. In July 2024 he released two albums Loops From Temple Familiarity and Unknown Set and is releasing one or both at this show. Also on the bill are the ethereal melodies and ambient soundscapes of Snowswept and Aloe Staic’s more glitch and texture post-IDM environmental moods.

Friday | 08.02
What: SUMAC w/Portrayal of Guilt and Trigger Object
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station
Why: In June SUMAC released its latest set of moody, evocative and crawling, post-metal improv The Healer. The trio channels intense passages of rhythm and sound into expressive bursts that sound like a death metal band discovered doom and utilized those musical modes to make a heavy post-hardcore designed to embody the deconstruction of the world and shedding of old ways and habits in favor of those more nurturing and open. Even more psychedelic than previous records, The Healer finds SUMAC charting new territories of of how heavy music can seem more immersive than merely monolithic. Portrayal of Guilt is the kind of hardcore band that enjoys drenching its aggressive sounds in caustic moods like it explored to the roots of he music that built where it had been and found the connections with the likes of St. Vitus, Celtic Frost and Possessed.

Saturday | 08.03
What: Alejandro Escovedo w/James Mastro
When: doors/dinner 6, show 9
Where: Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox
Why: Although Alejandro Escovedo is now rightly known as one of the great artists in modern roots rock and alt-country, he cut his teeth as a member of pioneering punk band The Nuns who were one of the two bands (including The Avengers) that opened for the Sex Pistols at the final live performance at Winterland in San Francisco in January 1978. In subsequent decades and in various bands and under his own name Escovedo has maintained more than a bit of that spirited, early punk and counterculture attitude including on his 2024 record Echo Dancing. Opener James Mastro also his his own unique place in punk and Americana as a member of The Richard Lloyd Group in his teens and later with a variety of music activities including in bands like The Health & Happiness Show. Mastro has been a staple of the rich NYC and Hoboken, NJ scenes and for this show he will be playing double bass in Escovedo’s band but prior to that he will perform liberally from his own 2024 record Dawn of a New Error with graced by the singer/songwriter’s warmly husky voice, expansive spirit and bright and vivid production courtesy engineer and mixer James Frazee and mastering by Greg Calbi.

Saturday | 08.03
What: Listening Lawn IV: Cholla, Blood Out w/Silt, Glissline, Combat Sport & DJ Ursa, Yonbre Netz and Sunswept
When: 5-8 pm
Where: Carpio Sanquinette Park
Why: These events happen in a semi-hidden pocket in Denver at a public park with a setting like ruins of an older Denver long neglected. The perfect setting to witness innovative electronic music in the realms of techno, ambient, IDM and free jazz.

“Horsegirl” in 2021, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 08.03
What: A Rally For Worker’s Rights: Vegan Gore, F1sh1fty, “Horsegirl,” and Clayton Kenney
When: 6-10 pm
Where: Cheeseman Park Pavilion
Why: This is an event to draw attention to collective efforts at promoting the interests of workers in one of the more expensive cities in America with the sprawl of that income inequality spreading everywhere. The musical portion of the gathering includes performances by techno/glitch/IDM artist Vegan Gore and weirdo performance art dream pop band “Horsegirl.”

Wednesday | 08.07
What: Nox Novacula w/Church Fire and Weathered Statues
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Seattle deathrock band Nox Novacular is touring in support of its newly released latest album Feed the Fire. Its brooding atmospheres and impassioned performances have made the quartet a band of choice for discerning fans of post-punk like a commanding mix of Xmal Deutchland and the spookier end of The Cramps. Weathered Status from Denver is cut from a similar cloth with clear roots in punk with standout basslines and haunted synths. Church Fire while not a post-punk band plays its electronic darkwave with an electrifying conviction.

Thursday | 08.08
What: Orville Peck w/Jaime Wyatt and Gold Star
When: 6
Where: The Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Orville Peck performs his 70s cowboy country style music masked like a nod to The Lone Ranger. His songs about love and heartbreak are well within the storytelling tradition of classic country but with Peck infusing the songwriting with a queer perspective his songs have another dimension of potential resonance with fans. His latest album Stampede finds Peck collaborating with the likes of Willie Nelson, Beck and Nathaniel Rateliff among others.

Thursday | 08.08
What: Urban Heat w/Gvllow and Delores Galore
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Austin’s Urban Heat makes an appearance in Denver just over a week before the release of its latest album The Tower. The darkwave trio has mastered a reinvention of 80s moody synthpop into expansive darkwave with commanding and soulful vocals. The group’s 2023 cover of Q. Lazzarus’ classic single “Goodbye Horses” brought to the song a tonal richness and expressed the fiery intensity underneath the surface of the original. Urban Heat’s earlier releases showcased the band’s gift for EBM beatmaking akin to what TR/ST and Kontravoid have been doing by fusing techno sensibilities with emotionally-charged pop songcraft. The singles from The Tower thus far have revealed the band has been evolving its use of space to great evocative effect.

Friday | 08.09
What: Keytar Fest: The Jinjas and Claudzilla
When: 8pm doors/9pm show
Where: 715 Club
Why: Claudzilla returns for the most recent edition of Keytar Fest, an event that showcases artists that make use of that most visually iconic of 1980s synthesizer technology. Claudzilla is a little like a lo-fi weirdo outsider avant-pop performance artist that is part personae part a manifestation of inner space. Like if Klaus Nomi made indie pop. The Jinjas are a synth and drums-driven rock band that use bass synth and keytar to build a sound like a retro synth pop band with a songwriting style that’s more modern and akin to something like The Blow and Trans Am gone more pop.

Friday | 08.09
What: Magic Sword w/ESSENGER and Church Fire https://tickets.meowwolf.com/events/denver/magic-sword/
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station
Why: Magic Sword is the costumed space night synthwave band from Boise, Idaho who sure do have a gimmick but its music speaks for itself with its saturated tones and science fiction epic themes like if Giorgio Moroder had been convinced to score the music for The Terminator, Children of Men or the latest Dune movies. Fresh off opening for Nox Novacula, Church Fire will be in good company here too with their own epic, emotionally vibrant, electronic dance ragers.

Plack Blague in 2023, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 08.09
What: Plack Blague w/God Save the Queens and Hex Cassette
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Plack Blague is the by now legendary industrial techno and performance artist whose on stage personal is like a leather daddy delivering queer themed bangers in a darkwave mode. Reliably entertaining and charismatic. So it’s only appropriate that God Dave the Queens is part of this show as a drag show with Noveli, Heavenly Powers, Neurotika Killz and Belle Fegore. Opening is the one man, occult EBM freakout and heavy darkwave dance music Hex Cassette who excels at provoking the audience with good-natured ribbing.

Sunday | 08.11
What: Sluice w/Fust and The Milk Blossoms
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Sluice aka Justin Edward Morris is an indie folk artist from Winston-Salem, North Carolina whose songs have a textured moodiness and freshness to them that gives the songwriter’s more pastoral musical impulses a tangible presence. His 2023 album Radial Gate is a deeply reflective set of seemingly autobiographical vignettes like a kinder, gentler Bill Callahan. Also on the bill is Durham, NC’s Fust whose music is similarly-minded in the mining personal history for creative illumination of everyday human experiences but in a more country rock mode. Opening the show are The Milk Blossoms whose tenderly rendered indie pop songs have some roots in folk but whose songs and performances have both a raw vulnerability and emotional intensity that powerfully manifest the group’s creatively poetic lyrics.

Monday | 08.12
What: Brijean w/Colloboh
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Brijean Murphy is known for her time serving as a percussionist for Mitski, Poolside and Toro Y Moi but this project with multi-instrumentalist producer Doug Stuart has resulted in entrancing, dance-music adjacent art pop. The saturated synths, ethereal vocals and layers of textured polyrhythms sound like something from a retrofuturist disco if the music being played dipped liberally into 70s disco and 2010s deep house. The duo’s new album Macro introduces even more organic percussion and bass to great effect marking the record as one of the most fascinating electronic pop releases of the year alongside that of Mount Kimbie’s The Sunset Violent.

Thursday | 08.15
What: Mac Sabbath w/Tejon Street Corner Thieves
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Mac Sabbath is celebrating 10 years of its absurd concept of doing parody covers of Black Sabbath songs with fast food-themed lyrics and fully committed stage costumes of characters not unlike some of the most well-known of McDonald’s characters. It’s a gimmick that the band has been able to sustain for a decade without admitting to being people other than the stage personae which is an accomplishment in itself in the modern era.

Friday | 08.16
What: Atmosphere w/Method Man & Redman, Deltron 3030, NOFUN! and Skratch Basitd
When: 5:30
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Atmosphere is of course the hip-hop duo from Minneapolis that were foundational figures in early alternative hip-hop and advocates for other underground artists in that style. Its eclectic and atmospheric beats and introspective lyrics are a consistently effective counterpoint to the group’s energetic and extroverted stage performances and Slug’s crowd interaction. The subject matter of the lyrics from Atmosphere have evolved in content and nuance over the years but always informed by a reflective and empathic sensibility paired with a sense of personal exploration of psychological and social issues. All along Slug and Ant have created a body of work with music that speaks to the artists’ innate curiosity and willingness to expand beyond where they’ve already been.

The Green Typewriters, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 08.16
What: The Green Typewriters, A Strange Happening and Van Death
When: 8
Where: Goosetown Tavern
Why: The Green Typewriters have become a bit of a psychedelic glam rock/indiepop mutant with their music but all for the better. The songwriting is as accessible and its sounds comforting yet mysterious and its live show colorful and friendly. A Strange Happening has always been a high concept indie rock band but its music has more of a raw and ragged Neil Young flavor recently.

Sunny Day Real Estate, photo from Subpop.com

Saturday | 08.17
What: Sunny Day Real Estate – Diary 30 year anniversary w/Kevin Devine
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Sunny Day Real Estate’s 1994 debut album Diary is one of the blueprints of the Midwest emo sound with its post-hardcore grit, raw emotional vocal style, quiet-loud dynamics and gritty melodies. Though from Seattle the band’s sound then and now was out of step with the grunge bands its label Sub Pop was known for championing. But the live band and its earnest and intense performances resonated with that realm of music and has had a lasting impact on pretty much all emo since as well as modern sheogaze and a whole swath of punk adjacent music in a way that is obvious from the moment you play a song from that first record and this show will celebrate what SDRE accomplished on Diary.

Saturday | 08.17
What: King Dunn (King Buzzo & Trevor Dunn) w/JD Pinkus
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: For this show King Dunn will perform the solo work of Buzz Osborne, the renowned guitarist and singer of Melvins with Trevor Dunn of Mr. Bungle fame on hand to provide bass duties as he did when Melvins toured as Melvins Lite a handful of years back. It’s the kind of left field move that Osborne seems to favor with Melvins always trying to do their tours a little differently and pushing into new territory in performance and songwriting. Osborne didn’t get to tour behind his 2020 solo album Gift of Sacrifice and there’s a good chance a lot of people haven’t seen the music from 2014’s This Machine Kills Artists live and the more acoustic guitar-driven songwriting from an artist perhaps most well known for some of the heaviest guitar rock in the modern era.

Barns Courtney, photo courtesy the artist

Tuesday | 08.20
What: The Struts w/Barns Courtney
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: The Struts are a band from the UK that rode that wave of retro glam rock revival that began in the early 2010s and garnered hit singles along the way. Luke Spiller early on having done his level best to tap into that Freddy Mercury sound. More recently the band has pivoted in a more pop-oriented style of songwriting channeled through the lens of 80s glam metal. Barns Courtney started his career in bands SleeperCell and more professionally with Dive Bella Dive until that band was hamstrung by label contracts. But those didn’t limit Courtney as a solo artist whose early singles caught the attention of audiences and garnered a recording contract. Fast forward to 2024, Courtney released his third full length Supernatural on July 19 for a record that showcases the songwriter’s commanding vocals and knack for crafting sonically rich rock songs of broad stylistic touchstones fusing acoustic and electric sounds. There is the sort of blues rock foundation there but Courtney injects the classic sounds with modern pop song sensibilities.

Tuesday | 08.20
What: Sheppard w/Seth Beamer
When: 7
Where: Moon Room at Summit Music Hall
Why: Sheppard is an indie pop trio from Brisbane, Australia that formed as a duo of siblings George and Amy Sheppard in 2009 but expanded to a six-piece by 2012 including their sister Emma on bass. In 2014 the group released its debut full-length Bombs Away and the record’s second single “Geronimo” became something of an international hit for its undeniably uplifting melodies and the kinds of song elements that invite participation among listeners including choruses pretty much anyone can sing and clap along rhythms, a hallmark of Sheppard’s songwriting in general. In 2023 the group relocated to Nashville and a year later issued its latest record Zora named for the now trio’s grandmother. It’s sounds are more atmospheric but the album is the kind of life-affirming/celebrating work that could be cloying but the songwriting finds Sheppard growing beyond where it has been before and its melodies undeniably infectious.

Wednesday | 08.21
What: Roselit Bone w/George Cessna and Fly Janet
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Portland, Oregon’s Roselit Bone writes darkly dramatic songs like a noir version of country music with deep mood and a touch of psychedelia. So it’s a good pairing to have George Cessna on the bill with his own thought-provoking, dusky country in its own existential and cosmic mode. Denver’s Fly Janet will bring the spooky surf-spaghetti Western Americana.

Thursday | 08.22
What: Car Microwave, The Milk Blossoms and mLady
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Kansas City-based indie folk band Car Microwave released its latest record Photo Album in 2023. Its delicately rendered musicianship and vulnerable vocals have an underlying emotional strength that gives the music a charmingly earnest quality reminiscent somehow of both 10,000 Maniacs and one of Mary Timony’s bands or even in moments of Throwing Muses. One might be tempted to call The Milk Blossoms and indie folk band but with it too there is a poetry to the lyrics that more than hint at a more experimental creativity and there is a passionate delivery of the music that imbues even its most beautifully fragile moments with a vibrant emotionality.

Friday | 08.23
What: Acidbat album release w/Lanx Borealis and Church Fire at Glob
When: 8
Where: Glob
Why: Acidbat aka Seth Ogden celebrates the release of his latest album Empty Vial (out on Witchcat records) at this show feature other Denver luminaries of electronic and dance music. The new record is a further evolution of Ogden’s sonically rich and playful, psychedelic techno and ambient compositions using almost if not entirely analog synth sources. Lanx Borealis creates what might be described as ambient pop at least as far as her 2024 EP Released It seems to reveal. But think something darker with more grit but imbued with a sense of the fanciful. Church Fire is the now legendary industrial dance band with strong political content that while polemical doesn’t lack for creativity and a healthy sense of fun and humor. It is cathartic music that doesn’t skimp on the intellectual and socially critical element either.

Friday | 08.23
What: Ghost Canyon Fest Night 1: Noun, Lung, BleakHeart, Ex Everything and Cherry Spit
When: 6
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Every night of Ghost Canyon Fest features some of the best weird and experimental rock and not-rock bands/artists operating today. This night kicks off with post-hardcore, thorny shoegaze locals Cherry Spit. Ex Everything will provide scathing and thrilling critiques of the prevailing order of things with its angular noise rock. BleakHeart’s dark, epic dream pop will provide the paradoxical chill and vibrant emotional expressions for the night. Lung’s fusion of punk, blues and classical sensibilities delivered with its raw energy will be a good pairing to come on the stage before Noun closes the night as the vehicle for former Screaming Females frontwoman Marissa Paternoster’s solo songwriting. The project dates to before Screaming Females formed in 2005 and over the years the songwriter has released Noun albums including the gritty and entrancing dream pop of the 2021 album Peace Meter.

Saturday | 08.24
What: Ghost Canyon Fest Matinee Show: Flaming Tongues Above, Lake Mary and Matt Talbot
When: 1
Where: Mutiny Information Cafe
Why: Flaming Tongues Above is the solo project of Amos Helvey who has been in various local bands over the years including American Culture, Destiny Bond and Angel Band. This is more a kind of cosmic bluegrass thing with exquisitely intricate musicianship. Lake Mary is the long-running project of Chaz Prymek whose compositions solo or with various collaborators is an embodiment of the spirit of improvisation and the pastoral sides of the American landscape and consciousness. Matt Talbot’s introspective, ambient slowcore minimalism is elegantly composed slices of tranquility in practice. Some may know him better as the lead singer and guitarist of Hum.

Saturday | 08.24
What: Ghost Canon Fest: Replica City, Stress Palace, Nightosphere, Ghostlike, Aseethe, Jaye Jayle, Wolf Eyes
When: 6
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Replica City is an angular post-punk band from Denver whose atmospheric shimmer contains as much urgency and menace. Stress Palace is a noise rock band from Kansas City, the kind with caustic and desperate vocals and seething, suspended guitar when it’s not gouging the air alongside pummeling percussion. Nightosphere also from KC is a darkly slowcore project that some may be tempted to call dream pop but it’s a little too gloomy and noisy for that and more for fans of the likes of Flooding and Unwound’s more atmospheric moments. Ghostlike hails from Lincoln, Nebraska and its dense drifts of tone are in the region of shoegaze but more slow-moving like a post-metal band with unconventional melodies. Aseethe’s brooding, crushing doom metal sounds like colossal weather patterns struggling with each other until the vocals come in and then it’s like a possessed person for an effect akin to Neurosis gone more grindcore. Its 2024 album The Cost is brimming with the purge of negative emotions transformed into transcendent heaviness. Jaye Jayle is the solo project of Young Widows’ Evan Patterson who brings to this project a sensibility of mystical, experimental, tribal folk. Wolf Eyes is of course the legendary noise improv band from Detroit who have been prolifically exploring the possibilities of the use of sound since 1996. Now a duo of Nate Young and John Olson Wolf Eyes has always bucked the perception of noise being just harsh noise and mere chaos for the sake of putting off normies. There is an odd accessibility to the work of Wolf Eyes that is more like an unpretentious art that live has always been compelling and unlike anything much else even of previous performances and thus more in the vein of early Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle.

Saturday | 08.24
What: Alvvays w/The Beths
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Something about Canadian pop band Alvvays has always set it apart from being just an indie pop band or shoegaze or psychedelic. Its melodies drift and warp in sometimes unpredictable directions off so that Alvvays consistently has a quality of unpredictability and inspired imperfection though its tone is coherent and entrancing. Out the gates with its self-titled debut the band started garnering a bit of a cult following for its emotionally rich vocals and layered, atmospheric guitar and poetic and sharply observed lyrics. The most recent Alvvays album Blue Rev proved that the quartet is as capable of captivating twee sounds as robust guitar rock and live something about the band seems to exude a kind of mystique most bands can’t muster.

Saturday | 08.24
What: Dad Bod w/Oruã and Totem Pocket
When: 5
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Dad Bod is a psychedelic pop band from Salt Lake City that seems steeped on folk rock of the 70s. Oruã is like if a great modern jazz band decided to start doing a garage rock version of krautrock and came off a little like a bedroom version of a psychedelic rock band from Texas but just a little weirder. Totem Pocket rides the line well between 2010’s psych rock and shoegaze.

Nina Nastasia, photo courtesy the artist

Sunday | 08.25
What: Ghost Canyon Fest: Animal Bite, Fainting Dreams, Bear Claw, Missouri Executive Order 44, Nina Nastasia and Young Widows
When: 6
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: The final night of Ghost Canyon Fest begins with a set from Casper, Wyoming’s mutant, heavy, psychedelic noise rock quartet Animal Bite. Fainting Dreams is now like the opposite image of its more dream pop beginnings, more thorny, more sonically pointed yet also moody and an intense release of tangled emotions. Bear Claw is a two bass and one drum set outfit from Chicago whose jagged and clipped dynamics range widely and akin to the likes of Mclusky and yet one gets the impression that at least one person in the band is into Failure. Missouri Executive Order 44 may or may not be based out of the Missouri side of Kansas City. But its post-hardcore, math-y riffs and mischievously surreal song titles suggest metalcore roots before the members discovered the Butthole Surfers.

Nina Nastasia is the critically acclaimed songwriter currently based in Seattle who grew up in Hollywood but moved to New York before making a name for herself as a gifted musical artist who worked throughout much of her career recording with Steve Albini. Due to years of abuse by her then partner, Nastasia left music in 2010 before returning to writing and releasing songs Her return to releasing music was the 2022 album Riderless Horse, an album or tender sounds and textures but whose subjects are a rich tapestry of the evocation of love, despair, loss, and finding moments of joy and humor in the great sprawl of life especially when you’ve been suppressing your creative gifts and now finding your vehicle of expression once again free of former limitations. The album charts the aftermath of the death of Nastasia’s former partner in 2020 and her own rediscovery of being able to write music with integrity after around a decade of finding herself unable to do so. It’s a record of rare beauty and deep personal insight that while bearing the hallmarks of going through periods of personal darkness ends up being an uplifting record and a declaration of self-empowerment. While writing and recording that record, Nastasia was simultaneously crafting the songs that would comprise the 2023 self-titled debut album by Jolie Laide, a duo with Nastasia and Jeff MacLeod. Both records have a noir quality in the nuance of emotional expression and entrancing moods that have a cinematic quality that one might compare favorably to Lana Del Rey and Cat Power.

Young Widows from Louisville, Kentucky formed following the dissolution of influential post-hardcore band Breather Resist. Young Widows’ own music was in a post-hardcore vein with roaring guitar sounds and crushing rhythms. But its musical ideas stretch out the sounds into unpredictable shapes a little more and its lyrics often depict the world as we know it, not inaccurately, as a place of great perils and challenges.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday | 08.26, 08.27 and 08.28
What: Khruangbin
When: 7 (each night)
Where: Mission Ballroom (08.26) and Red Rocks (08.27 and 08.28)
Why: Houston’s Khruangbin is a trio that may have absorbed the surf and garage psych influences that were shaping a good swath of rock music in the 2010s but all along the group also employed non-standard rhythms and elements of dub, funk and non-western musical forms into its sound. Its latest album A La Sala (2024) is more mellow than one might have expected and yet it’s perfectly in line with the energy Khruangbin has tapping into for years with the mood of a chill disco lounge in a retrofuturist cosmopolitan city near the beach.

Monday | 08.26
What: HIDE w/Mirrored Fatality, Bent and aeonexit
When: 7
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: HIDE is the industrial noise punk duo from Chicago that has been releasing some of the most pointed and cathartic music of the past several years critical of the worst aspects of our culture and civilization. Its live performances are confrontational and not for the faint of heart or the easily spooked. And just from the raw intensity of the the band especially vocalist Heather Gabel’s seeming embodiment of the collective outrage of the oppressed and of the abused world challenging the foundations of power. Bent is an industrial noise project from Colorado Springs with a similar aesthetic and ethos. Mirrored Fatality is a brilliant, darkwave industrial hyperpop duo that produces scathing yet danceable critiques of late capitalism and its corrosive effects on us all. And aeonexit has long been producing experimental electronic music in forms that are as cohesive as they are eclectic, as structured and as coherent as they are intuitive and amorphous. Its in the realm of noisy ambient but even at its most darkly menacing has a gentleness that renders the music inviting rather than forbidding.

Bikini Kill circa 1995-1996, photo by Lisa Darms

Tuesday | 08.27
What: Bikini Kill w/Sweeping Promises
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Bikini Kill is the legendary feminist punk band originally from Olympia, Washington that in part inspired the riot grrrl movement and a branch of third wave feminism. The group was part of a community of like-minded artists of various types and not just musical and often lost in the projected hype is how Bikini Kill’s music while a vehicle for an important perspective was also thrilling and exciting with performances that helped show other women how you could be a member of a powerful band or something else cool and important and reclaim and own your power regardless of your role in life without having it be contingent upon what a man would have to say or the conventional social mores of mainstream society with its baked in misogyny. That was an important message and example to set even when the band split in 1998 but oddly just as relevant when the band reconvened in 2019 at a time when the then president’s influence on society seemed to expose deep currents of American racism, misogyny and xenophobia. Bikini Kill had to cancel its 2020 tour for obvious reasons but making up for it at a time that feels like yet another too soon cultural crossroads for the USA.

Thursday | 08.29
What: Lamb of God & Mastodon w/Kerry King and Malevolence
When: 7
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Lamb of God formed in 1994 and Mastodon in 2000 in Richmond, Virginia and Atlanta, Georgia respectively. That was a time when metal other than Metallica and “nü metal” was largely relegated to the underground. But both groups evolved and built up a strong following that has all but broken into the mainstream. Lamb of God has generally written music in a groove metal vein but its 2022 album Omens leans into the harder-edged and at times sounds like its members have been influenced by crossover thrash with lyrics reflecting the state of the world seemingly on the edge of environmental collapse and the rise of global authoritarianism. The band has teased the release of a new album and you may hear some of the new material at this show. Mastodon tends to be more psychedelic and melodic in its sound with progressive rock structures and diversity in rhythms. Its own most recent album Hushed and Grim is like a anthology of haunted and spooky stories utilized to discuss personal struggle in a way accessible and more creative than something more straightforward. Kerry King is one of the former guitarists of Slayer who released his debut solo album From Hell I Rise in 2024.

Friday | 08.30
What: Alternative TentaclesFEST hosted by Jello Biafra: Tsunami Bomb, Kultur Shock, Wheelchair Sports Camp and Dead Pioneers
When: 6
Where: Levitt Pavilion
Why: Legendary record label Alternative Tentacles headed by former Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra is having a festival in Colorado featuring various acts on the label. Tsunami Bomb from Petaluma, California is a pop punk band with keyboards so it’s sound is decidedly different from other bands in that vein. Seattle’s Kultur Shock is a self-styled gypsy punk band that sounds more like Grazhdanskaya Oborona and its eclectic and experimental leanings than Gogol Bordello. Wheelchair Sports Camp is the great hip-hop group from Denver with the charismatic Kalyn Heffernan as the MC and contributors who are most often musicians with serious jazz chops. Dead Pioneers is a heavily political punk band from Denver but with a wry sense of humor that keeps the music from feeling didactic.

Friday | 08.30
What: Daniel Rachel Appearance Promoting Too Much Too Young: The 2Tone Records Story
When: 6 (start time)
Where: Tattered Cover (Colfax)
Why: Acclaimed and prolific writer and journalist Daniel Rachel saw the 2024 US publication of his 2023 book Too Much Too Young: The 2Tone Records Story, a non-fiction history of the influential but relatively short lived record label that helped launch modern ska into international consciousness and the careers of the likes of founders The Specials as well as The Selecter, Madness, The Beat and others. It is part oral history and part narrative and a compelling read particularly since Rachel was able to interview or find quotes from almost all of the major figures in the history of that music and movement. This event will be hosted by Queen City Sounds and Art writer and editor Tom Murphy whose own work has appeared in publications such as Westword, The Onion A.V. Club, Dagger Zine, Birdy, Denverse and Tidal HIFI.

Daniel Rachel, photo courtesy the author

Friday | 08.30
What: X
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Influential Los Angeles punk band X is doing one final tour in conjunction with the release of one final album so if you’ve ever wanted to see the pioneering poetry, punk and Americana band definitely make it to this show. They may swing back through before retiring the band but maybe not.

Friday | 08.30
What: Isadora Eden, Pill Joy and May Be Fern
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Dark dream pop band Isadora Eden has a rare headlining show at the Hi-Dive ahead of taking some time off to work on its next record. Also on the bill are all non-male funk band May Be Fern and the excellent slacker pop shoegaze group Pill Joy.

Pleasure Prince, photo courtesy the artists

Saturday | 8.31
What: Pleasure Prince w/Sunstoney, DeEt ta Jain
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Pleasure Prince is releasing its new album General Pallor at this show. The project is the duo of Lilly Scott and William Duncan whose eclectic background and musical chops prior to this project has yielded a strong body of creative work that blurs the line between avant-garde electronic music and ambient, techno, hip-hop, jazz, downtempo and dream pop. The new record further reveals the band’s knack for innovative songwriting with hazy atmospheres layered with those more vivid. As vocalists both Scott and Duncan complement each other well in delivering thoughtful lyrics and a deep sense of tranquility. The songs from the new album is like a fusion of neo soul and krautrock-flavored chillwave and a welcome respite from living in interesting times.

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond April 2024

**Sheer Mag performs at Hi-Dive on Monday, April 22, 2024, photo by Cecil Shang Whaley**

Tuesday | 04.02
What: Ministry w/Gary Numan and Front Line Assembly
When: 6
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Ministry has been enjoying a new chapter of its existence as a band and supposedly as a live act it has revamped, rediscovered and re-embraced a wide arc of its musical output. As pioneers of EBM and industrial metal Ministry has influenced generations of other artists with its imaginative soundscapes and joyfully scathing social critique. Perhaps influential to Ministry is synth people and rock artist Gary Numan who has had top 40 hits in the early 80s with the landmark synthpop hit “Cars” but whose creative vision of human relationships with each other and with technology while incorporating new methods of making music during the long course of his career has exerted an influence on a wide variety of artists. All synth pop bands today are part of his legacy as well as darkwave and synthwave. And live he’s still a compelling artist with an undeniable mystique. Opening are foundational EBM band Front Line Assembly whose Bill Leeb was an early member of Skinny Puppy with a long and impactful legacy in music all his own.

Friday | 04.05
What: Glue Man w/Total Cult and Tuff Bluff
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Glue Man is a punk band that is part of the “new wave of shitty heavy metal.” It must be assumed the latter is a bit of a joke the people in the band put on their Bandcamp page. Really they sound like guys who listened to a lot of JFA and Crucifucks and that’s no bad thing. Tuff Bluff is a power punk trio fronted by Sara Fischer who has been in more cool local punk bands than most people and whose songwriting is a vital fusion of garage rock and classic punk. Total Cult is the latest band from former Nicotine Fits members guitarist Nick Santa Maria and bassist Bryan Webb who have contributed to various noteworthy projects out of Colorado Springs over the years and when Nick was living in Denver for a bit he was also a member of Poison Rites. So Total Cult is not a cookie cutter punk band even if its songwriting components draw from familiar sounds and moods.

Five Iron Frenzy, photo courtesy Leanor Ortega-Till

Friday and Saturday | 04.05 and 04.06
What: Five Iron Frenzy with MXPX and The Ataris (04.05) and with The Swashbuckling Doctors, The Freeze Ups (Op Ivy cover band), DJ Tara 2 Tone and DJ Monkey Man (04.06)
When: 6:30 (04.05) and 6 (04.06)
Where: The Ogden Theatre (04.05) and Washington’s (04.06)
Why: Five Iron Frenzy is the rock and ska band that started in the mid-90s in Denver. The band has probably been dismissed as a “Christian ska” band by people who never actually listened to the music because there is a thoughtfulness, joy and personal insight into the songwriting that transcends genre and presumed belief systems. Five Iron Frenzy is a band that can poke fun at itself and address serious issues with humor without making a joke out of any of it. Rather it’s shows and music are a celebration of shared humanity and the preciousness and all too often precarious nature of life. On Friday night the band shares the stage with ska punk greats MXPX and pop punk stars The Ataris. On Saturday night in Fort Collins the group will perform extensively from its first three albums, a rarity in its live repertoire.

Dust City Opera, photo courtesy the artists

Saturday | 04.06 THIS SHOW HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED TO SEPT 7, 2024
What: Dust City Opera w/Avourneen
When: 7
Where: Swallow Hill
Why: Dust City Opera is a rock band from Albuquerque, New Mexico whose sound interweaves orchestral Americana, dark psychedelia and art pop into cinematic and literary songs filled with evocative tales of “sadness, madness and mayhem.” But within the group’s rich body of work there is a surreal sense of humor and humanity that reveals an empathy for the human condition and the characters and situations depicted in which listeners can identify aspects of their own experiences navigating our often physically and emotionally perilous world. Since it’s 2018 foundation, pick any of Dust City Opera’s albums from its 2019 debut album Heaven to 2022’s horror and science fiction themed Alien Summer record to the 2024 EP Cold Hands (released March 8 via Rexius Records) and you’ll hear imaginatively eclectic arrangements and vivid narratives from a band that seems fully realized even as it’s still relatively early in its career. There is a theatrical sensibility to the music that translates to the band’s live performances that fans of the likes of DeVotchKa and Beirut will appreciate.

The Crystal Method from the band’s Facebook

Friday | 04.12
What: The Crystal Method and Rabbit in the Moon
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Two giants of early American 90s electronic on one bill. The Crystal Method made waves with its 1997 debut album Vegas and its futuristic big beat sound that seemed like the soundtrack for a modern version of cyberpunk. Following the 2017 retirement from music of founding member Ken Jordan, The Crystal Method has become the solo project of Scott Kirkland. The 2022 album The Trip Out feels like a sequel to Vegas with similar sensibilities but even more of a hip-hop element in its sound. Rabbit in the Moon predates The Crystal Method by a year when it was founded in 1992 and quickly became part of the burgeoning American rave scene. Free associating house, trance, breakbeats and other musical styles into an entrancing whole, RITM has been an enduring fixture of American underground electronic music.

Friday | 04.12
What: Jux County play the Pretenders
When: 7
Where: Club 404
Why: Legendary “cowpunk” band Jux County will perform a rare show not of its own music but that of proto-alternative band The Pretenders and in addition to the obvious hits like “Brass in Pocket” and “My City Was Gone,” Jux will probably pull out some deep cuts for the show.

Saturday | 04.13
What: SPELLS, Church Fire, Dead Pioneers and Chap
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Garage punk band SPELLS is celebrating the release of its new album Past Our Prime. The title of the album is a bit on the nose because the members of the band are for the most part in their 40s but that’s how the band, risking a too self-aware outmoded expression, rolls. It’s a reliably insightful set of songs about life and aging and staying engaged with the act of living rather than simply existing even if culture and society suggest maybe you should spend your spare time in the evening watching re-runs of the modern equivalent of Matlock and maybe going on vacation to the same spots once or twice a year. Dead Pioneers puts some fiery lyrics into its own punk and Chap is a bit more on the twee emo end of punk in a way you might actually want to hear because that band too seems to have some cogent commentary on human existence. The band that will not be like the others beyond sheer feisty spirit is industrial dance trio Church Fire whose ferocious and heartfelt songs are corrosive to an ossified culture.

Sunday | 04.14
What: Andrés Cepeda
When: 6:30
Where: Paramount Theatre
Why: Andrés Cepeda is one of the most well known musical artists out of his home country of Columbia. A musician since an early age, Cepeda studied music in college and became the lead singer in Latin pop-rock group Poligamia throughout the 90s before pursuing a solo career by the end of that decade. Cepeda’s musical range and depth has garnered him both critical accolades and commercial success in Colombia with his 2001 album El Carpintero going quadruple platinum. He is a four-time winner of the Latin Grammys and his 2023 album Décimo Cuarto attained Gold certification. His emotionally rich and nuanced vocals and musicianship has made the artist a popular figure at home in a similar status as Shakira and Carlos Vives and he has been a judge on La Voz, the Colombian edition of The Voice for twelve seasons. In April 2024, Cepeda will embark on a North American tour of 19 dates including Carnegie Hall in NYC. Calling the string of dates the Tengo Ganas tour, Cepeda and his band will focus more on the pop, rock and electronic side of his songwriting than the more traditional and Balada style with which his name is often immediately associated.

Sunday | 04.14
What: Dancing Plague, Plague Garden and Alucienma
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Portland, Oregon-based coldwave project Dancing Plague released its latest album Elogium on March 22, 2024. The record is a further refinement of its synth-driven post-punk reminiscent of both Red Lorry Yellow Lorry and D.A.F.. Also on the bill is Denver’s Plague Garden whose style of post-punk fuses melodic death rock, New Wave synth melodies and emotionally refined and bold vocals.

Monday | 04.15
What: Julien-K w/Priest and Plague Garden
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Julien-K is a more EBM-inflected side project of industrial rock band Orgy. Priest is an enigmatic industrial band from Sweden given to stage theatrics like a group out of a cyberpunk novel of the 90s with a sound that seems to be a melodramatic brand of EBM. Plague Garden concludes its three date mini-tour of Denver this night and on measure promises to be the high point of the evening for more discerning ears.

Wednesday | 04.17
What: Meatbodies w/The Crooked Rugs
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Chad Ubovich has been a bit of a figure in the southern Californian garage and psychedelic rock scene having been a bass player for Mikal Cronin’s band and a touring member of Ty Segall’s live group. He’s also been a contributing member of Fuzz. But since 2014 he has forged his own musical identity with his project Meatbodies. The latter expanded beyond Ubovich’s musical foundations to make a kind of noisy and dreamlike music most fully realized on the 2024 album Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom where the band’s eclectic songwriting pulls you in withentrancing melodies and hypnotic motorik beats and fuzzy-hazy soundscapes that somehow taps into the cosmic psych prog realm of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard and Suicide, perhaps Wooden Shijps in a more playful mood.

The Carbon Diablo Ensemble, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 04.19
What: LEAF: Julia Edith Rigby, The Carbon Diablo Ensemble, Mickey Lenny & Nihil Coil and Diggers
When: 6:30
Where: Center For Musical Arts
Why: The Lafayette Electronic Arts Festival proper kicks off this night with an evening of audio-visual artists. Julia Edith Rigby incorporates viola, voice, video, field recordings and sculpture into her performances. The Carbon Diablo Ensemble is an improvisational experimental music collective comprised of Carbon Dioxide Orchestra and Diablo Montalban that will do a live remix of music for the 1902 film A Trip to the Moon directed by Georges Méliès including interactive visual elements, synths, Theremin and dry ice on a copper heart sculpture for a uniquely visceral and sonically engulfing performance. Mickey Lenny and Nihil Coil will combine avant-garde live composition with processed wind instruments and synths and combine that in interactive fashion with retrofuturist imagery. Diggers as manifested for this show will be Eric Barry Drasin and Sean Withers who will recontextualize media imagery and sounds to blur the line between interior and exterior awareness as an exploration of the mediated relationships in which we often find ourselves as a path to comprehend and deconstruct that dynamic.

Friday | 04.19
What: Traindodge w/Self Evident and Almanac Man
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Traindodge is a noise rock/post-hardcore band from Oklahoma City that has been offering up a unique style of its own more akin to the likes of Season To Risk and Shiner. In 2023 the group released its latest album The Alley Parade which synthesizes a power pop knack for melodic hooks and pummeling and caustic riffs. Denver-based Almanac Man is also on the bill and is on the verge of releasing its new record of contorted and propulsive, math-y noise rock in Terrain (due out May 14, 2024 on The Ghost is Clear). Think a DC post-hardcore band that came up in the midwest on a steady diet of Amphetamine Reptile and Touch and Go bands.

The Non-Renewed, photo courtesy the artists

Friday | 04.19
What: The Non-Renewed album release party w/mlady and May Be Fern
When: 7
Where: Town Hall Collaborative
Why: Denver-based, queer indie rock duo The Non-Renewed is celebrating the release of its self-titled debut album at this show. Meghan Mallon and Mellik Gorton were singers and songwriters in their own right before coming together as creative partners during the early days of the pandemic. The album was recorded by Judybelle Camangyan over two weeks when the producer/engineer also known as JB flew in from Los Angeles to help their college friend Mallon realize the 8 song record. The music is like a look back on a period that many Americans seem to have moved on from even if the early pandemic left an indelible mark on the lives and psyches of people worldwide with reverberations still felt deep inside us and after effects that seem mysterious until they’re traced back to the lingering impacts of the ways the early pandemic affected how we relate to one another, how we have lived and how we have had to learn to live differently. The album’s gentle rhythms and warm melodies make its themes of grief, heartbreak, loss of all kinds and resilience in the face of multiple stressors hitting all at once seem like experiences we can parse and handle with grace and dignity.

The Playground Ensemble in 2019, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 04.20
What: LEAF Day 2: jesterN, Playground Ensemble, Kevin Sweet, Paulus van Horne & FMSHAGGI at Center for Musical Arts
When: 6:30
Where: Center for Musical Arts
Why: jesterN repurposes found or “decontextualized” analog devices to explore the “connections between light and sound through installations and performances. So expect unique projection type visuals with equally unorthodox sound sources in synergistic fashion. The Playground Ensemble is one of Denver’s premier avant-garde so expect something unpredictable, creative and not short on elements of performance art. Kevin Sweet’s performance will incorporate generative sound and audio-reactive visuals. Paulus van Horne and FMSHAGGI will offer a performance exploring the concept called by visual and sound artist Brandon LaBelle calls “the lexicon of the mouth” utilizing drone, granular synthesis and computer voices and in this case coupled with the visual art sensibilities of the paired artists.

Saturday | 04.20
What: LOG. album release show w/Bolonium
When: 7
Where: The Mercury Cafe
Why: It might be misleading to say LOG. has been a musical institution for over two decades but the enigmatic band’s eclectic and experimental sounds and theatrical live shows have been part of the local scene since at least the 90s. Fans of the likes of Primus, Hamster Theater and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum will appreciate the weirdness and raw energy of LOG. Additionally the group has released its latest album Dumptruck Sayonara and is celebrating the release with this show sharing the bill with like-minded weirdos Bolonium. The record is brimming with undeniable pop hooks and angular post-punk rhythms that somehow hit as fluid and funky. Live you just don’t know what you’re in for because the band isn’t above injecting elements of industrial percussion and free jazz. And there’s not much like the band around which is recommendation enough.

Munly & The Lupercalians in 2013, photo by Tom Murphy

Sunday | 04.21
What: Munly & The Lupercalians w/Josephine Foster
When: 6
Where: Hi-DIve
Why: Munly & The Lupercalians is the experimental, Gothic Americana band of Jay Munly who is more often known these days as a member of Slim Cessna’s Auto Club. For this project the music is a little darker if drawing upon similar sound sources and its presentation is more like a pagan mystery cult. The songwriting builds upon where Munly has come from out of an underground folk scene and the Vaudeville Americana of Munly & Lee Lewis Harlots. Josephine Foster draws upon rustic music making methods and her albums sound spare and minimal with guitar and vocals but Foster’s songwriting weaves into her sounds aspects of environmental noises and textures one might expect from a live performance spent collecting field recordings.

Monday | 04.22
What: Sheer Mag w/Cleaner, Flora De La Luna and DJs Glimmer of Nope
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: When Sheer Mag emerged around 2014 it soon made a name for itself as a scrappy and commanding live act whose music completely knocked down barriers between punk spirit and raw power, power pop and classic hard rock. Singer Tina Halladay struck a uniquely commanding figure whose powerhouse voice and husky tunefulness brings to the music an immediate and accessible appeal. The group’s latest record Playing Favorites (2024) is a glorious fusion of garage punk and a youth having been subjected to classic rock like Thin Lizzy, Boston and Molly Hatchet and resenting it before finding in that music a valid foundation for songcraft and musicianship. And like many a Philly band, Sheer Mag has taken whatever its roots might be and made something utterly its own with one of the best live rock shows going.

Tuesday | 04.23
What: Bruce Hornsby and yMusic present BrhyM
When: 7
Where: Paramount Theatre
Why: yMusic is a chamber sextet from New York City that has released a handful of albums of original material but it has also toured with other artists and worked on collaborative music projects with the likes of Ben Folds. Bruce Hornsby is a respected, Grammy winning artist with decades of hits and musical accomplishment in his eclectic career including his 1980s run with Bruce Hornsby and The Range. But Hornsby has been a touring member of Grateful Dead, he’s written bluegrass music and jazz and now a collaborative art pop album with yMusic collectively known as BrhyM with the March 1, 2024 release of the album Deep Sea Vents. It’s a unique and ambitious set of songs that draw upon an architecture of classical music and musical ideas from a broad range of American music to craft strange and creative songs that seem like a story cycle you’d more expect to manifest as a cinematic work. Think something along the lines of Carla Bley working with They Might Be Giants and you have something of the vibe. This is a rare chance to see this set of musicians perform the music live on its current and who can say possibly only tour.

Thursday | 04.25
What: She Past Away w/Ultra Sunn and Hex Cassette
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: She Past Away is the great Turkish post-punk/darkwave band whose haunting vocals, electronic beats, icy synths and ethereal guitars are immediately reminiscent of The Cure and peers in modern post-punk, Molchat Doma. With lyrics in Turkish the duo has nevertheless garnered a cult following well outside of Turkey with music that resonates with a certain anxiety and weariness with a world that seems so precarious these days. Opening the show is Denver’s great, dark industrial dance phenomenon Hex Cassette whose theatrical menace is matched only by the raw exuberance and liberated spirit with which he performs and invites the audience to share in the joy of release. Also touring with She Past Away is the Belgian darkwave duo ULTRA SUNN who just released a new record called US. The group’s knack for percussive, electronic bass lines and haunted synth melodies are a perfect companion for its lyrics about personal struggles, disillusionment, integrity, resilience and love all manifest in dramatic and vivid form throughout the record’s nine songs. Fans of Nitzer Ebb and Covenant will definitely find a lot to appreciate with what ULTRA SUNN has to offer.

Friday | 04.26
What: LEAF: Mary Elias Letera, Moss Pig, Mr. Knobs
When: 9
Where: The End
Why: This second weekend of the live performances as part of the Lafayette Electronic Arts Festival includes sets from Mary Elias Letera, an intermedia artist, performer and software developer who utilizes light, sound and dance as part of her integrated creative works such as her 2023 piece “Eclipse.” Moss Pig is an all-hardware electronic live act comprised of SoLRkaT aka Coldfuture and Neptune Luau. Think of the music as a progression of the minimalist techno of the 2000s into more experimental territory evolving with each composition. Mr Knobs is an electro-acoustic trio that seems to produce a fusion of progressive pop, world music and New Age sensibilities.

Saturday | 04.27
What: Weep Wave, The Crooked Rugs, In Plain Air
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Seattle’s Weep Wave recently released its latest album Speck. The band’s music might be described as a complete synthesis of angular post-punk and psychedelic Krautrock style that fans of JOHN and Meatbodies will appreciate. Fort Collins psych band The Crooked Rugs opened for the latter recently and proved themselves prime purveyors of an arty, poetic and hypnotic atmospheric rock of its own.

Sunday | 04.28
What: Cindy Lee w/Freak Heat Waves and Pink Lady Monster
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Cindy Lee is the long-running project of Patrick Flegel, former singer and guitarist in cult experimental guitar band Women. Cindy Lee’s output has been decidedly more conceptual in approach to songwriting, sound palette and performance. Its latest album, the sprawling Diamond Jubilee, is purportedly the swan song for the band or at least this run of shows is billed as a farewell tour. The triple LP is a parallel universe psychedelic folk garage lo fi journey through life in the modern era and all its struggles, romance, idealism, disappointment, resilient dreaming and yearning for a fulfilling life not dominated by marketing to others and to ourselves as per the standard mode of existence under late capitalism. The album is available for download for free or for donation through a geocities link in the bio of the YouTube video for the entire album (see below). Freak Heat Waves is a band that has completely integrated post-punk melancholy and disregard for convention with downtempo techno for a sound that feels like pop music from a future that already arrived but we never got to experience except through art. Pink Lady Monster is Denver’s premiere No Wave jazz dream pop noise rock quintet.

A.M. Pleasure Assassins at FoCoMx 2023, photo courtesy the artists

Sunday | 04.28
What: A.M. Pleasure Assassins album release show w/Weep Wave
When: 7
Where: Surfside 7
Why: For over a decade A.M. Pleasure Assassins have helped keep Fort Collins weird with its ever evolving sound that has explored a variety of sounds and folded it into its eclectic aesthetic. Clearly the impact of 90s indie pop, lo-fi tape collage pop, post-punk, dub and psychedelia. For this show the group is releasing its latest offering, Cloudy, Black, Red and All Over which while offering a highly accessible sound still overflows with the group’s experimental sensibilities. And if you go and couldn’t make it to the Denver show to see Seattle psychedelic post-punk band Weep Wave, it’s on this bill as well.

Sunday | 04.28
What: The Pharcyde w/Souls of Mischief, Stay Tuned and Mike Wird
When: 7
Where: Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom
Why: The Pharcyde were an acclaimed hip-hop crew throughout the 90s with an ear for the more left field sounds and jazz sensibilities in their beats and production. Their 1995 album Labcabincalifornia may not have been a hit with critics but the group’s main collaborator for the record was J Dilla so the album definitely had a feel, mood and texture that is unconventional and looking forward to more innovative hip-hop of later years and resonant with peers like A Tribe Called Quest and Digable Planets. The single “Runnin’” became an enduring hit for the band. Though The Pharcyde hasn’t released new music in some 20 years there has been a touch of newer material hinting at a new full length the latter has yet to be released though you may hear some of that at this show which includes another legendary act of underground hip-hop in Souls of Mischief as well as Denver luminaries Stay Tuned.

Monday | 04.29
What: The Electric Nature (Athens, GA) w/Nightshark and Debaser
When: 7
Where: Squirm Gallery
Why: The Electric Nature is an experimental improv band from Athens, Georgia whose soundscapes combine elements of psychedelic drone, industrial noise, power electronics, field recordings and dark ambient. So it’s only fitting that Denver’s Nightshark will bring its own progressive, improv No Wave jazz and noise wildness for the evening alongside one-man percussion, guitar and electronics free form performance project Debaser comprised of Josh Taylor who some may know for his stints in Friends Forever and Foot Village as well as being one of the main people behind legendary DIY space Monkey Mania and his tenure with Los Angeles DIY venue staple The Smell.

Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E06: Brian Polk

Brian Polk has been a fixture of Denver’s local music and literature scene since the 90s. From early punk bands to current projects like the politically-charged art punk bands Joy Subtraction and Elegant Everyone to the deeply personal and sharply humorous, long-running ‘zine The Yellow Rake, the defunct but culturally significant magazine Suspect Press and his fiction (including novels Turning Failure Into Ideology (2007) and Placement of Character (2017)) , Polk has brought a level of craft and intellect to the local scene that frankly we could stand to see more of around the Mile High City. In 2023 Polk released his latest book a bit of a memoir of his time going to see music and becoming involved in the punk subculture called A Lifetime of Ephemera: 25 Years in Punk Told Through Ticket Stubs, Flyers & Memorabilia. It’s an engaging document of Polk’s becoming immersed in punk as related through anecdotes about live show’s he has attended with ticket stubs as they were available, flyers and other memorabilia linking the shared memories to a physical link to the event itself. It was an inherently great idea for a memoir and Polk simply put the work in and present it in a highly accessible manner with insightful commentary about the significance of punk in his life even beyond the music and a subculture in which he could become involved at young age. Perhaps especially significant is Polk’s documentation of the local music scene and venues and the experience of being in a place like Denver and of a time that isn’t otherwise well covered in any other source in one place. In some ways it picks up where Bob Rob Medina’s important 2019 book Colorado Crew: Denvoid Part 2 – A Collection of Tales & Images from The Colorado Punk Scene 1988-1996, his sequel to the also crucial 2015 book Denvoid and the Cowtown Punks: A Collection of Stories From the ’80s Denver Punk Scene. Polk connects the line from that era of the local punk scene to the current era, filling in a critical gap in the narrative of Denver’s underground music scene in a form and style that’s accessible and illuminating.

Listen to our interview with Brian Polk on Bandcamp and follow Polk’s work at the links below. Catch Elegant Everyone at The Skylark Lounge on Wednesday, January 17, 2024 with Cheap Perfume and Dead Pioneers. Doors 8, show 9, $10 advanced, $13 at door.

Buy A Lifetime of Ephemera at Mutiny Info Café

Elegant Everyone on Instagram

Joy Subtraction on Facebook

yellowrake.com

birdymagazine.com

Best Shows in Denver January 2024

Nabihah Iqbal performs at Lost Lake on January 25, 2024

Friday | 01.05
What: The Salesmen w/Billy Conquer, Tuff Bluff and Candy Chic
When: 8pm doors/8:30pm show
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: The Salesmen might be considered post-punk because its music has that angular aspect and seems informed by political edge in the more interesting end of punk but its eclectic style doesn’t fit a narrow genre tag. Its 2023 EP WAR IN COLORADO! sounds like they grew up listening to Red Hot Chili Peppers, pop punk and 90s art rock in the vein of Mr. Bungle and took what chops they learned that mutant route and made something decidedly different. Billy Conquer from Gunnison, Colorado unabashedly claims its garage rock roots but its 2020 EP Garage Hits has a flavor that sounds more like the guys grew up having their brains poisoned by classic rock and jam band overload (it happens whether through parents or peers) but then discovered T-Rex and Big Star and rather than follow the typical garage punk route of the 2010s actually honed their chops both technical and songwriting-wise to make something that dips into the classics a bit but so well developed you don’t mind. Tuff Bluff is the latest punk band to include Sara Fischer who some may remember for her time in old school Denver groups like Pin Downs, The Speedholes, New Idols, The Manxx, Bluebelle and others. So of course the songwriting is well crafted and both gritty and melodic Candy Chic has been around longer than one might assume since its cachet has caught on a bit more over the past year. Its music doesn’t seem beholden to surf rock, indiepop or post-punk though general fans of that kind of music will find something to appreciate about the band’s deft navigation of a sound that may remind some of early Slumberland bands or even Sarah Records acts with a gentle touch and a knack for tender and ethereal melodies and richly emotional vocals.

Friday and Saturday | 01.05 and 01.06
What: Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country & Trouble No More (A Celebration of Allman Brothers Band)
When: 7pm doors/8pm show both nights
Where: Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom (01.05) and Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom (01.06)
Why: Daniel Donato released his latest album Reflector on November 10, 2023 and its richly diverse sounds and styles are entrancing and lively. It’s the kind of country one would expect from an artist rooted in modern Nashville in that he seems to have absorbed the sounds where country intersects with psychedelia, indie rock and the jam band universe and produced an orchestral yet accessible sound of his own. Donato’s songwriting isn’t same-y and through the album and his body of work he offers uplifting and thoughtful tales of human existence with great imagination and energy.

Sunday | 01.07
What: Equine, Church Car (NYC) and Adam Baumeister
When: 7 pm
Where: St. Pauli Tavern
Why: Equine is Kevin Richards’ long-running, solo, free jazz-inflected, avant-garde guitar drone project with several albums in his body of work to date. Richards was once the genius guitarist of post-hardcore band Motheater and a member of noise band Epileptinomicon and Equine reflects that background some in that he brought truly unorthodox jazz chords to post-hardcore guitar style and a structure, albeit one more intuitive, to noise. Church Car is the latest project of Ian Douglas Moore who was known in Denver more for his time in punk adjacent and Americana bands. Adam Baumeister? Who knows what you’ll get because his wide-ranging creativity has meant he was a member of Bad Weather California, art-punk weirdos Navy Girls, his own experimental guitar and cosmic country grunge pop band Littles Paia and Lil’ Adam as well as numerous other musical endeavors over the years including his running of lathe cut imprint Meep Records.

Sunday | 01.07
What: Nocturnal Prose w/Hex Casse, Empty4400 and Luna’s
When: 7pm
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: Nocturnal Prose is a noisy post-punk/shoegaze band from San Antonio, Texas. Hex Cassette is the one man cult and industrial dance extravaganza who always seems to find a way to joke darkly with the audience while getting them to dance by bringing the performance into the crowd. Empty4400 is a true fusion of noisy shoegaze and emo. Luna’s is a hardcore band from Denver.

Thursday | 01.11
What: Plaid w/Rameau Control
When: 8
Where: Meow Wolf
Why: Plaid is the influential and foundational IDM duo from the UK. From its early days when Andy Turner and Ed Handley were part of The Black Dog Plaid has been pioneering forward thinking electronic musical ideas, forms and methods of composition including crafting their own electronic instruments in software form not to mention its creative use of hardware. Plaid’s diverse body of work has pushed the boundaries of modern electronic music and its latest album 2022’s Feorm Falorx is one of its most accessible records with bright melodies and finely sequenced beats like dance music for the soundtrack to a deceptively utopian thriller set in an off world holiday resort.

Friday | 01.12
What: Poison Tribe w/Upon a Fields Whisper, Clarion Void and Empire Demolition
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Poison Tribe is a crusty hardcore band from Denver whose body of work thus far seems like a caustic critique of state violence and the horror of the dystopia that is too obvious from any remotely realistic assessment of world events and American national and local politics. Upon a Fields Whisper is an atmospheric doom/blackened crust band from Colorado Springs comprised of noteworthy musicians from that city’s always surprisingly great local music scene including Brian Ostrow of numerous other bands including 908 and formerly of Blighter. Also Bryan Webb who has also been a mainstay of Colorado Springs music in various bands perhaps most well known for some for his tenure in garage punk legends Nicotine Fits and The Conjugal Visits. Clarion Void also from Colorado Springs seems to traffic in the kind of existential blackened doom that means it is deft at both introspective melodies and blisteringly intense riffing that it often lets hang in the air like a harbinger of disaster. Empire Demolition is sort of a powerviolence/deathgrind band from Denver who are set to release their new album Defenestration on January 12, 2024 in time for this show.

Saturday | 01.13
What: Bluebook w/The Still Tide and Uhl
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Bluebook is the long-running musical project of Julie Davis that has undergone various incarnations as a vehicle for her jazz-inflected, experimental downtempo chamber pop. But the current iteration of the band is a bit of an all-star lineup including former Monofog and Snake Rattle Rattle Snake singer Hayley Helmericks on drums, Anna Morsett of The Still Tide on guitar and Jess Parsons (The Still Tide, Patrick Dethlefs, Alex Cameron) on keyboards, all of whom also contribute vocals to the project. The result of this amalgam of talent is a group that conveys an emotional depth like a brooding, dark folk art rock pop group. Not much else like it. The Still Tide proves that Anna Morsett isn’t just a gifted songwriter but one of the best lead guitarists in a band in Denver with a knack for using alternate tunings and expertly placed capos to create a unique sound palette alongside what bandmate Jake Miller is doing on his own guitar. Uhl is the art pop project of Isabella Uhl whose vocals focused compositions have garnered critical attention from national publications like Under the Radar and whose music might be compared to ambitious songwriters in a more dream pop vein like Kate Bush or perhaps more directly like Jenny Hval and Fever Ray.

Saturday | 01.13
What: Rowboat, Zealot and A Strange Happening
When: 9
Where: The Roxy on Broadway
Why: If you were to put the names of a dozen of the best indie rock bands in Denver in a hat and draw them out you couldn’t do better than this. Rowboat is a trio fronted by Sam McNitt who starts with a folk foundation on acoustic guitar in his songwriting process and builds them into emotionally charged and poetically insightful songs well orchestrated in the live setting on electric guitar and bass and synth from Scott Frank and drums by Brian Lepien. It is powerful and consistently underrated stuff in recent years in Denver from former members of Blue Million Miles and Fucking Orange. Zealot is a band that is comprised of brilliant songwriters and musicians in their own right but lead by Luke Hunter James-Erickson who perhaps is inspired greatly by the literary indie rock of The Mountain Goats but whose own creative muse has lead him down various fruitful paths and interests over the past couple of decades in Denver. But on board are former Fingers of the Sun and current Salads and Sunbeams songwriter, bassist and singer Suzi Allegra, former Facade and Violent Summer guitarist and singer Kitty Vincent and Michael King who is one of the great bass players in Denver indie rock but plays drums in this band. On the recording of the group’s latest single are Jacob Adamson and Elisha Coy from A Strange Happening whose own concept pop indie rock is a brilliant fusion of radio play storytelling style and indiepop in the classic 90s vein.

Saturday | 01.13
What: Pink Hawks release of Elote w/Don Chicharrón, 2MX2 and Fuya Fuya
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Pink Hawks came out of Yuzo Nieto’s fascination with experimental music, jazz and the possibilities in fusing those impulses with Afrobeat and other forms of African and Latin popular music. This show is a celebration of the release of the vinyl edition of the group’s new record Elote. So it’s only fitting that Latin psychedelic rock band Don Chicharrón is on hand on the bill as well as excellent Spanish language hip-hop duo 2MX2.

Cheap Perfume circa 2016, photo by Tom Murphy

Wednesday | 01.17
What: Cheap Perfume, Dead Pioneers and Elegant Everyone
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Three of the most overtly political bands from Colorado on one bill? And all with lyrics that are smart, poetic and poignant? Each of these acts are also entertaining, energetic and those lyrics don’t feel like a lecture at all but a rallying cry for something important and a sharp, pointed and clever critique of some of the worst impulses of our collective culture and society. That’s what punk can, has been, and should probably be more often.

Thursday | 01.18
What: In Plain Air w/Corsicana, Deth Rali and Tarantula Bill
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Psych prog trio In Plain Air is launching its long weekend tour through Kansas at this show with support from dream pop band Corsicana, Deth Rali and it’s unorthodox blend of thrash and psychedelic prog and Tarantula Bill who, based purely on song streaming, seem to ably enough perform music clearly inspired by early 2010s psychedelic indie rock.

Wave Decay circa 2023, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 01.19
What: Wave Decay w/Pale Sun and Galleries
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: This will be a show of the heavier end of shoegaze and psychedelia. Wave Decay’s sound is rooted in the angular disorient and sonic discipline of krautrock but with dense atmospherics reminiscent of music done by Jeff suthers of Pale Sun whose own mastery of soundscaping and emotionally charged songwriting all at once is more or less unmatched in Denver. Galleries came out of the 2010s based in the classic rock resurgence and psych garage and its current musical offerings are in that vein but the band appears to have followed an instinct for expansive melodies and the kind of psychedelia one might more expect from the more rock and roll end of Deerhunter.

Friday | 01.19
What: Wreckno w/Moore Kismet, Thelem and Eyezic
When: 8
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Wreckno is now based in Indianapolis but started out in small town Michigan and garnered a cult following as a queer rapper, producer and DJ in the bass music/EDM world with a presentation that is as colorful as it is inventive in genre bending and collaborating with a wide range of artists in his wheelhouse and beyond. But if you’re going definitely get there early enough to catch Moore Kismet whose 2022 debut album Universe, released when he was 17, revealed a gift for layering rhythms and atmospheres in a way reminiscent of the production of Flying Lotus and beats fusing ideas out EDM, trap and the more experimental hip-hop auteurs of the 90s and 2000s and progressing it into his own style. Fans of the aforementioned and the more electronic dance end of Jockstrap will get a lot of Moore Kismet’s creative experiments in the electronic music art form.

Saturday | 01.20
What: Broken Record, Quits, despAIR Jordan and DJ Listen Up Nerds
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Nothing Moves Me proved that Denver’s Broken Record had polished its already noteworthy songwriting into a shining body of work that has the emotional nuance and conviction of a great emo band but with power pop knack for hard hitting melodies like Dinosaur Jr had that band come up through 90s underground rock rather that influenced a lot of it. Quits is a juggernaut noise rock band who will be hitting the road to the West Coast in the first week and a half of February in support of its 2023 album Feeling It out on Sleeping Giant Glossolalia. DespAIR Jordan somehow came out of the punk scene and writes glittery and uplifting, shoegaze-adjacent pop rock that sounds more like The Dismemberment Plan than Sunny Day Real Estate but without truly sounding like either.

Tuesday | 01.23
What: Squirrel Flower w/Goon and Lu Lagoon
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Ella O’Connor Williams was involved in the Boston DIY scene in her teens before moving to Iowa to attend Grinnell College where she wrote her first EP Early Winter Songs From Middle America as Squirrel Flower and releasing it herself in 2015. Eight years, two further EPs and four albums later Williams released 2023’s Tomorrow’s Fire. The songwriter already had more than a touch of that Low-esque talent for melodious vocals and emotional delicacy of expression baked into the music but also some of that scrappy energy that propels her folk-inflected songs into an elevated realm of sonic power. The new record simply opens up where Williams is able to go with her experiments with sounds and styles in unexpected directions and at times is reminiscent of the eclectic and explosive music of Wednesday. Except of course that Williams has her own perceptive observations about the challenges of modern, working class life told in musical shadings introspective and brash yet always sensitive and vulnerable in the way that only truly powerful music can be.

Wednesday and Thursday | 01.24 and 01.25
What: Nabihah Iqbal w/STAR Inc. and DJ Ladybug
When: 6pm doors/7pm show on 01.24 and 7pm doors 8pm show on 01.25
Where: Washington’s (01.24) and Lost Lake (01.25)
Why: Nabihah Iqbal was a human rights lawyer before crafting the music for which she would later be known though has likely dabbled in music across a lifetime. An early contributor to the work of the late experimental pop artist and producer Sophie, Iqbal released her debut album under her own name in 2017 with Weighing of the Heart. In 2023 she unveiled Dreamer via the respected avant-electronic imprint Ninja Tune with its intricate layers of hazy, luminescent atmospheres and flows of introspective vocals. The music casts light on the aspirations, challenges of joys of navigating the world and its sweeping dynamics intermingle the musically tactile with the ethereal for an effect that is transporting yet grounded. Iqbal’s navigation of these aesthetics and creative impulses is masterful and often attempted by more conventional shoegaze bands but not always to the same degree of effectiveness.

King Cardinal, photo from kingcardinal.com

Friday | 01.26
What: King Cardinal w/Cous and Hunter James and The Titanic
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Brennan Mackey of King Cardinal says on the band’s web bio that he moved to Denver on a whim after working a finance job he didn’t love and perhaps dreading what the rest of his life might look like he decided to throw that caution to the wind. Fortunately for us, Mackey is a gifted songwriter and musician and the 2017 debut album from King Cardinal, Great Lakes, is a choice example of when an Americana band can infuse its more homespun charm with mood and imagination. Dynamic flows of tones and textures in expressive rivulets around Mackey’s own fine singing. The group is now releasing its new album Landlines. Haven’t heard any of the new material but based on the attention to songwriting details and delicacy of delivery it’s likely to be another set of songs of pastoral beauty and sentiments that have made the group’s previous offerings eminently listenable.

Friday | 01.26
What: Rowboat, Blacktop Musical and Owosso
When: 8 doors/9 show
Where: 715 Club
Why: Rowboat is making a rare live showing inside of the same month with this show and bringing some highly literate and passionate folk-rooted, shoegaze adjacent rock to this small room. Also on the bill is the Owosso whose members came up in the punk and early modern indie rock milieu and whose music has that scrappy angular energy blended with melodic songwriting acumen that made the many of the DC post-punk bands so perennially appealing.

Saturday | 01.27
What: Buck Meek w/Dylan Meek
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Buck Meek is perhaps best known as the guitarist and backing vocalist of indie rock phenoms Big Thief. But for the past half a decade and more he’s carved out an musical identity to explore separate from the band and his third album Haunted Mountain was issued by 4AD in 2023. The cosmic, ambient folk/alt-country is at turns poetically fantastical, tenderly personal and organic in its arrangements. Each song seems to emerge, unfold and grow into charming, poignantly knowing vignettes of life. If you’re a fan it would be advised to catch him on this tour to see how the band pulls this off live.

Tuesday | 01.30
What: Digable Planets Reachin’ 30th Anniversary Tour w/Kassa Overall
When: 8
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Digable Planets began as a solo project of Ishmael “Butter Fly” Butler in the late 80s but the demos blossomed when Butler met and began collaborating with Mariana “Ladybug Mecca” Vieira and Craig “Doodlebug” Irving after he started interning at Sleeping Bag Records in NYC and in 1989 the current and classic lineup of Digable Planets was born. Like some of its contemporaries the trio was immersed in the aesthetics and creative impulses of jazz fused with highly literate lyrics and brought that sensibility firmly into hip-hop in a way that translated as particularly experimental and to this day surprisingly forward thinking. During its first iteration from the 80s through 1995 the group only released two albums, 1993’s Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space) and 1995’s futuristic Blowout Comb. The group has reunited twice from 2005-2011 and 2015 to the present and although it hasn’t released an album’s worth of new music its live show maintains a certain mystique and late night jazz vibe that is still deeply compelling.