Deth Rali – 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 November 2024

**Washed Out performs at Ogden Theatre 11.04, photo by Landon Spears**

Saturday | 11.02
What: Blood Cult Weekend Night 1: Carrellee, Fainting Dreams, Baby Baby, Tepid
When: 8
Where: Squirm Gallery
Why: Blood Cult is a local production company promoting small shows often featuring touring underground bands and some of the best local acts. Carrallee is a darkwave synthpop artist from Madison. Wisconsin. Fainting Dreams is a Denver-based band with a sound like the cathartic manifestation of a folk horror film made into dark shoegaze and emotionally charged black metal. Baby Baby is an arty synth pop project. Tepid is the solo effort of Nick Salmon of industrial shoegaze band Voight.

Sunday | 11.03
What: Blood Cult Weekend Night 2: Ronnie Stone, Hex Cassette, Supreme Joy and I Luv Nandi
When: 8
Where: The Crypt
Why: Ronnie Stone is a synth pop artist from NYC whose songwriting and production bears a strong resemblance to a 1980s coming of teen drama that never happened. Hex Cassette is a humorously confrontational industrial darkwave one-man band and performance art cult. Supreme Joy is a noisy post-punk band from Denver with some sonic lineage to Jay Reatard’s early 2000s bands.

Sunday | 11.03
What: Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin
When: 7
Where: The Gothic Theatre
Why: Keyboardist Claudio Simonetti was one of the founders of progressive rock band Goblin. Before the band adopted the moniker it had already begun composing the score to Dario Argento’s 1975 horror film landmark Profondo rosso and its evocatively psychedelic prog creepiness. That quality the band developed even further for its soundtrack to Argento’s 1977 masterpiece Suspiria and on the director’s cut of George Romero’s Zombi aka Dawn of the Dead before the group split in 1978. Though the band’s members worked together in various configurations over the next two decades the band Goblin reconvened in 2000 and toured in a variety of manifestations including that for this tour as Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin which will bring to life some of the iconic music of the band’s respectable catalog.

Monday | 11.04
What: Washed Out w/After
When: 7
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Ernest Greene as Washed Out may not have set out to be one of the most enduring and successful artists out of what came to be called chillwave in the late 2000s of which he is one of the pioneers. Before bedroom pop became a common quantity identified with a loose movement, Greene and other artists of early chillwave helped to establish the aesthetic characterized hazy, saturated, melancholic synthpop. But Greene has always infused his production with hip hop style arrangements and beatmaking paired with immersive melodies and a knack for tapping into that part of the brain triggering warm feelings of nostalgia. When combined with his reflective lyrics those sounds make bittersweet memories hit with a gentle catharsis. Greene’s song “Feel It All Around” from his 2009 EP Life of Leisure became the opening music for comedy series Portlandia and forever cemented the songwriter’s status as an architect of the sound of a time and place that is easy to look back on fondly even when those memories have a mixed if unforgettable place in your heart. The latest Washed Out record Notes From a Quiet Life seems to catalog an attempt to reconnect with a period in recent years when some people had the time to think about their lives as having more meaning and significance than the usual expectations and demands as they fit into cogs of capitalism. Greene zeros in on and mines that headspace for the kind of ideas and thinking that can hopefully sustain you into a regular life that grinds you down by creating a psychological space in your mind where there is time for sustained tranquility.

Tuesday | 11.05
What: The March Violets, Die So Fluid, Wingtips and Void + Veil DJs
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: The March Violets were one of the early Goth bands of the first half of the 80s. Its 1983 single “Snake Dance” established the group as an influential and popular band in the realm of post-punk. As the decade went on the band shifted into a more pop sound but without losing the moody melodrama and atmospheric sound that initially caught the attention of fans. The group never released an official album during its initial 1981-1987 run, simply EPs and singles. But since reconvening in 2010 The March Violets have released three full length albums including 2024’s Crocodile Promises. Also on this tour are UK Goth hard rock band Die So Fluid and Chicago’s excellent darkwave/shoegaze duo Wingtips.

Space in Time circa 2016, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 11.08
What: Hi-Dive 21st Birthday Party: Space in Time, Moon Pussy, Church Fire, Quits and Debaser
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: For 21 years Denver’s Hi-Dive has been one of the go-to clubs to see up and coming bands and those that never attain a higher degree of fame and popularity but whose music shines brighter than a lot of what’s offered in the mainstream. For the occasion psychedelic doom band Space in Time performs a rare show. But also on the bill are heavy hitters like noise rock giants Moon Pussy and Quits, percussion punk auteur Debaser and Church Fire and their much needed industrial dance rock to immolate the authoritarian currents of our time.

Saturday | 11.09
What: Hi-Dive 21st Birthday Party: Pissed Jeans, Muscle Beach, Candy Apple, Cheap Perfume and Cherry Spit
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Pissed Jeans has been offering up its noisy, angular post-punk in the vein of DC post-hardcore blended with Killing Joke stripped of its haunted atmospheres. Its latest record Half Divorced is like a high speed journey through the American cultural landscape circa 2024. It’s nearly prophetic in its depiction of truncated hopes and dreams, the seeming inability of any of the powers that be to recognize that a flourishing society includes all and not just the people in America and other wealthy countries Its music’s invective is very choice and pairs well with Chat Pile’s Cool World. Fitting headliner for the second night of Hi-Dive’s birthday celebration and local stars of post-hardcore, political punk and noise rock.

Saturday | 11.09
What: Bear Hands w/Worry Club and Broken Record
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station
Why: Bear Hands emerged from the indie rock and post-punk milieu of mid-2000s Brookyn and rather than being fully lumped in with other bands of that time Bear Hands took a different kind of path and its dream pop guitar style and left field rhythmic structure garnered it a bit of a cult following over the years. It’s 2024 album The Key To What sounds like a record out of time. In its ebullient melodies and textures one hears echoes of a time when Animal Collective and MGMT would have been heard in public places regularly and its experiments in electronic composition more in the realm of modern indie pop dance flavor. Yet underpinning it all is Bear Hands’ knack for deconstruction rhythmic structure and rebuilding it with an ear for accessibility.

Saturday | 11.09
What: Dehd w/Gustaf
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Chicago’s Dehd has never fit neatly in a subgenre of rock but its foundation of lo-fi slacker rock and post-punk has resulted in a good deal of exuberant, cathartic, emotionally-charged pop. All of the band’s records focus on a different aspect of its creative leanings and its new record Poetry seems to embrace both the strands of pop punk influence and disaffected singer-songwriter balladry and all imbued with the band’s usual gift for creative rhythms.

Sunday | 11.10
What: Front 242 (final Denver show) w/Kontravoid
When: 7
Where: Reelworks
Why: Front 242 is one of the foundational bands of the EBM and electronic industrial sound hailing from Belgium circa 1981. Throughout the 80s the group developed a rhythm-driven songwriting in both electronic percussion and the layering of electronic melodies and textures that proved highly influential on later bands and were distinctive from peers like Skinny Puppy, DAF, Front Line Assembly, Ministry and Nitzer Ebb. This is purported to be part of the last shows the group will perform live and not only do you get to catch these tones in their rich glory for perhaps the final time but also an opening slot from Kontravoid whose own dense electronic industrial dance music is in a clear lineage from the Belgian legends.

Modest Mouse, photo courtesy the artists

Monday | 11.11
What: Modest Mouse w/The Black Heart Procession
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Modest Mouse was already a beloved alternative rock band in more underground circles by the turn of the twenty-first century and its 2000 major label debut The Moon & Antarctica and its arresting mix of harrowing and heartfelt emotions and engrossing soundscapes. The 2004 follow up Good News for People Who Love Bad News seemed to tap into a zeitgeist of the period that seemed challenging and hopeless for a lot of people in the midst of the George W. Bush era and an embrace of tenderness, vulnerability and imagination seemed like an antidote to despair and mere cope. It’s the kind of aesthetic that seems perhaps more relevant now with the album’s evocative pairing of melancholia and joy. This tour the band celebrates the 20 year anniversary of the album with the great baroque pop flavored indie rock band The Black Heart Procession.

Monday | 11.11
What: Duster w/Dirty Art Club
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theater
Why: Space rock/slowcore band Duster was only around for a handful of years from the mid-90s to the 2000s to relatively little fanfare but its glittery indie rock sound started to enjoy a sizable cult following after it reunited in 2018. In the 2020s the band’s songs started being featured on TikTok posts when shoegaze generally was enjoying a new level of cachet among younger music fans. Since its reunion Duster has released more albums than during its initial run including its 2024 album In Dreams and its refinement of the textural atmospheric flow and granular, tranquil melodies that has been a hallmark of the group’s sound since the beginning.

Monday | 11.11
What: Aimee Mann w/Jonathan Coulton
When: 7
Where: Boulder Theater
Why: Aimee Mann is one of the most celebrated of songwriters of the 90s and beyond with prominent placing of her music in cinema and radio airplay, perhaps most prominently in the 1999 film Magnolia. Mann’s sharp wit and nuanced takes of personal struggles in her lyrics and the emotional sweep of her music has resulted in a long career of rewarding listening that has aged remarkably well.

Tuesday | 11.12
What: TR/ST
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: TR/ST pre-dated the current darkwave movement when it began as Trust in 2010 and the project’s 2012 debut album TRST was lumped in with the more synth-driven end of indie rock in the beginning. But the aesthetics were much more in line with electronic post-punk and Robert Alfons’ unique vocals too versatile and at times too deep to be confused with even a the then popular chillwave movement. TR/ST began to be embraced by Goth night DJs around that time. As Alfons’ songwriting developed in the more than decade hence he has honed his creative tone sculpting and soundcapes so that it transcends even the limitations of being associated with darkwave and more like a dark electronic dance music perhaps best experienced in a venue with a robust sound system capable of replicating the rich tones and low end of his compositions in particular as embodied on the 2024 album Performance, the first for experimental/darkwave label Dais.

Tuesday | 11.12
What: The Milk Blossoms w/North By North and C!trus
When: 7
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: North By North is an indie rock band from Chicago whose blend of indie/power pop and garage rock hearkens back to a time two decades ago before all of that became too codified in the 2010s. Citrus from Denver is a fuzzy psychedelic pop band with a touch of gritty shoegaze edge. The Milk Blossoms are of course the avant-pop indie group form Denver whose heartfelt and poetic lyrics and imaginative arrangements and impassioned performance style makes it a memorable live band.

Tuesday | 11.12
What: Kris Baha, Void Palace, Combat Sport and Kill You Club DJs
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Kris Baha is an Australian producer now based in Berlin whose fusion of 90s trance and electronic industrial music has made him a bit of a crossover artist in the realms of darkwave and the rave scene. Along with the expertly crafted, distorted beats and streams and saturated tones, though, Baha injects a sensibility like he’s not a stranger to pop songcraft and even his most out there songs have an undeniable accessibility even for those who aren’t just heads for the aforementioned.

Thursday | 11.l4
What: System Exclusive w/Hex Cassette, Baby Baby and Candy Chic https://hi-dive.com/listing/system-exclusive-hex-cassette-baby-baby-candy-chic/
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Ari Blaisdel of System Exclusive sounds a bit like a fusion of Dale Bozzio of Missing Persons and Karen O. The band’s music though is like a retro-futurist synth pop New Wave band with textural guitar sounds and gorgeously icy synths. Hex Cassette is the one person industrial dance death cult, all in good fun, though, whose cajoling the audience is part of the enjoyment of the performance because let’s face it, audiences too often need to be pumped up for maximum enjoyment for all involved. Baby Baby is an experimental electronic pop act from Denver and Candy Chic a mix of prog pop and indie rock.

King Diamond, photo from kingdiamondcoven.com

Thursday | 11.14
What: King Diamond (guest vocals from Myrkur) w/Overkill and Night Demon
When: 6
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: King Diamond is the influential black metal artist who first made his mark outside his home country of Denmark with the legendary band Mercyful Fate where his wide-ranging vocals including his signature falsetto featured prominently. The singer’s theatrical stage presence with face make-up that would prove an enduring visual cue for many bands including the early Slayer and generations of black metal artists from the 1980s onward. There’s a lot of gimmickry with the visual presentation and the live show but the music itself has aged better than a lot of 1980s metal because other than the obvious influence of Judas Priest it was idiosyncratic and the whole Anton LeVey style Satanism wasn’t a pose though these days King Diamond doesn’t follow any religious persuasion. This tour includes vocal contributions from another Danish musician of note, Myrkur whose folk-inflected black metal and enchanting vocals has garnered her an international following in her own right. And of course thrash legends Overkill are included on the bill.

The Crooked Rugs in 2024, photo by Tom Murphy

Thursday | 11.14
What: The Crooked Rugs album release w/Honey Blazer and Tarantula Bill
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Fort Collins-based psychedelic prog indie band The Crooked Rugs are releasing their new album Hear & Now. The album’s countrified flavor gives it a different style than yet another cookie cutter psych band as were rampant in the 2010s and The Crooked Rugs as a live band have a spontaneous and contagious energy that elevates the music further than expected if you listen to the recordings alone. Honey Blazer’s own style of indie psych Americana sounds like something from another era when country rock bands were letting their freak flag fly a little after hanging out in Laurel Canyon for a summer.

Friday | 11.15
What: Caribou w/Joy Orbison and Yune Pinku
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: In writing his new album Honey, Dan Snaith aka Caribou the composer, mathematician and multi-instrumentalist wanted to make music accessible to a wide audience. So the record is much more directly dance oriented than most of his previous records which were dance-adjacent anyway but the beats are more explicit and the techno infrastructure of the songwriting impressive. Snaith engages in some sample massaging into the beat and the record feels like a DJ set more so than certainly his previous album, 2020’s melancholic Suddenly. But of course the live show with include live musicians and have a spontaneous energy that isn’t often as possible when one is operating from in the box.

Saturday | 01.16
What: Mumiy Troll
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Mumiy Troll has been described as the “U2 of Russia” because in its home country it is as popular as U2 has been internationally and playing to crowds of tens of thousands in Russia and Asia. Singer and songwriter Ilya Lagutenko has been the constant presence in the band from its founding in 1983 and he has appeared in the 2004 horror film Night Watch which garnered a bit of a cult following in the West. The band, though, didn’t make many forays into the Western music market until 2009 with the release of its excellent Comrade Ambassador album for which it toured small clubs and theaters in North America, a far cry from its usual reception back home. The music of the band since the 1990s has born the influence of Britpop from Lagutenko’s having spent time in the UK during that decade but of course it has a unique Russian flavor with arrangements that reflect a fusion of sensibilities. And yet Mumiy Troll is undeniably accessible even if you don’t speak Russian. And hey, the band risked its livelihood in condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 resulting in the cancellation of its concerts by Russian authorities.

Saturday | 11.16
What: Pink Fuzz, Forty Feet Tall and Headlight Rivals
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Pink Fuzz kind of came out of that classic rock sound revival of the 2010s and its embrace of the hard rock of 2000s stoner rock bands. But Pink Fuzz just sounds like it has a lot more life and bite to its music than a lot of that wave of music. Portland, Oregon’s Forty Feet Tall is a fascinating and visceral fusion of psychedelic garage rock and post-punk intensity and menace.

Sunday | 11.17
What: Gila Teen album release w/Horse Girl and Rabbit Fighter
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Gila Teen is releasing its new album at this show and if its Subtle Wizard EP is any indication the emotionally charged and arresting dream pop/post-punk band is leaning into the desperation underlying the times. It’s also incorporating the kinds of keyboards one more often hears on some 2000s DIY home recording indiepop group enhancing its already commanding immediacy. Horse Girl will do some weird performance art thing with music probably made just for the show and you’ll be better off having witnessed the strangeness. Rabbit Fighter might be a twee indie pop band but its earnest energy and vulnerably delivery can’t be dismissed or narrowed to such designations.

Janet Feder of cowhause, photo from Bandcamp

Sunday | 11.17
What: cowhause album release w/Hamster Theater
When: 7-10
Where: The Bug Theatre
Why: Two legends of local avant-garde music for this show. The first is a project between noted guitarist and academic Janet Feder whose imaginative and brilliantly virtuosic guitar playing has found its way into multiple records and in collaboration with multiple artists and Colin Bricker who has played with various bands over the years but is perhaps best known for his production company and studio Mighty Fine Audio. Their band cowhause is a brilliant blend of folk songcraft and ambient soundscaping. Hamster Theater is a long-running art rock band from Boulder whose membership has included members of Thinking Plague and Big Foot Torso. Though these days fairly obscure in the Denver and Boulder area the band has an international following for its wild sonic experimentation into realms of avant-garde jazz and 20th century classical deconstruction.

Wednesday | 11.20
What: Actors w/Occults and DJ Niq V
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Actors from Vancouver, BC has set itself apart from a lot of the modern darkwave and post-punk bands by having great pop songcraft instincts and rich synth composition alongside a lively stage show. Sure they look like Goths but there is a joyful energy to an Actors show like a New Wave synthpop band of old and a guitar sound that is more full than the spindly, guitar flavor favored by too many bands among the current swath of trendy post-punk.

Wednesday | 11.20
What: AJ Suede w/Ceschi & Factor Chandelier and Esh & The Isolations
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: AJ Suede may not identify as an alternative hip-hop artist as that’s a somewhat archaic term these days. But the experimental rhythms and left field sound choices in his beats point to roots in the kind of underground hip-hop that was becoming popular in the late 90s and 2000s and more recent collectives like Odd Future and A$AP Mob. His creative and imaginative lyrics also veer from the sensibilities of mainstream hip-hop. His latest record Voiceless (2024) is all instrumentals and should be available on tour. Ceschi has been a star of underground hip-hop for around 20 years with his brilliant fusion of folk punk, psychedelia and hip-hop. His two most recent albums Bring Us the Head of Francisco False Parts 1 and 2 (2024) are an epic journey through the creative legacy that produced Ceschi and the culture in which he’s been operating as well as commentary on the wider society which its had to navigate. The albums also represent the end of Ceschi’s career as a solo artist.

Friday | 11.22
What: Ms. Boan w/Jeff In Leather, Moon 17 and As In Heaven As In Hell
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Ms. Boan is Mariana Saldaña of the darkwave band BOAN who were a significant project of that great 2010s group of industrial and synthpop influenced bands that came to prominence in the underground. Ms. Boan has in recent years collaborated with Houses of Heaven and Boy Harsher and live is a commanding figure whose mystique adds to the sensual impact of the music. Jeff In Leather is a hard techno solo project from Omaha whose most recent release JiL includes production and mastering by industrial darkwave legend Street Fever, Moon 17 is an electro-industrial band from Kansas City whose sound appears to be a fusion of Front 242-esque EBM and melodic darkwave, As In Heaven As In Hell is the solo coldwave post-punk project of John Bueno who has been in punk bands in the past and a noteworthy comic artist but discovered a love of being able to produce music with few creative compromises.

Saturday | 11.23
What: Snakes final show w/Jenny Don’t and The Spurs and DBUK
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Snakes is playing its final show. The band fronted by George Cessna is like an unlikely fusion of psychedelic surf honky tonk band. Like the sort of group you’d hope to serendipitously run into on a road trip to an isolated town with a secret underbelly of Bohemian weirdos creating music for their own enjoyment and that of others with tastes in music that run astray of mainstream radio fare. Cessna can still be seen playing with Slim Cessna’s Auto Club and likely as a solo act with a catalog of his own that is worth exploring on its own. But Snakes’ gritty self-awareness is a rarity in the realm of Americana with an aesthetic that sounds like it came out of a place where the band hung out with The Velvet Underground and The Creation both and vibed off each before opening for Graham Parsons period The Byrds. Oh yes, Cessna’s dad Slim will be performing in the weirdo, folk infused post-punk opening band DBUK that includes members of the Auto Club. Jenny Don’t and the Spurs will be making a stop in from their base in Portland, Oregon with a glittery and melancholic take on modern outlaw country that fans of Green on Red and Dolly Parton will appreciate.

Saturday | November 30
What: Lyra Muse, Deth Rali and BLDDDLTTR
When: 7:30
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Lyra Muse is a pianist/violinist/vocalist from Santa Fe, New Mexico whose dream pop has an elemental quality reminiscent of The Knife and Jenny Hval. The orchestral sounds and ethereal expansiveness of the music conjures images of dream exploration of deeper personal issues and trauma. BLDDDLTTR is also from Santa Fe but its sound is like a great blend of darkwave post-punk and shoegaze with emotionally charged vocals. Deth Rali is hard to quantify but its recent album release show revealed the band to have fused the ideas and aesthetics of 70s glam rock, hypnogogic pop and prog art rock in both sound and visual presentation of the music.

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond September 2024

**Future Islands perform at Mission Ballroom on September 24, photo by Frank Hamilton**

Dust City Opera, photo courtesy the artists

Saturday | 09.07
What: Dust City Opera’s Haunted Costume Ball w/The Constant Tourists
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. For this rescheduled show in Denver the band is encouraging attendees to come dressed up for their Haunted Costume Ball to help launch spooky season.

Sunday | 09.08
What: Midwife w/DBUK and Polly Urethane
When: 7
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Midwife just released a new album called No Depression in Heaven, which is a heavy enough title on its own, but for the new album the mood isn’t quite as downcast as the previous album but the tenderness and vulnerability is still there with the sensitivity tuned more sharply into examining and evoking where memory and dreams intersect and the role that plays in how we live our lives and our psychological orientation of identity and aspiration. The records are all great but Madeleine Johnston is even more powerful live though this will be a bigger stage than usual for the songwriter at least in Denver and you’ll have to go to see how the music translates. Denver Broncos UK is a more post-punk offshoot of Slim Cessna’s Auto Club but still plenty of the element of Gothic Americana in its music. Polly Urethane always does a different kind of show and you don’t really know what you’re in for except that it’ll be interesting, it’ll incorporate aspects of performance art and ambitious composition and often breaking the barrier between performer and audience.

Monday | 09.09
What: Keane w/Everything Everything
When: 6:30
Where: Temple Hoyne Buell Theater
Why: Keane technically existed in an earlier form for nearly a decade before its 2004 album Hopes and Fears was released on major label Island Records. But that album reflected years of development and refinement of songwriting craft and even though the band received criticism for being derivative the record went on to multi-Platinum status in sales. The piano-driven songwriting and singer Tim Rice-Oxley’s vocal melodies though polished convey earnest sentiments that have connected with an international audience. With this tour the group celebrates the record that launched its career coinciding with support behind the remastered 20 year anniversary edition of the album.

Wednesday | 09.11
What: Osees w/Timmy’s Organism
When: 7
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Osees is the ever evolving band led by John Dwyer and really you can check in anywhere in the band’s catalog and under any of its names and find records that are often radically different from the release that preceded it. The new record Sorcs 80 sounds like Butthole Surfers at its most manic mixed with Trans Am but delivered with the mutant stylings we’ve come to expect from the band. Motorik, psychedelic garage rock doesn’t quite cover the raw power and attitude of the album but it gives you an idea. Check out the live video of the performance of the album on YouTube. But best experienced in person as no YouTube video is an adequate surrogate for the vital, real thing unless you can’t be there.

Thursday | 09.12
What: Alphabeat Soup #75: Acidbat, DEBR4H, Melodies Never Lie, Yung Lurch, Furbie Cakes and Skyfloor
When: 9
Where: The Black Box
Why: The long-running showcase of some of Denver’s most daring and forward thinking experimental electronic music composers and performers this month features, among others, IDM/techno wizard Acidbat, Fort Collins-based synthwave/synthpop artist DEBR4H, the latest project from former Mehko and the Ocean Birds member Isaac Javier River as Melodies Never Lie and its fusion of dream pop and ethereal indie folk and ambient hip-hop producer Skyfloor aka Grant Blakeslee who some may know more as MYTHirst or in his collaborations with experimental pop genius Felix Fast4ward.

Thursday | 09.12
What: Kikuo
When: 7
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Kikuo is an acclaimed Vocaloid artist from Kanagawa Prefecture in Japan (basically suburban Tokyo but it’s a big urban sprawl in that part of the country). The artist is known for his highly detailed sound-design oriented dance pop songs that explore themes of trauma and suffering and the habits of self soothing that provide catharsis from both. For the uninitiated Kuko’s music sounds like music that reflects the moods and kinetic energy of anime and Japanese popular culture but expressed in a way that does honor to the underlying emotions that inform a lot of the best creative endeavors that have manifested out of Japan. And yet Kikuo’s music most often seems joyous and the live show like a high energy, live DJ set with samples and beats with vocals manipulated and processed into something that could only happen with technology, like the voices of a particularly upbeat, even kawaii, anime or video game characters but delivering heartfelt emotional content that contrasts with a conventional interpretation of that style of art.

Saturday | 09.14
What: Mortiis w/Brighter Death Now, Sombre Arcane, Malfet and Fogweaver
When: 6
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Probably the biggest dungeon synth show in Denver in maybe ever. Headlined by one of the genre’s pioneers, Mortiis who since 1993 has been crafting fantastical soundscapes that have exerted an influence on other practitioners of the music since. Brighter Death Now isn’t really a dungeon synth band but its industrial ambient noise seems to have been one of the foundations of what would become music in that style and its own industrial/power electronics style music evokes of the mysterious and otherworldly even as it can often be unsettling and confrontational. Colorado’s Fogweaver isn’t short on the fantasy elements of the music but its own synth compositions are well within the realm of ambient.

Saturday | 09.14
What: Deth Rali album release w/Hex Cassette, Church Fire and DJ Reed Fox
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Denver-based darkwave synth pop band Deth Rali is releasing its first album in three years with Ruby Castle Island. It’s a transporting and psychedelically inflected set of songs if early singles are any indication. Sharing the bill is one man industrial music death cult Hex Cassette. Okay, the death part is only a joke but part of the project’s aesthetic is going to the limit for one’s art and bringing the audience along for the ride to the darkwave industrial dance party or else. Church Fire has expanded its stage show with an even more robust light show to accompany its revolution darkwave and emotionally charged synth pop dance songs aimed at making resistance to the capitalist patriarchy fun.

Sunday | 09.15
What: Zheani w/The Buttress and ZAND
When: 7
Where: The Summit Music Hall
Why: Zheani is an electronic pop artist from Australia some of whose fans have dubbed her style of music “Fairy Trap.” What does this mean? Check out any of her music videos or live footage if you can find it and you’ll find music that mixes the ethereal and playful with hyper pop, trap beats and occult imagery and industrial-adjacent sonic intensity. Fans of Alice Glass both with Crystal Castles but especially solo will appreciate Zheani’s fantastical hybrid pop and visual aesthetic.

Tuesday | 09.17
What: Fabio Frizzi “Zombie” movie screening with live soundtrack performance
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Italian composer Fabio Frizzi will perform his iconic score as a live soundtrack to a screening of Lucio Fulci’s classic 1979 film Zombi 2 (aka Zombie), which was to have been a sequel to George A. Romer’s Dawn of the Dead (1978).

Tuesday | 09.17
What: Johnny Marr & James
When: 6:30
Where: Paramount Theatre
Why: Johnny Marr, the legendary guitarist of The Smiths and later of Modest Mouse, shares a bill with fellow Mancunians James. The Smiths and James started the same year (1982) and likely crossed paths during the course of their careers. James had hits in college and alternative rock radio throughout the 80s and 90s maintaining a cult following for its exuberant and inventive, idiosyncratic songwriting with hits that include “Laid,” “Born of Frustration” and “Come Home.” Marr’s solo albums of recent years revealed the guitarist as an artist in his own right capable of writing compelling songs and live being able to deliver favorites by The Smiths. So this show will be a celebration of the band’s catalogs and continued ability to deliver it with a sense of joy and catharsis.

Wednesday | 09.18
What: Public Memory w/Voight and DJ Niq V
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Public Memory is the solo project of Robert Toher who has been releasing albums of entrancing darkwave techno for around a decade. With layers of dub rhythm and texture and an otherworldy cast like the most haunted music that came out of 90s IDM, Public Memory pushes boundaries of modern electronic music and often has a quality like even moodier trip hop. Voight is more like a true fusion of techno, noisy shoegaze, post-punk and an emotional intensity that nearly tips the music over and all the better for not playing it safe.

Wednesday | 09.18
What: Ulrika Spacek w/Bluebook and Pale Sun
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Ulrika Spacek is a psychedelic post-punk shoegaze band from the UK whose intricate guitar work seems to weave layers of mood rather than come across as an unusual form of math rock. Its 2023 album Compact Trauma had the melodic and rhythmic complexity of something you’d expect from Women or Black Midi but with more melancholic sounds like an English cognate of something more like Deeper and its proclivity for conveying emotional rawness. Bluebook is an art rock and dream pop band from Denver but don’t be fooled by the delicacy of expression on some of the recorded music you can find because there is a dark yet inviting and intense energy to the live show that has made the group a favorite among fans and critics. Pale Sun has some of the most imaginative and deeply evocative guitar work of any band from Colorado or elsewhere. It’s like experiencing a weather anomaly in real time with ethereal melodies and a resonant emotional colorings in its arrangements of voice and instrumentation.

Friday | 09.20
What: Marc Ribot Quartet (Hilliard Green, Chad Taylor, Mary Halvorson)
When: 7
Where: Mercury Cafe
Why: Marc Ribot is one of the true guitar geniuses of the past few decades. His style and skill means he has fit in with some of the most demanding jazz groups and experimental musicians and pop and rock mavericks around including the likes of Tom Waits, John Zorn, Foetus, Marianne Faithfull, Allen Ginsberg, Arto Lindsay, Ikue Mori, Cibo Matto, David Sylvian and Elvis Costello. His style seems to be boundary-less yet distinctive. This quartet is like if a way out free jazz band teamed up with a bunch of weirdos from the 20th century classical avant-garde.

Friday | 09.20
What: Charly Bliss w/Raffaela
When: 7
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Charly Bliss has been described as a mix of 90s alternative rock and pop of various kinds. But the salient aspect of the group’s music since its 2017 debut album Guppy has been a a pairing of vulnerability and joy. That combination along with the band’s playful exuberance gives an uplifting quality to even its more melancholic songs. On its new record Forever (released August 16, 2024) the quartet embraces even more thoroughly the influence of modern pop music with the electronic production thoroughly threaded into the songwriting. Still very much in place is a likability and a knack for tasty indie pop hooks.

Beabadoobee, photo by Jules Moskovtchenko with creative direction by Patricia Villirillo

Friday | 09.20
What: Beabadoobee w/Hovvdy and Keni Titus
When: 6
Where: The Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Beabadoobee has established herself as a singer and songwriter of note over the past seven years with a diverse body of work that incorporates a blend of styles without getting stuck in a definitive genre, a quality that is a testament to the likely durability of her career. But the songs and their delicately heartfelt style speak for themselves. From early bedroom recordings to her currently new album This Is How Tomorrow Moves (2024), Beabadoobee’s expressive vocals are often confessional but always distinctive in their ability to tap into poignant emotional resonances that augment the songwriter’s vivid lyrics. The new record in particular showcases a real gift for borrowing elements of classic and lo-fi modern pop in an eclectic style that seems orchestral and spare at once.
Hovvdy is an Austin-based duo that has offering contemplative and emotionally rich slowcore pop songs since its 2014 self-titled debut EP. Its, self-titled full-length finds Hovvdy delivering some of its most finely crafted soundscapes to date. At times the music seems like experiments in sound design and experimental songwriting. Like Charlie Martin and Will Taylor hopped back to making demos on cassette and trying to capture some of that room ambiance and the analog warmth of it and translating the intimacy of that sound to a more high fidelity environment without losing the essential charm. With the storytelling on the album one imagines a box of Polaroids as a starting point for turning cherished memories into accessible songs. Whatever the methodology or inspiration or techniques it’s a long record that seems to also come out of wanting to write an album that would sound good for a road trip.

Gregory T.S. Walker, photo courtesy the artist

Saturday | 09.21
What: Minstrels and Minimoogs performed by Gregory T.S. Walker, Elena Camerin Young and Todd Reid celebrating the reissue of the cosmic medieval masterpiece w/Pete Swanson & Entrancer and Luke Leavitt
When: 8
Where: Glob ($15)
Why: Gregory T.S. Walker released Minstrels & Minimoogs in 1988 as a music for an immersive, multimedia performance that took place at the Fiske Planetarium on the University of Colorado Boulder campus. It was originally released as a one-sided 12” and was really only ever available at performances at Fiske. But the Freedom To Spend label co-owned by Pete Swanson of experimental music legends Yellow Swans is reissuing the record with a special performance this night including collaborative sets with Swanson and modular synth genius Entrancer as well as Luke Leavitt. It’ll be a unique live music experience showcasing idiosyncratic synth composition the likes of which may never happen again.

Saturday | 09.21
What: Why? w/NNAMDI
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf
Why: Yoni Wolf sounds particularly lost and yearning on the new Why? Record The Well I Fell Into (2024). The song’s have a more acoustic aspect in the instrumentation this time around and that lends it a different kind of sonic intimacy than some of the project’s previous music. It’s pastoral in its stories of growing older and feeling obsolete and unsure of what is left in life when those moments of existential crisis impact broad areas of your life and hit as so heartfelt it can sink your spirit. But Wolf offers no pat answers, just poignant expressions of the part of one’s life when you’re not sure what it all means and what felt like the directions and focus points of your life have disappeared or gone adrift and you’re left trying to sort through that emotional wreckage that can collapse upon you suddenly and make sense of where your life needs to be next. Also on the bill is experimental pop and rock weirdo NNAMDI whose energetic and eclectic, surreal pop songs expand notions of what a pop song can sound like and what it’s rhythms and structures can be.

Saturday | 09.21
What: Willie Watson w/Tanasi and The Sullivan Sisters at Wildflower Fallgrass ‘24: A Pavilion Pickin’ Party Night 2
When: 5:30
Where: Planet Bluegrass (Lyons)
Why: Former Old Crow Medicine Show singer/guitarist/banjo player Willie Watson released his latest, self-titled, solo album on September 13. The early singles promised a set of spare and intimate folk songs featuring Watson’s expressive vibrato delivering earnest portraits of life with a broad range of subjects and moods. Watson’s lyrics seem refreshingly free of tropes and rich with poignant turns of phrase that give his spare songwriting a rare dimensionality that reward a deep listen.

Sunday | 09.22
What: FM Skyline, Auragraph and Modern Devotion
When: 8
Where: Glob
Why: FM Skyline is a vaporwave composer and artist from Richmond, Virginia who a month ago released his album Images which sounds like a mix of the music for corporate training videos, The Art of Noise and New Wave New Age seminar soundtracks. Auragraph released his latest album New Standard on Dais Records in 2023 and its sounds brilliantly reconciled the aesthetics of techno, EBM and vaporwave. Opening the show is Denver’s Modern Devotion, the solo, industrial techno side project of Adam Rojo of shoegaze-infused post-punk greats Voight.

Sunday | 09.22
What: Everclear w/Marcy’s Playground and Jimmie’s Chicken Shack
When: 6
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Everclear is one of the few bands associated with the late era of alternative rock (although its roots date back to the beginning of that wave of music) whose music has aged well in spite of ubiquitous airplay in the 90s and on nostalgia playlists. In no small part that’s due to singer/guitarist Art Alexakis’ thoughtful and vulnerable lyrics and obvious authenticity. Sure he found a way to write songs with wide appeal but never sacrificed putting meaningful words into what he would sing on stage. In 2024 the band’s 2000 album Songs from an American Movie Vol. One: Learning How to Smile was released on vinyl for the first time on September 13 and there’s a better than average change the set will include material from that record as well as the band’s beloved hits.

Monday | 09.23
What: Leprous w/Earthside and Fight the Fight
When: 6
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Norwegian progressive metal band Leprous released its new album Melodies of Atonement on August 30, 2024 and demonstrated once again that its technical prowess and precision is a vehicle for ambitious songwriting. Passionate vocals and evocative synth-infused soundscapes and orchestrated, sweeping guitar create a layered effect like the band is thinking more cinematically than merely musically. In that way the group’s new record maybe more than its predecessors seems to bear the marks of the influence of the likes of Failure and Marillion. And though the songs are epic in scope each feels like they touch on the personal and the emotional resonance of the melodic vocals are akin to something from the better emo records of the late 90s.

Tuesday | 09.24
What: Future Islands w/Oh, Rose
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Since early in its existence Baltimore’s Future Islands has mastered the pairing of upbeat and gorgeously melodic synth pop with sad, melancholic lyrics delivered with a passionate soulfulness. The combination has made listening to its music feel like you’re sharing moments with people who won’t lie to you about how rough life can be but also encourage you to embrace what’s good and even great about it. Its 2024 record People Who Aren’t There Anymore was written and recorded during the early part of the pandemic and into the endemic era and has as its subject matter the slow breakdown of singer Samuel T. Herring’s long-distance relationship during the period of lockdowns. Sure it’s a deep exploration of loss, existential doubt, self-assessment and learning to let go. All of which can be challenging for anyone but these songs make it feel like it’s something that not only can you do but do so without linger rancor and the kind of emotional trauma that limits your future ability to connect with people. The shows are always cathartic and high energy and yet intimate and tender making Future Islands a special band that made the transition from DIY scene notables to indie rock stars without losing the core of their art.

Spectral Voice, photo from Encyclopedia Metallum

Thursday | 09.26
What: Spectral Voice, Polish, Nightshark and Mournful Ruin
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Spectral Voice is the black metal band from Denver three fourths of whom are also in psychedelic death metal group Blood Incantation. It released the album Sparagmos in February 2024 and thus unleashing even more of its spooky, sepulchral heavy compositions. The music sounds like the kind of music that should have been playing at the entrance to hell in Baskin. But this bill isn’t just a bunch of other death/black/doom metal bands and the like. Nightshark and its noisy free jazz freakouts will be on hand as well to offer its impassioned skronk and No Wave bop.

Friday | 09.27
What: NightWraith, Necropanther, Upon a Field’s Whisper and Lacerated
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Denver’-based melodic death metal heroes NightWraith just released their new record Divergence. This time around the synths lends an even more cinematic quality to the epic scale of the songwriting and personal struggles cast as those more eternal and the kinds of things heroes of myth and lore tangle with on the road to defeating the big bad. Also more than ever the band’s progressive rock leanings are present and in moments they sound like they’ve been listening to a lot of both Neurosis and early 80s Yes.

Peter Hook & The Light, photo courtesy the artist

Saturday | 09.28
What: Peter Hook & The Light w/DJ boyhollow
When: 7
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Peter Hook is a founding member of two of the most important post-punk bands of the early era as the bass player of both Joy Division and New Order. This tour the band will perform the Substance albums so you’ll get plenty of the early JD and vintage era New Order stuff including songs that never much appeared on anything but singles and those two compilations.

Mass of Fermenting Dregs, photo from Bandcamp

Saturday | 09.28
What: Mass of the Fermenting Dregs w/Cam Kahin and Blush
When: 6:30
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station
Why: Mass of the Fermenting Dregs is the Japanese dream pop band who seem to somehow have blended art rock leanings into the songwriting while sounding like they wouldn’t be out of place in the poppier end of the Austin, TX shoegaze scene. A fusion of the sublime and of the noisy.

Saturday | 09.28
What: Tassel w/Plague Garden and DJ Katastrophy
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Tassel is a Phoenix, AZ-based post-punk trio who didn’t seem to feel the need to differentiate between the sound palette one would use for industrial punk, deathrock and darkwave. Currently on tour supporting its new album A SACRIFICE: UNTO IDOLS. Opening is one of the current great post-punk/New Wave bandsw of the moment with Denver’s Plague Garden. Its own electronic side is richly imagined and evocative with the guitar work both beautiful and gritty and expressive basslines that elevate the band’s music beyond the current wave of post-punk.

Saturday | 09.28
What: The National w/The War on Drugs and Lucious
When: 6:30
Where: Fiddler’s Green
Why: The National is already one of the most popular and critically acclaimed of indie rock bands of the past two decades. And yet the band continues to surprise with offering finely crafted albums that actually offer more than the usual tropes of adolescent struggles projected into adult life. 2023’s Laugh Track may not have garnered the critical acclaim of some of the band’s earlier records but its melancholic and pastoral songs sound like they’re about getting through a period of your life that feels like offers nothing new to spark your brain into action and like you don’t have much left to say to anyone that feels authentic and vital. It’s again the kind of record that shows a path to doing something creative and different even well into middle age without having to look back to that mythical time of youth when everything felt new. It’s an album about discovering something new or at least reinventing oneself and discovering the kinds of things that can inspire you all over again and find a reason to not feel like you’re treading water until the end. Middle age can feel like that for a lot of people and this album is aimed at show how that’s not an inevitability and that experience and perspective matter and can illuminate your existence for the rest of your life.

Jonathan RIchman, photo by Driely S from Bandcamp

Sunday | 09.29
What: Jonathan Richman w/Tommy Larkins on drums
When: 6
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Jonathan Richman isn’t filling stadiums and never has but his charmingly idiosyncratic and oddly wise and no oddly creative songs have been influential on generations of musicians and non-musicians alike. The keyboard player for his old band Modern Lovers went on to be in Talking Heads and plenty of punkers and other musicians have covered “Roadrunner” because it is absolutely one of the spiritual ancestors of punk in its glorious simplicity and unforgettable energy. These days Richman with Tommy Larkin are a fantastic duo who deliver some of the finest American songs ever written with humor and charisma.

Sunday | 09.29
What: Chrissy Costanza w/Voilá
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Chrissy Costanza is currently on her first solo tour separate from doing shows with the band for whom she is perhaps most well known, Against the Current. The powerhouse singer is set to release her debut solo EP VII on October 9 so this is a chance to catch the artist perform those songs live prior to the album being available worldwide. The solo stuff is a bit of a break from the pop punk and alternative rock fusion of ATC and allows Costanza to stretch out into realms of vocal expression that might otherwise be out of place with the band.

Sunday | 09.29
What: NIKI w/Allison Ponthier
When: 6
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Nicole Zefanya was born in and raised in Jakarta, Indonesia and started playing and writing music from a young age. Good thing because at 15 she won a contest to be the opening act for Taylor Swift for Jakarta stop of The Red Tour. At eighteen she moved to Nashville to study music and began releasing music as Niki and was on the roster of the 88rising record label which specializes in putting out music by Asian American artists. Niki’s latest album is Buzz, a collection of jazz-inflected, bedroom-pop style songs with Zefanya’s tender and introspective vocals center stage. But in that tenderness you’ll hear some raw truth and attitude that can be as startling as it is welcome in separating Niki from other artists operating in a similar lane of modern indie pop.

The Spirit of the Beehive, photo from Bandcamp

Monday | 09.30
What: Spirit of the Beehive w/Winter
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station
Why: As usual, Philly’s The Spirit of the Beehive offer us a psychedelic pop and IDM album that sounds like they used a cut up method of songwriting with all members writing a different style of music and collaging it all together in ways that make their own strange kind of sense with 2024’s You’ll Have to Lose Something. And they’ll pull it off live and seem like a band that is changing radio stations throughout one song yet make it seem coherent and compelling in the way a psychotronic film can be. Like a kinder, gentler Butthole Surfers.

The Gorgeously Layered Textures and Melodies of Deth Rali’s “Candle in the Dark” is a Short Passage of Mystical Psychedelia Worth Getting Lost Within

Deth Rali, photo by Julianna Photography

Deth Rali’s 2021 album Light Levels felt like an ambitious dream pop album, orchestral in its composition and completely immersive in its soundscapes. The band’s latest single “Candle in the Dark” immediately feels like it’s organized organically with subtly expansive waves of tone guided gently by finely cadenced percussion. Like you’re listening to the ghost of a memory of psychedelic fantasy movies from another decade but manifesting as as song within which one also hears echoes of 90s indiepop and whatever amalgam of dream pop phase Animal Collective, chillwave and the bright and soothing synth composition of the late, great Norm Chambers (aka Panabrite, think Soft Terminal period) probably isn’t even part of the band’s musical DNA. It’s a song that gets into your brain and you feel better for having experienced its soothing frequencies. The band regularly performs live in Denver and Colorado so if you can, witness this stuff in person for the full effect. Listen to “Candle in the Dark” on Spotify and follow Deth Rali at the links below.

dethrali.com

Deth Rali on Facebook

Deth Rali on Instagram

Deth Rali on YouTube

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.

Best New Shows in Denver and Beyond November 2023

**Chat Pile performs at The Bluebird Theater on November 2, 2023, photo by Bayley Hanes**

Thursday | 11.02
What: Chat Pile w/Agriculture
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Like its self-professed biggest influence Big Black, Chat Pile didn’t really fit in with the underground music scene of its home town of Oklahoma City as a noise rock band that even critics often describe as sludge metal. But its sound even early on captured the ambient anxiety of anyone that’s been paying attention to what’s been happening in America and the world in terms of politics and its failure to adequately address the challenges of the current era like the climate change effects we were told were decades off and the market would come up with something to make the proper adjustments along the way. Except that fascism is on the rise which is the opposite political ideology to take on global challenges and one that seems to think bellicose international policy is the answer in a time of great tensions and unfurling conflicts. Chat Pile’s fracturing guitar rock and soundscaping embodies that milieu with lyrics that make very personal experiences that can seem abstract unless you’re not too distracted to notice. The group’s monumental 2022 debut full length album God’s Country expressed all the aforementioned and even had moments of heartbreaking storytelling that ring as true as the bleakest documentaries as cast in stories about real life with gritty details of being in the working class with no hope for the future and eking out what existence you can with the small shred of dubious joy to be garnered. And yet live Chat Pile’s shows are a joyous catharsis of civilizational anxiety in a way those of few other bands ever are. You also get to see Los Angeles-based, ecstatic black metal band Agriculture which released its own, self-titled, debut full-length. Agriculture is definitely not the typical black metal band and on the record avant-garde musician Patrick Shiroishi contributes saxophone and there is an experimental and improvisational aspect to the songwriting that feels more wide open than a lot of black metal.

Friday | 11.03
What: Genesis Owusu w/The Deep Faith
When: 8
Where: Globe Hall
Why: If Ghanaian-Australian singer Genesis Owusu is a hip-hop artist he’s equally steeped in post-punk and synth pop. His albums from his 2021 debut album Smiling with No Teeth to his new release Struggler from 2023 are a fusion of the aforementioned and futuristic funk with a masterful command of lyrical flow. Owusu’s eclectic style is both accessible and avant-garde and crafted with a clearly playfully spirit that keeps his songs fresh and inviting. In the live setting Owusu’s commanding presence and theatrical presentation of the music like he’s a late night lounge MC who kicks things up a notch when the song calls for it but never lacking for the smooth dance moves. Cobranoid sounds like it has a leg in both thrash and power metal.

Friday | 11.03
What: Lost Relics w/Messiahvore, Cobranoid, Voideater and Burning Sister
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: This show features some of the best sludge metal-oriented bands from Denver but all also have elements of noise rock rendering them a little different than any standard metal act. Lost Relics released its new album Die + Cry + Loathe in June 2023 and a quick listen reveals what should have been obvious all along but there’s a touch of Melvins from the Big Business period in there but with a drive and menace reminiscent of Unsane. Messiahvore has a little more groove and doom psychedelia in its sound but possessed of a seething heaviness as well. Voideater is like if a metalcore band stripped away everything but a stark and colossal sound that feels like it could collapse at any moment under its own heaviness. Burning Sister is a “downer rock trio” that sounds like it used to be a garage rock band that got bored with that and got into trippy music and absorbed the entire Sleep and Captain Beyond catalog and then got a little weird with those influences.

Saturday | 11.04
What: Margaret Glaspy w/Cat Clyde
When: 6 doors, 9 show
Where: Ophelia’s Electric Soap Box
Why: Throughout her prolific career Margaret Glaspy has garnered critical accolades for the immediacy of her poetic songwriting. Her new album 2023’s Echo the Diamond is a consistently refreshing and earnest offering of songs that hits with strong emotional resonance with fairly minimal elements. Singles like “Get Back” and “Act Natural” sound like they could have come out of the early 90s alternative rock era with some wonderfully roughened edges in the guitar work and eschewing excess in favor of essentials and putting the focus on Glaspy’s gift for expressing personal insight with resonant life details that always seem to transcend specific context without glossing over the human experience.

Barns Courtney, photo courtesy the artist

Sunday | 11.05
What: Barns Courtney
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Barns Courtney is challenging to describe using simple genre designations. His style seems informed by the blues rock the triumphant sound of a single like his recently released “Young in America” is triumphant and expansive, rich in stirring atmospheric melodies like an Arctic Monkeys song. In 2022 and 2023 Barns has been dropping a single here and there to hint at what he might have in store for a future album since he hasn’t had released a new record since the pandemic so for this show you may get to a see a showcase of what you might expect to see more of in 2024 delivered in his usual spirited and engaging fashion.

Monday | 11.06
What: Subhumans w/Cheap Perfume and Poison Tribe
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Subhumans are the influential and foundational anarcho-punk band from the UK. Forming in 1980 the group’s creative presentation of humanist anarchism and a left critique of politics and culture in an era when the right was on the ascent globally including in the UK and the USA proved to have an enduring appeal. Partly because the music while very steeped in punk and hardcore aesthetics made that rebellion seem fun and attainable, even a collective endeavor not led by the band so much as the band provided some incisive observations and a sense of play that embodied Emma Goldman’s words about how she didn’t want to be a part of someone’s revolution if there was no dancing. Though the group originally split in 1985 it reunited briefly a couple of times in the 90s but has been back to being active and touring since 2004.

Periphery, photo by Ekaterina Gorbacheva

Monday and Tuesday | 11.06 and 11.07
What: Periphery w/Mike Dawes
When: 7
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Periphery is a progressive metal band that formed in Washington D.C. with roots in guitarist Misha Mansoor’s home audio experiments. But over the years the group has evolved with various lineups until its current quintet. In 2023 the group released its first album in four years with Periphery V: Djent Is Not a Genre. The title is a clear and wryly humorous nod to a style of guitar sound that became the defining feature for a whole swath of modern metal with the sharp, clipped riffing. But that’s just one sound in Periphery’s broad range of expression and the new record is more imaginative than that with even elements of electronic composition and creative pinch harmonics making Periphery V not just arguably the band’s most fully-realized record but a high water mark in the progressive metal genre. Witness for yourself at one or both of these shows at a small theater like The Bluebird.

Tuesday | 11.07
What: Dale Hollow w/Sarah Adams and Peter Stone
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Dale Hollow got his start in music in his hometown Nashville, Tennessee but is now based out of New York City. Hollow refers to himself as THE Country Music Superstar (“Trademark Pending”) and his stage persona larger than life, his mystique as a fully-formed artist when his earliest released dropped in terms of songwriting and musicianship and the quality of his output supports a case for that designation regardless of that dubious claim on purely verifiable commercial grounds by the likes of Luke Bryan, Loretta Lynn, Jessica Simpson, Darius Rucker or Kenny Chesney. There is a thrilling earnestness to Hollow’s performance on recording and on stage that is commanding even when there’s an element of humor and playfulness to many aspects of Hollow’s craft. His new record Hack of the Year beats critics to the punch with the title and yet it speaks to the spirit of the underdog and the performative humility rampant in much of country music. Hollow takes on the tropes of the genre and and both embraces their virtues and upends the pretensions. Hollow’s use of humor doesn’t mean his songwriting is a joke or satire rather it plays the same role humor does in approaching life and putting everything into the proper perspective and injecting a little joy into some of the most downbeat moments we might experience. The songs of Hack of the Year are very much unalloyed country performed with a grace, elegance and passion one might hope for out of any record or any genre. Listen to our interview with Dale Hollow here.

Tuesday | 11.07
What: Tallies w/Cherished and Pill Joy
When: 7
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Tallies are the shoegaze band from Toronto, Ontario, Canada whose guitar jangle and shimmer are reminiscent of an era of music in the early 90s when a band like Sky Cries Mary wouldn’t be considered shoegaze but more psychedelic rock even though its musical ideas were resonant with a broad range of atmospheric guitar rock. Tallies’ excellent 2019 self-titled album is a bit like if The Sundays and a Sarah records band fused with a more modern shoegaze band that has benefited from developments in the sound of guitar music in the past decade and the shedding of genre adherence. Cherished is the Denver dream pop and shoegaze band whose lush and entrancing guitar work fronted by an emotionally charged frontperson in Chloe Madonna who is also the vocalist for hardcore band Destiny Bond.

Mass of the Fermenting Dregs, photo from Bandcamp

Wednesday | 11.08
What: Mass of the Fermenting Dregs w/Replica City and The Sickly Hecks
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Mass of the Fermenting Dregs is a Japanese trio whose musical style traverses post-hardcore, shoegaze and progressive rock. Formed in Kobe in 2002. After a break in 2012 the group reunited in 2015 and currently touring in support of its 2022 album Awakening: Sleeping. What Boris is for metal and psychedelic rock and noise, this group is sort of for post-hardcore/shoegaze and psychedelia in that its songs seem to have a creative coherence but its presentation can be unpredictable in ways that transcend expectation.

Slaughter Beach, Dog, photo by Dan Winters

Wednesday | 11.08
What: Slaughter Beach, Dog w/Bonnie Doon
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Slaughter Beach, Dog started as a solo side project of Jake Ewald of emo/indie rock legends Modern Baseball. But since that band’s 2017 indefinite hiatus Ewald has made Slaughter Beach, Dog his main songwriting outlet. The group’s 2023 record Crying, Laughing, Waving, Smiling has a gentle sound with guitar and percussion flowing like a gentle creek. The introspection is one of looking far afield and assessing both the past and looking to the future while trying to remain emotionally present and striking a Zen-like balance. Musically it’s like a pastoral Luna or a more countrified Low. There is an elegance to the sound and Ewald’s vocal phrasing akin to Steve Kilbey in more tranquil moments. Which seems like a flavor of the season when the world seems on the brink of deep existential turmoil.

Wednesday | 11.08
What: Bell Witch w/Spirit Possession and Paul Riedl
When: 7
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: Seattle’s funeral doom duo Bell Witch released one of its typically hypnotic, crushing, epic, concept albums in 2023 with Future’s Shadow Part 1: The Clandestine Gate. Anyone that has seen Bell Witch knows the bone rattling reputation of its low end is much deserved. But the new record begins with the sound of spectral organs evoking the mood of some kind of cosmic transition that Dylan Desmond and Jesse Shreibman are going to guide us through for the duration of the album and if you go to the show the range of frequencies generated will render that experience if not literal definitely not fully abstract.

Wednesday | 11.08
What: Kim Petras: Feed the Beast World Tour w/Alex Chapman
When: 7
Where: Fillmore Auditorium
Why: After some time struggling with the release of her two most recent albums Feed the Beast (released in June 2023) and Problématique (released September 2023), pop singer Kim Petras is finally able to share that music on a headlining tour with a stop in Denver. The latter album got delayed despite completion and was headed for being scrapped with a mass leak of the songs in 2022. But now the EDM-infused hyperpop can be experienced with Petras’ orchestrated, richly multimedia, theatrical production. Petras has been releasing singles and mixtapes and has worked with the likes of Sam Smith, Nicki Minaj, Charli XCX and Banks and is in many ways a veteran and yet this tour is a bit of an introduction of her energetic, sex positive songs of love, hedonism and heartbreak to a wider public.

Thursday | 11.09
What: Devil Master, Fuming Mouth, Final Gasp and Victim of Fire
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Devil Master is a black metal band from Philadelphia whose 2022 album Ecstasies of Never Ending Night is a blend of the aforementioned and Goth-y hardcore. Fuming Mouth is a death metal band from Massachusetts that just released its new album Last Day of Sun with its contorted vocals and expansively grindy guitar work. Victim of Fire is one of the best Denver-based hardcore bands in that more metallic vein and at times will unexpectedly cover an older and more obscure Iron Maiden song and the like. Final Gasp dropped its debut full length Mourning Moon via Relapse on September 22, 2023. It’s the perfect amalgam of hardcore, thrash and deathrock. Anyone that caught the band at Seventh Circle Music Collective over the summer of 2023 knows that these guys have a furiously intense live show and yet their music has great mood flowing through the fiery performances. The new record is reminiscent of if Testament, Fields of the Nephilim and Rozz Williams-era Christian Death collaborated on an album and made something that seemed completely out of step with its time but would seem prophetic decades later.

Pussy Riot circa 2018, photo by Sacha Lecca

Friday | 11.09
What: Pussy Riot w/Sloppy Jane
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Pussy Riot is the legendary punk and performance art group from Russia that courted controversy and experienced imprisonment for their unapologetic critiques of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Vladimir Putin regime. Those antics might not translate so well to a touring band that continues to challenge the authoritarianism of its home country and others but if you’ve managed to catch a Pussy Riot show in the past half decade and more you know that the band actually delivers an exuberant and visually compelling live performance.

Friday | 11.10
What: Cindy Lee, Freak Heat Waves, Bobby Amulet and Tepid
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Cindy Lee is the solo project of former Women singer Patrick Flegel. The music Flegel has released under this moniker has been well far afield of the experimental guitar rock of women and according to the Cindy Lee Wiki page, it’s a “drag queen ‘confrontation pop’ project.” Flegel was inspired by Karen Carpenter in her appearance and style and how her life was a kind of cautionary tale about the way stardom and the music industry can and will chew you up and dispose of you when you’re no longer getting the spotlight or if your human frailty becomes anything resembling a liability that isn’t readily marketable. The project’s fifth album What’s Tonight to Eternity is like a pure fusion of classic pop and experimental electronic music that fans of modern darkwave will appreciate with a theatrical live presentation to go along with it. Also on the bill is the solo electronic project of Nick Salmon of local shoegaze/post-punk luminaries Voight.

Friday | 11.10
What: Fever Ray w/CHRISTEENE
When: 7
Where: The Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Fever Ray really created a rich body of content in terms of composition and paired presentation for their 2023 album Radical Romantics. From science fiction noir style music videos, a broad spectrum of promotional photography depicting the singer and songwriter as an androgynous every person like a modern day David Bowie free associating and blurring the lines of gender while commenting incisively about state of the world and culture. It’s clearly one of the most ambitious creative endeavors by a musical artist who has always had a vision for the visual presentation of the music and how it will be experienced by those who show up. To call it arty synth pop is inadequate but a starting point like calling Bowie’s output glam or art rock or pop and the live show is likely to be a dazzling affair that invites participation. CHRISTEENE is the legendary synth punk and art pop artist originally from Brooklyn, NY but these days based out of Austin, TX and really an ideal opening act for Fever Ray.

Friday and Saturday | 11.10 and 11.11
What: Huerco S, Pontiac Streator, Dull Tusk, Polly Urethane, Sleepdial, Goo Age live show on 11.10, Huerco S. (DJ), Pontiac Streator, Loudmen and Aalala.One on 11.11.
When: 8:30 (11.10) and 11 (11.11)
Where: Glob
Why: Huerco S. is making an extremely rare live appearance at Glob with a live music set on 11.10 and a more DJ-oriented set on 11.11 for the late night rave crowd. Brian Leeds aka Huerco S. has had a diverse and prolific career of experimenting with the form and compositional elements of minimal electronic and musique concrète, perhaps even utilizing aspects of plunderphonics in crafting imaginative ambient and minimal house songs while genre bending at will. Pontiac Streator is a likeminded producer from Philadelphia whose own work operates in similar musical realms but with some more seeming roots in deep house and left field pop. Dull Tusk blends glitchcore production style with ambient for something markedly different from both. With Polly Urethane you don’t know what you’re going to get except that it will be something creatively different than what she’s done before as a live artist whether or not it includes bits of her work in noise, art pop, industrial punk beatmaking, classical or the unclassifiable stuff that really is part of her oeuvre. But it won’t be boring and on her own worth the price of admission. Sleepdial is the ambient project of Luke Thinnes who rarely performs this side of his music live and is perhaps more well known for his visionary futuristic retro pop and New Wave glam project French Kettle Station. Goo Age is post-glitchcore and New Age ambient soundscaping in abstract threading together of tone, texture and rhythm.

Saturday | 11.11
What: Baroness w/Wayfarer
When: 6
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Sludge rock legends Baroness reinvented themselves with the 2019 album Gold & Grey with contributions of new lead guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Gina Gleason. It not only expanded the horizons of what the group had already done and bringing a new creative edge to the band’s songwriting but set a new high water mark for progressive metal. With the band’s new album Stone (2023) Baroness has reached another level with its incorporating the driving and heavy guitar attack that established it as one of the more significant artists in modern heavy music with a more keen ear for atmosphere and nuanced emotional resonance. Yes, the people in the band are all ace practitioners of their craft who can show off aplenty and do on the album but it’s the kind of record that people who aren’t as dazzled by chops alone can appreciate much more fully as a set of songs that engage with an appeal beyond simple rocking out.

Saturday | 11.11
What: The Bright Light Social Hour w/Demob Happy
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Bright Light Social Hour is the popular Austin-based psychedelic rock band that recently released its new album Emergency Leisure, which is a great title for a record at a time when we’re all encouraged to grind and strive beyond reasonable human capacity. This time there’s perhaps an extra element of lounge vibe to its finely crafted psych pop. But get there early to catch Demob Happy who are touring in support of their own new album Divine Machines. The group based out of Newcastle upon Tyne, England some how play fuzzy, bombastic rock and roll but in the mix one imagines one hears the atmospheric alien dystopian stylings of Gary Numan and the mutant pop sensibilities of Sparks. Especially on the new record. If Demob Happy could ever be considered “stoner rock” at any point in its career at this point it has evolved into maybe a hard rock, psychedelic art glam band whose creative vision broke out of any instincts for reinventing classic rock.

Saturday | 11.11
What: Baby Baby album release w/RDFM and Deth Rali
When: 8 doors/9 show $10
Where: 715 Club
Why: Lily Conrad is known for her contributions to the likes of indie rock band Rose Variety but her solo project Baby Baby has always had this earnest, indie/bedroom pop charm and she’s releasing her new album for this show with some assist from electronic pop soundscaper RDFM and dream pop band Deth Rali.

Saturday | 11.11
What: Cherry Spit w/Moon Pussy, Watch Yourself Die and Caged Grave
When: 7pm, $10-15
Where: D3 Arts
Why: This is the debut Cherry Spit show. The band might include former Antibroth bassist Dan Witalski. But these rumors cannot be confirmed and you’ll have to see for yourself. But you also get to see hardcore/extreme metal heroes Caged Grave, Denver death rock super group Watch Yourself Die and one of the best noise rock bands of all time and fortunately based out of the Mile High City with Moon Pussy and maybe, if you’re lucky, Crissy Cuellar will have a bevy of her signature between song stage banter dad jokes.

The Holy Ghost Tabernacle Choir, photo from Bandcamp

Sunday | 11.12
What: The Holy Ghost Tabernacle Choir, Edith Pike and Fainting Dreams
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: The Holy Ghost Tabernale Choir from Savannah, Georgia is rooted in various branches of post-hardcore but its 2022 album Slow Murder expanded on what one might expect from the band if your only exposure to it was previous releases. It includes samples and its songs sound like a thrilling blend of hardcore and the noisy heavy rock of the likes of Melvins or even the more punk end of Boredoms. Opening the show is post-hardcore/dream pop hybrid band from Denver Fainting Dreams whose emotional range is broad and expressed with an intense poignancy and vulnerability. Edith Pike traverses a similarly diverse territory while exuding the raw emotional expressions in its noisy yet atmospheric songs. Like the more punk side of Unwound had that band come up during the era of power violence with sharp angles and hanging chords that drift into sharply amplified feeling.

Sunday | 11.12
What: Chat Pile w/Agriculture
When: 7
Where: Vultures
Why: This is your next chance to see Chat Pile and Agriculture on this tour. See above on November 2 for more information.

Monday | 11.13
What: SDH (Semiotics Department of Heteronyms) w/MVTANT, Church Fire and Sell Farm
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: SDH is an italo-disco/darkwave band from Barcelona, Spain. Like a gloomier version of early Ladytron and cast more in dance music style. Its 2023 album Fake is Real sounds like the soundtrack to an ultra hip retro-futurist espionage thriller. San Antonio’s MVTANT is also on the bill with his own brand of hazy, gloomy dance music that live comes off more as a hard hitting industrial band with irresistible momentum. Church Fire always brings a joyful, emotionally charged energy to its own presentation of industrial dance music that brings a sense of fun to taking down the patriarchy and authoritarianism. Sell Farm is a one-man force of early EBM and industrial soundsculpting.

Tuesday | 11.14
What: We Are Scientists w/Sean McVerry
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: We Are Scientists formed in 1999 after guitarist/vocalist Keith Murray and bassist Chris Cain met two years prior while attending Pomona College. From early on the group adopted something like a fusion of David Bowie-esque glam rock and post-punk. Its earliest releases reflected a more punk spirit in its songwriting. But over the intervening years the group of course honed and developed and reinvented its sound and its 2023 album Lobes is brimming with melodic atmospheres, funkier rhythms and sophisticated pop songcraft akin to where Phoenix has been going in recent years with more nuanced lyrical content and a series of fantastic promotional music videos featuring a car driving through a city nightscape.

Wednesday | 11.15
What: Harm’s Way w/Fleshwater and Ingrown Jivebomb
When: 6
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Harm’s Way is a hardcore band from Chicago whose particular style of sonic aggression has evolved over the years from its early powerviolence roots to what we got to hear on its 2023 record Common Suffering. Featuring a guest appearance by King Woman on “Undertow,” the album seethes with the struggle with mental health issues, turmoil in society and within one’s own relationships and the corrosive effects of political corruption and the impact of creeping authoritarianism. To meet the challenge of expressing the sorts of anxieties and frustrations most of us have felt for the past several years Harm’s Way injected its core sounds with industrial beats and caustic atmospheric elements that give the music a little more bite than previous releases which is no mean feat.

Wednesday and Thursday | 11.15 and 11.16
What: Allison Russell
When: 7 (both nights)
Where: Boulder Theater (11.15) and Bluebird Theater (11.16)
Why: Allison Russell some may know for her masterful turns in the great folk Americana duo Birds of Chicago. When that project when on hiatus in 2021 Russell released her debut solo album Outside Child and told some of the most raw and intense personal stories put to record that year. It also featured a more soul-infused sound to which her versatile and emotionally vibrant voice seemed well suited. In 2023 Russell released her new album The Returner. Rather than the seemingly autobiographical exploration of her first solo outing the new record seems uplifting and explicitly points to a spirit of transcending the demons that haunted her and perhaps held her back emotionally and as an artist. Whether this album reflects recent personal discoveries or a lifetime of overcoming childhood and not so childhood trauma matters less than its lush and entrancing sound that is informed by the soul and gospel sounds of her earlier work but also comes across as ambitious art pop akin to the likes of Kate Bush and Caroline Polacek.

Thursday | 11.16
What: Speedy Ortiz w/Space Moth and Mr. Atomic
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Speedy Ortiz started as a solo project for guitarist/singer Sadie Dupuis but expanded to a full band in 2011 that has gone on to release three EPs and four full-length albums including 2023’s Rabbit Rabbit. From the beginning Dupuis, also a visual artist, has done a most of the artwork for the band including its album covers and thus one gets a unique and personal aesthetic and perspective from the band’s music that has thankfully made its music challenging to pigeonhole outside of the umbrella term of indie rock. But there is also something immediately accessible about the pop songcraft and poetically and often cleverly observed lyrics that has set the project apart from artists more content with following an established style popular at any given moment. In October 2023 Rolling Stone magazine released a list of “The 250 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” where Dupuis charted at 176. And a quick listen to any of the band’s records reveals that Dupuis while an imaginative artist in her songwriting is also technically gifted musician who channels that talent into songs that come from the heart. Rabbit Rabbit is an album that explores various themes including survival mechanisms, those behaviors many of us undertake to get us through challenging times in our lives some of which we may not be consciously aware of adopting and which can affect us for much of the rest of our lives. And becoming aware of these patterns gives us some ability to guide our lives in ways we really want so that we can live instead of settling for mere survival. Its a complex and emotionally rich album that is also not short on humor and cultural Easter eggs for the perceptive listener that enrich the full meaning of the songs. Listen to our interview with Sadie Dupuis on Bandcamp.

Friday | 11.17
What: Eventually It Will Kill You 6 Year Anniversary: Light Asylum, Human Leather, Ortrotasce, CXCXCX and Teller
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: This anniversary show celebrating the Denver-based darkwave label Eventually It Will Kill You lead by Brian Castillo features a headlining set with legendary darkwave band Light Asylum. The latter is at this point more or less the solo project of Shannon Funchess and we haven’t heard much new music released on an album or EP since 2012 but in 2022 Funchess performed a couple of new songd at the Cold Waves festival in Chicago that year. Light Asylum’s music is a bit like a post-punk synth pop band with Funchess’ commanding vocals and dance prowess to lend the performance some visceral intensity. This marks the first time Light Asylum is performing in Denver. Also on the bill are Salt Lake City synth pop group Human Leather, modular synth noise project CXCXCX, Floridian industrial darkwave project Ortotasce and Denver synth pop solo act Teller.

Saturday | 11.18
What: Cory Hanson w/Slowhand and Supreme Joy
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Some may know Cory Hanson better for having been in Wand. But his solo works are psychedelic in a slightly different way as exemplified by his 2023 album Western Cum and its equal facility with waxing freak folk and cosmic country as bombastic psych akin to early Meat Puppets. Also on the bill is Supreme Joy which blurs the line between countrified psych and angular post-punk to fascinating effect.

Saturday | 11.18
What: Yard Art, Moonlight Bloom, Totem Pocket, Fly Amanita
When: 7
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Thankfully the Denver psyche scene of the 2010s is basically over and you get something in that realm but more in the vein of shoegaze and post-punk with indie pop in the mix with this entire bill of some of the better bands of that vintage.

Saturday | 11.18
What: FRENSHIP w/Torine and Bizzy
When: 8
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Los Angeles-based electropop duo FRENSHIP new singles “Love or an Enemy” and “Copenhagen” from their October 13, 2023 EP Base Camp. Weaving together a smooth R&B aesthetic with its signature synthpop sound, songwriters James Sunderland and Brett Hite seem to be using the new set of songs to express a vulnerability that both felt in their travels outside the US and now living apart with one living in Los Angeles and the other in Washington State and able to see their home country from different perspectives and the fragmented nature of the culture and its politics. Rather than rendering judgment the duo speak to the unease and feelings of uncertainty that seem to be a shared experience not just among Americans but internationally for what seem like similar reasons or at least for causes that are interconnected. In typical fashion FRENSHIP approaches the subject matter with nuance and sensitivity.

Sunday | 11.19
What: Eventually It Will Kill You 6 Year Anniversary: Buzz Kull, Normal Bias, Many Blessings, Terravault and Verhoffst
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: For this second night of the Eventually It Will Kill You 6-year anniversary celebration, Australian coldwave artist Buzz Kull will perform bringing his melodic and dark fusion of EBM and post-punk to the stage. And a good deal of the rest of the show will feature prominent local noise artists like Many Blessings and Verhoffst as well as the industrial synth duo Terravault as well as NYC-based synthwave/industrial funk project Normal Bias.

Friday | 11.24
What: Quicksand w/Hotline TNT and Abrams
When: 7
Where: The Gothic Theatre
Why: Quicksand is the influential post-hardcore band from New York City that included then and now members of renowned hardcore groups Gorilla Biscuits, Youth of Today, Beyond, Bold and Burn. Quicksand’s sound was sludgier, slower, heavier and thus fit in well with the nascent alternative rock milieu of the early 1990s. It’s angular, foreboding sound was a new kind of heavy that wasn’t metal so much and not grunge and you could hear in its songs’ clear roots in punk. After a couple of breaks in the 90s Quicksand reconvened in 2012 to critical acclaim with live shows a reminder that its heavy sound was also a soundtrack to getting through life’s struggles and triumph over everyday adversities. This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of the release of its debut full-length Slip which was reissued early in 2023 with an extensive companion booklet. Along for this tour is Hotline TNT also from New York led by Will Anderson formerly of the Canadian band Weed. This project released its new album Cartwheel on November 3, 2023 and for this show the group will provide a good deal of the joyous, atmospheric sonics with its expansively melodic songs. Often lumped in with shoegaze and indie rock the band’s music resists easy categories because its guitar swirl is definitely within the realm of more pop-oriented shoegaze bands but it has enough of and edge to delivery densely glittery moody soundscapes that fit in well with a show with heavier acts. If its music videos are any gauge, Hotline TNT has a healthy and irreverently self-deprecating sense of humor that gives its uplifting melancholia some grounding. Abrams is came out of the more doomy and stoner rock world of Denver metal but its own songs might be described as heavy psych and its own shoegazing instincts have always set the band apart from a more predictable musical path.

Shadows Tranquil in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 11.24
What: Shadows Tranquil album release w/Polly Urethane and Julian St. Nightmare
When: 7
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Shadows Tranquil is finally officially releasing its album Downward Flowers and celebrating with this release show. The quartet has some diverse roots in shoegaze, post-punk, emo, psychedelia and noise rock with finely tuned tonal details in the songwriting that emerge with repeated listens to its songs and a bit of a live mystique that isn’t something that’s easily imitated. So the band invited a couple of Denver’s most interesting artists in the world of local experimental and post-punk music. Julian St. Nighmare is secretly one of the best bands from Denver with its alchemical blend of post-punk, surf rock and psychedelia and a charismatic and passionate live show. Polly Urethan is simply someone whose shows you can’t fully predict because she changes up the type of set she does with every performance whether that’s noise, ambient pop, modern classical, noise rock psych or performance art or whatever. But never boring and rote which is not something many artists can claim with validity.

Teenage Halloween, photo by Okie Dokie Studio

Sunday | 11.26
What: Teenage Halloween w/Elway (solo), Broken Record and Plasma Canvas
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Asbury Park, New Jersey’s Teenage Halloween has given us an outstanding and heartfelt emo and power pop album with its new album Till You Return. Its a record that dives deep into exploring issues of identity, the heavy legacy of trying to survive and find a place in the world we’re all trying to navigate now but the whole record feels like a big journey of a concept album that doesn’t offer pat answers or solutions but plenty of solidarity and a catharsis of collective trauma. Broken Record from Denver offers its own fusion of melancholic yet vital power pop and modern emo and live comes across as though it absorbed plenty of the influence of Dinosaur Jr and Hüsker Dü. It too released a solid 2023 album with Nothing Moves Me. Assuming its still on for the gig this may or may not be one of your last times getting to see the legendary emocore band Plasma Canvas from Fort Collins. Its sound and chops are steeped in a more radio rock and classic rock vein but delivered with a spirited punk attitude with lyrics that mince no words about struggling with issues of class, gender and sexuality and how that all intersects with a culture and people that are hostile to one’s own unique overlapping identities.

Tuesday | 11.28
What: The Japanese House w/quinnie
When: 7
Where: The Summit Music Hall
Why: The Japanese House is the musical project of Amber Bain who has been developing her sound and songwriting for several years with a leg up from being signed to The 1975’s label Dirty Hit early on and being thusly championed. Bain’s style in some ways anticipated the strain of yacht rock and soft pop that has become a feature of certain branches of indie rock. A great deal of Bain’s output has been on singles and EPs and so In the End It Always Does releasing in 2023 as her second album can give the impression of the musical sophistication and lush and imaginative arrangements as having come out of nowhere. And for Bain it does seem like a lateral leap into experimenting with textures, tones and unorthodox arrangements in crafting her typically well composed pop songs. Adele Julia of Gigwise in a June 28, 2023 review spoke to the album’s candid “discussions surrounding queerness and sexuality.” The album’s rich array of melodies and moods provide a comfortable place within which to have those discussions and the vital yet gentle quality of the album invites the listener along for those discussions regardless of one’s own specific sexual or gender identification.

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond July 2023

Sparks perform at Boulder Theater on Sunday, July 9, 2023. Photo by Munachi Osegbu.

Monday | 07.03
What: Glare, Alien Boy, Roseville, Face Ghost, Broken Record
When: 7
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: Glare is a heavy shoegaze band from Austin, Texas whose sound swings elegantly between dream pop, the moody delicacy of late 90s, atmospheric emo and slow burn distortion. Alien Boy from Portland, Oregon has long been evolving out of its early more pop-punk origins into a Cure-esque post-punk and emo powerhouse with emotionally rich vocals and heartfelt lyrics. Broken Record is a band from Denver whose own sound might have a touch of shoegaze tonal incandescence but its melodic songcraft hints and the influence of late 90s Midwestern emo and noise pop bands.

Destroy Boys, photo courtesy the artists

Monday | 07.03
What: Blink-182 w/Turnstile and Destroy Boys
When: 6:30
Where: Ball Arena
Why: Blink-182 is a popular band that helped push pop punk into the mainstream with a string of 90s and 2000s hits and it’s either your thing or not. But the openers for this one point to the fact that someone in the Blink camp isn’t divorced from what’s vital and cool in the realm of music that isn’t already stadium big from the neo-nü metal phenoms Turnstile and Destroy Boys. The latter has been evolving its thrillingly arch socially critical punk rock since forming in 2015. Its ferocious mix of hardcore and garage rock has given us songs like “Locker Room Bully” and its music video that pretty much spells out and dismantles a genre of misogyny in connecting historical parallels between the witch hunts of the middle ages to the early modern era (and depending on what part of the world you live in, even now) and the various linguistic tricks used to dismiss women in the current era. But Destroy Boys has really delivered on exciting songs with heady content all along. The group’s video for its new song “Beg For Torture” looks like a cross between a really wrong ARG mixed with recovered police footage from an abuser’s dungeon and paired with the lyrics that point to casting off the effects of gaslighting and reclaiming one’s power upon coming into full awareness of the situation infuses the song with welcome originality of concept.

Wednesday | 07.05
What: Josephine Foster w/Advance Base
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Josephine Foster is a singer-songwriter from Colorado whose musical path has been as varied as it has been inventive and imaginative. Her vocals recall those of folk singers from the first half of the Twentieth Century but with some background in opera there is always something different and otherworldly to her delivery. Her music is pretty much impossible to easily classify with elements of freak folk, Americana and ambient throughout her idiosyncratic career as an artist. Her latest album Domestic Sphere is like a musical chapterbook of haunted places and people, an homage and gentle celebration of the neglected and forgotten cast in pastoral moods and tones of fragile elegance. Sharing the bill is Owen Ashworth who for over a decade (1997-2010) wrote some of the most tenderly heartbreaking outsider pop recorded in recent years with his project Casiotone For the Painfully Alone. Since retiring that moniker and a bit of the ideas and aesthetics of that music, Ashworth has been building another respectable and affecting body of work under the name of Advance Base with its slowcore folk pop sound and emotionally resonant atmospherics.

Stinking Lizaveta, photo by Singletary John

Thursday | 07.06
What: Telekinetic Yeti w/Stinking Lizaveta, Somnuri and Hashtronaut
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Telekinetic Yeti is a psychedelic doom band from Dubuque, Iowa in that post-Sleep/Baroness mold but at least its 2022 album Primordial lives up to the title with a set of songs that humorously reference cannabis, supernatural entities, esoteric knowledge and a more liberated future. Stinking Lizaveta is a trio from Philadelphia that formed in 1994 creating instrumental rock with roots in prog, jazz and cinematic music. The style the group has developed from the beginning has been summed up with the descriptor “doom jazz” because its sound has often combined heaviness with a musical complexity and elegance. Stinking Lizaveta establishes a mood early in its songs and its compositions vividly express ideas and emotional nuance that engages the listener’s imagination. Read our interview with the group here.

Friday | 07.07
What: REZN w/Oryx https://hi-dive.com/event/rezn-grivo-oryx
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Oryx is the respected doom band from Denver whose majestic yet scrappy songs break out of the tropes of the genre by helping to redefine it with more inventive rhythms and creative crafting of colossal, atmospheric guitar riffs. REZN is a heavy psych band from Chicago whose forays into evocative and haunting music incorporate the aesthetics of doom, shoegaze and cinematic ambient to create dynamic soundscapes that capture a sense of the cosmic and of the deep mystery of nature. The group recently released its new album Solace. The record’s cover looks like something one might have expected on an old Rainbow or Hawkwind record of windswept mountains and the sunlight breaking through a raging storm. The music within is not unlike that expectation set of epic journeys and existential catharsis through finely sculpted and orchestrated volume and majestically accented rhythms. If Lovecraft and Michael Moorcock had somehow collaborated on a dark science fantasy trilogy in the modern era this is the music for that story—menace, spiritual contemplation and transcendence. Listen to our interview with bassist Phil Cangelosi below.

Friday | 07.07
What: FOANS album release w/Taylor Bratches, ALX-106 and Scarien
When: 9
Where: Glob
Why: Andrew Dahabrah meant to dump a hard drive of nearly six hours and 100 tracks of his diverse body of techno, house and ambient music in 2018 when he posted it to Bandcamp and then retire his long running project FOANS. Times change and now a carefully curated 11-track selection of those recordings is coming out as Selected Classics on digital and vinyl with a release show this night. Respected Denver and now international DJ and electronic music artist Taylor Bratches will perform as will downtempo techno artist ALX-106 and his nature inspired compositions and minimal techno/house artist Scarien.

The Beets at Rhinoceropolis in 2010, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 07.08
What: Juan Wauters w/Los Narwhals, Flora De La Luna, Movete Chiquita Vinyl Club
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Juan Wauters was born in Montevideo, Uruguay but moved to New York City in 2002 and within the decade formed one of the better of the then nascent modern garage rock revival bands The Beets. The group toured regularly throughout America often at DIY spaces and dive bars and made an impact with its lively performances and its three records and a handful of singles and EPs. But the singer-songwriter set forth with a project under his own name and a sound that wasn’t so terribly separated from what he’d done in his previous band but often with more of a folk sensibility. This is particularly true of his deeply introspective 2023 album Wandering Rebel which was written like many recent albums partly or wholly during the extended period of the early pandemic when no one was performing many shows and a lot of people had to take stock and stew in their own frustrations and anxieties and reassess life at least a little. Too bad America as a nation didn’t seem to learn much from the experience and got right back to the business and business and crushing the working class under the weight of spiraling income inequality and unaffordable cities with little relief in sight while the harbinger of fascism looms across the world including the USA where the call has been coming from inside the house for years. But Wauters definitely took the experience to heart and dove deeper into the potential lessons of those aforementioned times and gleaned some personal and social insights that he casts forth in arguably the best set of songs of his solo career thus far.

Sparks on the FFS tour in 2015, photo by Tom Murphy

Sunday | 07.09
What: Sparks
When: 7
Where: Boulder Theater
Why: With the 2021 biographical documentary The Sparks Brothers following the 2015 collaborative supergroup FFS with Franz Ferdinand, Sparks has become more than a relatively obscure cult band once again and deservedly so. Forming as Urban Renewal Porject in 1966 in the greater Los Angeles area the core duo of brothers Ron and Russell Mael renamed themselves Sparks in 1972 and finding little support or interest in America relocated to the UK in 1973 for a few years. During that time Sparks hit its first creative peak as evidenced by its classic, weirdo art pop masterpiece Kimono My House (1974) and its highly underrated follow-up Propaganda (1974). Though the brothers eventually returned to America that time left an impression in the UK with Sparks exerting a bit of influence on the nascent punk scene with its irreverent attitudes and disdain for dull nonsense. Over the years the group’s unique creative vision has occasionally made waves in the mainstream but mostly among connoisseurs of visionary, idiosyncratic pop music. Its music influenced artists as diverse as Joy Division, Siouxsie and the Banshees (who covered “This Town Ain’t Big Enough for the Both of Us” on its 1987 covers album Through the Looking Glass), Sonic Youth and Björk. Sparks worked with Giorgio Moroder on its 1978 album Nº 1 in Heaven and secured its place as a direct influence on the direction of synth pop and its 1982 song “I Predict” cracked the Billboard Hot 100 as a “New Wave” hit. Whether you know it or not you’ve heard music by Sparks in multiple movies and television shows and its infectious melodies have become an underappreciated part of music culture. And now you can see the legends touring in support of their new album The Girl Is Crying in Her Latte, another respectable entry with forward thinking, innovative, creative music throughout. The live show is theatrical, informed by genuinely clever humor, self-aware cultural references and commentary and surprising moments from the brothers Mael who don’t skimp on bringing a sense of the spontaneous and often unpredictable to the proceedings.

Bring Me the Horizon, photo by Jonti Wild

Sunday | 07.09
What: Fall Out Boy w/Bring Me the Horizon and Royal & the Serpent
When: 6:30
Where: Fiddler’s Green
Why: Fall Out Boy has been for years the go to band for teen angst in the form of pop punk emo and if you’re of a certain age it’s definitely part of your cultural zeitgeist with its long string of hits going back to the early 2000s. Royal & the Serpent is the project of Ryan Santiago whose music is an unlikely but effective fusion of electronic pop and pop-punk with songs that are real, raw and vulnerable and delivered with an immediate accessibility. Maybe it’s because the band is from Sheffield, England where most of the bands have a leg in the experimental but Bring Me The Horizon though known for its explosive, emotionally vibrant and expansive metalcore sound also seems to be able to freely associate other styles of music into the mix as well as a wide array of artists brought in for collaborations that mutate its sound even more. The results may not be for everyone particularly if you’re not on board for the band’s current core aesthetic of scream-y post-hardcore and electronic/industrial rock fusion. But at least Bring Me the Horizon is trying not to get stuck in outdated notions of the good old days and other impulses that undercut creative growth.

Monday | 07.10
What: Creux Lies w/Plague Garden and Redwing Blackbird
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Creux Lies is a post-punk band from Sacramento whose sound is completely fused with a more dream pop and shoegaze sound rather than the spindly post-punk noodling that has been popular in those circles in recent years. Plague Garden is a post-punk band from Denver whose pure fusion of electronic and rock blurs the line between deathrock, dream pop and neo-New Wave. Redwing Blackbird is a post-punk duo whose sounds are steeped not just in the gloom pop of The Cure but of psychedelic rock in the vein of The Legendary Pink Dots and Pink Floyd.

Bonnie “Prince” Billy, photo by Natasha Via

Tuesday-Friday | 07.11-07.14
What: Bonnie “Prince Billy” w/Faun Fables
When: 7 (07.11 and 07.12), 6 (07.13), 7 (07.14)
Where: Soiled Dove (07.11 and 07.12), The Armory (07.13) and Lulu’s Downstairs (07.14)
Why: Ahead of the August 11, 2023 release of his new album Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You on Drag City, Bonnie “Prince” Billy aka Will Oldham is touring with a string of shows in Colorado in Denver, Colorado Springs and Fort Collins. Maybe you’ll get to hear more of the new material than has already been revealed online but either way, Oldham’s singular voice and creative vision as a songwriter and artist who pushes the boundaries of the kind of freak folk, country and and lo-fi rock that has been the hallmark in his career from the various Palace projects, the prolific releases under the Bonnie “Prince” Billy moniker to Superwolves and other collaborations. He has a knack for making the cosmic intimate and the profane profound both on the recorded format and as a live performer.

Wednesday | 07.12
What: Final Gasp w/Weathered Statues, Victim of Fire, Merry and Maintainer
When: 7
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: The members of Final Gasp came out of hardcore (Antagonize, Wound Man) but with its 2019 debut Baptism of Desire and its follow-up Haunting Whisper from 2021, that kind of energy and intensity is channeled into a moodier deathrock sound that incorporates that hardcore sensibility with metal and post-punk. The group is currently touring ahead of the September 22, 2023 release of its new record Mourning Moon. Joining them for this show are local bands across the spectrum of hardcore (Victim of Fire) and post-punk (Weathered Statues) and sounds outside of that direct spectrum of rock.

Friday | 07.14
What: Wallice w/Nitefire and Card Catalog
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Wallice was born and raised in and is now based out of the Los Angeles area. Since 2017 she has released a series of songs and EPs noteworthy for their self-aware wit and sharply articulated sociological observations and commentary on modern life and relationships. Though her output might be loosely described as bedroom pop there is a level of production and songcraft that elevates her songs into the realm of indie pop more often associated with the likes of Snail Mail and Soccer Mommy. Directly off a Australian dates with The 1975, Wallice is touring in support of her new EP Mr. Big Shot, her most fully realized and set of compositions to date.

Saturday | 07.15
What: Isadora Eden album release w/Pink Lady Monster and Deth Rali
When: 7
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Isadora Eden started as a solo project in a more indie singer-songwriter vein but even the early releases were imbued with an imaginative flair and an ear for deeper emotional coloring. As Eden brought on board collaborators to help flesh out the sound in the newer songs she was writing the music evolved into a darker, more sonically rich sound that was a bit more like something one might expect to hear from a songwriter like PJ Harvey or Mary Timony but more darkwave, more flourishes of atmospheric sounds both guitar-rooted and electronic akin to the stranger end of shoegaze. This creative period has resulted in one of the more fascinating records of 2023 in forget what makes it glow, the debut full-length for the project. Eden’s deeply evocative voice guides you through an introspective set of songs that are melancholic, reflective and in the end cathartic. Like the kind of dream pop record with some grit and edge, willing to wax noisy in moments as if to embody the way life and our subsconscious experiences are analog and meaningful, intimate, in a way pristine digital and curated experiences rarely are. The album will be available on vinyl and digital and for more information on finding group’s releases, social media and upcoming shows please visit the band’s website.Pink Lady Monster is one of the most interesting bands out of Denver or anywhere now because it incorporates elements of experimental dream pop, experimental jazz and noise rock for a sound that is entrancing and challenging at once.

Saturday | 07.15
What: The Goddamn Gallows w/IV and The Strange Band and Volk
When: 8
Where: Globe Hall
Why: The Goddamn Gallows are a band that has picked up musical ideas and styles in its meandering journey as a band since beginning in the early part of the 2000s. These days the group is a raucous and charming mish mash of punk Americana and metal with an wisacre sense of humor long on irony. Volk is a rambunctious, psychedelic honky tonk duo from Nashville that recently released its latest EP, Stand the Test which reveals its knack for pop songcraft as remixed and reinterpreted by friends into new territory for the band. Volk’s spirited and sometimes surreal live show is proof positive that plenty of weirdos exist in the realm of country music in Tennessee.

Sunday | 07.16
What: Chaepter w/Specific Ocean and Jeremy Mock
When: 7
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: Chaepter is an artist from Chicago whose music is the kind of bedroom pop that blurs the borders between slowcore, dreampop and indiefolk. Specific Ocean is an indie rock band with a strong undercurrent of jazz sensibilities. Jeremy Mock was the frontman and guitarist of the great and now defunct Denver post-punk band Antibroth. He is playing a rare solo show before moving to New York City and this will be the last chance to catch his idiosyncratic music styling for some time to come.

Tuesday | 07.18
What: d4vd w/Scott James
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: d4vd is the performance and songwriting moniker of David Anthony Burke who got his start making music composing pieces for his montage videos of Fortnite and he’s been a member of esports group Team Limit. But his July 2022 dark dreampop single “Romantic Homicide” was his breakthrough with its horror short-esque music video paired with the poignant lyrics of heartbreak and the intense feelings that can ensue following a romantic split. In March 2023, the debut d4vd album Petals to Thorns dropped collecting his singles and adding new music to the artist’s growing repertoire of melancholic and soulful bedroom pop songs articulating feelings of loneliness, love lost, romance gone wrong, self-doubt and yearning for redemption.

Wednesday | 07.19
What: Pardoner w/American Culture, Supreme Joy and Fishlegs
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Imagine the unlikely combination of Superchunk and a hardcore band and you’ll have some idea of what you’re in for with Pardoner. The band from San Francisco recently released its latest album Peace Loving People which sounds like the above if that band also dipped into the more angular and intense end of Circle Jerks/OFF. American Culture is what happens when an indie pop rooted band rediscovers its love of punk and The Cure in equal measure. Supreme Joy is like a garage rock band with chops and a taste for psychedelia.

Wednesday | 07.19
What: X w/James Intveld
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: X is the influential and well-known Americana punk band from Los Angeles whose body of work is among the most literate rock and roll ever written but without losing the punk rock and beat poetry spirit that inspired it from its inception. Live still a little off the cuff and occasionally unhinged.

Wednesday and Thursday | 07.19 and 07.20
What: Caamp w/Carsie Blanton and Zach Nytomt (07.19) and Lady W r ay and Tucker Gill (07.20)
When: 6
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Caamp is an indie folk band from Columbus, Ohio that has built a steady following over the past near decade and not so long ago you would have caught the group playing small clubs. But its 2019 album By & By garnered Caamp critical accolades and its first appearance on commericial charts. For the group’s latest album, Lavender Days, Caamp enlisted Nathaniel Rateliff and Katie Crutchfield (of Waxahatchee fame) on vocals and the resultant album is one that expands the core sound of elegantly pastoral pop with incandescent warmth and an introspection that is also forward looking.

What: Gorilla Biscuits w/H2O Direct Threat and Time X Heist
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Gorilla Biscuits were part of that final period of the first era of hardcore that emerged in the mid-to-late 80s in New York City before the movement all but imploded by the early 90s before many of those early bands re-formed in the 2000s as a new era of hardcore was beginning to gather steam and transform and redefine the sound. Gorilla Biscuits benefited from having formed in the wake of crossover and its sound was more in line with a more modern style. Also on the bill is H2O, a NYC melodic hardcore band that got going in 1994 and Direct Threat and Time X Heist from Denver who are carrying that torch of hardcore’s era of blunt, unvarnished sonic aggression.

Glass Spells, photo courtesy the artists

Friday | 07.21
What: Glass Spells w/Tepid and DJ Tower
When: 8
Where: HQ
Why: Glass Spells is a post-punk band whose sound is more in line with synthwave and minimal techno, like it took some inspiration from both early Ladytron and ADULT. Its 2021 album Shattered released during the late period when live shows weren’t happening and so the duo didn’t get a proper showing of its music until later and no more wide national tour until now. Tepid is the solo minimal techno project of Nick Salmon of industrial post-punk band Voight from Denver.

Julian St. Nightmare, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 07.21
What: Julian St. Nightmare, Sell Farm and Dream of Industry
When: 9
Where: Glob
Why: A showcase of some of the better post-punk adjacent bands out of Denver with the more darkwave Julian St. Nightmare whose commanding live shows are a well kept secret of the Mile High City for now. Sell Farm is more in the realm of dub-inflected Godflesh. Dream of Industry infuses its own dark, post-punk flavor with shoegaze highlights.

Mainland Break in 2019, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 07.22
What: Mainland Break w/Kiwi Jr. and Candy Chic
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Mainland Break is a jangle pop/power pop band from Denver whose latest album One Way Ticket to Midnight is being celebrated at this show. It’s sparkling melodies and intricate guitar work recall the simple charm of early 2000s indiepop and that era of 80s underground rock best represented by the Paisley Underground, early Flying Nun acts and C86.

Saturday | 07.22
What: MF Ruckus w/The Blind Staggers and Ipecac
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: MF Ruckus is releasing its latest album The Front Line of Good Times Vol. I through Glory or Death Records. The long-running Denver hard rock band has a style that bridges any gaps between bluesy hard rock and melodic thrash with a high energy and entertaining live show.

Monday | 07.24
What: Caterina Barbieri — CANCELED
When: 7
Where: Central Presbyterian Church
Why: Caterina Barbieri is an Italian composer now based in Berlin whose fusion of analog synthesis and generative/algorithmic method of crafting her idiosyncratic electronic soundscapes has garnered her wide acclaim. Her 2017 breakthrough album Patterns of Consciousness on Important Records introduced her efforts at breaking down the barriers between dance music, pop and the avant-garde to the larger world of fans of experimental electronic music. On both sides of the pandemic lockdowns of 2020 Barbieri has released two, remarkable sister albums with 2019’s Ecstatic Computation and the 2023 opus Myuthafoo both now on digital and vinyl through her own light-years imprint. Think of her as a kind of creative and spiritual descendant of Suzanne Ciani, Laurie Spiegel and Jean-Michel Jarre in terms of innovative technique and accessibility.

The Mighty Missoula, photo from Bandcamp

Monday | 07.24
What: The Mighty Missoula w/Abandons and Only Echoes
When: 7
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: The Mighty Missoula is an instrumental post-rock band from Portland, Oregon whose body of work waxes more into the realm of ambient. At least its most recent EP Virga named for the falling rain that evaporates before hitting the ground has a pastoral drift not unlike what it might be to meditate on a late afternoon and early evening in mid-spring in the Pacific Northwest observing the movements of clouds as they course toward forming days of drizzle punctuated by sunlight bursting through unexpectedly. Abandons and Only Echoes are also post-rock bands but from Denver. Abandons is somewhere between post-metal and the kind of experimental noise rock that has been blurred into more abstract structures whereas Only Echoes sculpts from a heavier sonic palette with more in common with the riff focus of acts like Pelican and Agalloch.

Tuesday | 07.25
What: Braid w/despAIR Jordan https://www.bluebirdtheater.net/events/detail/485237
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Braid were (and are) one of the most influential bands out of Midwestern emo with its 1998 album Frame & Canvas one of the absolute classics of the genre. What perhaps separated Braid from some of its peers was its clear roots in the kind of angular post-hardcore of Discord bands and expanding on melodic hooks and raw emotionalism of the likes of Embrace and of course Fugazi. Denver’s despAIR Jordan is comprised of veterans of the punk and post-hardcore scene that emerged in the wake of the foundation laid by Braid, Mineral and Christie Front Drive with its own moody, melodic fusion of shoegaze and emo.

Middle Kids, photo by Michelle Grace Hunder

Tuesday | 07.25
What: Jimmy Eat World w/Manchester Orchestra and Middle Kids
When: 5:30
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Jimmy Eat World was one of the bands whose amalgam of pop punk and emo helped take those sounds into the mainstream following Green Day and NOFX paving that way earlier in the 90s. With the 2001 release of its album Bleed American and the ubiquitous and now classic single “The Middle” Jimmy Eat World with an album of undeniable hooks proved it could transcend preconceptions of its roots. At a time when a lot of generic pop punk was flooding airwaves and mediocre, trend hoppers were forming and playing festivals and occupying the same lane as cookie cutter grunge bands had less than a decade prior somehow Jimmy Eat World stood out because of the quality of the songwriting. Opening this night at Red Rocks is Middle Kids from Sydney, Australia who have been delivering poignant and introspective indie rock since its 2016 inception. The group’s self-titled debut EP seemed to be filled with songs of unlikely sophistication and advanced songcraft so early in the trio’s career. Its sweeping and delicate mini epics on the EP were both delicacy of feleing and shot through with a exuberant and charismatic energy. The band is set to release its new album in the none-too-distant future and its lead single “Bootleg Firecracker” with its acoustic sounds and intimate mood hints at yet another shift in musical direction for talented pop group even further into turning a personal storytelling style into something with a wide appeal.

Janet Feder and Fred Frith in 2017, photo by Tom Murphy

Tuesday | 07.25
What: Janet Feder and Ian Argys
When: 7-9
Where: Broadway Roxy
Why: Denver based avant-garde composer and guitarist Janet Feder is performing a rare set this evening with solo and duo sets with accomplished jazz and experimental guitar player Ian Argys. Sounds like it could be a little too cerebral but Feder’s humor and warmth as a performer is always engaging and she is able to make heady, technical music accessible.

(L-R): Cavetown, Ricky Montgomery and mxmtoon, photo by Lauren Tepfer

Wednesday | 07.26
What: Bittersweet Daze: mxmtoon w/Cavetown, Ricky Montgomery and grentperez
When: 4:30
Where: Levitt Pavilion
Why: Bittersweet Daze is a tour featuring three stars of modern bedroom pop with mxmtoon, Cavetown and Ricky Montgomery. The three artists recently collaborated on and released the single “Nobody Loves Me,” a song about love and yearning and a vulnerable self-awareness seemingly written from a place of existential angst yet channeled into a tenderly earnest pop song. Individually mxmtoon and Cavetown got started writing music during their middle school years starting their own YouTube channels as an outlet for sharing their songs. But those fledgling efforts blossomed into an internet phenomenon through various social media platforms including TikTok. Cavetown produced mxmtoon’s 2019 single “Prom Dress” which went viral and has been used in tens of thousands of TikTok videos. Montgomery had pursued a more traditional indie rock band route with his group The Honeysticks but nearly quit music entirely by 2020. But during the early COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 he released singles that too went viral on TikTok with “Mr. Loverman” and “Line Without a Hook.” In 2021 he saw mxmtoon perform on Twitch and discovered she’d been a fan of his Vine clips before that platform took a dive in the mid-2010s. All three artists excel at blending intimate folk pop with modern electronic and hip-hop production to craft songs that speak to the aspirations and anxieties of a younger generation while navigating communicating with potential fans through savvy and creative use of online platforms that bypass traditional forms of music distribution.

Tedeschi Trucks Band, photo by David McClister

Friday and Saturday | 07.28 and 07.29
What: Tedeschi Trucks Band w/Vincent Neil Emerson
When: 6
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Susan Tedeschi was already hailed as one of the most gifted modern blues guitarists and songwriters of her generation before she married another such luminary in Derek Trucks who had been a part of The Allman Brothers Band, the group one of his uncles had helped to found. Their band together, Tedeschi Trucks Band, launched in 2010 when each put their solo efforts on indefinite hiatus and these days the twelve members of the band seem to have an intuitive connection that gives what might be considered an established blues Americana sound a vibrant energy. Tedeschi’s passionate and expressive vocals and both her and Trucks’ masterful guitar interplay syncing with a group of ace musicians on horns, bass, percussion and is orchestral in scope with layered vocal harmonies boosting the impact of the songs truly elevates this bands performances beyond where many other artists aiming at similar musical leanings are able to achieve. It’s not a jam band though there is plenty of off the cuff improvisation, it’s not simply blues or Americana or rock and roll but its own thing with those roots blended together.

Monday | 07.31
What: Overcalc (Nick Skro b isz of Multicult and The Wayward) w/Equine and Fungus Panel
When: 8/9
Where: Bar Bar aka Carioca Café
Why: Overcalc is the solo project of Nick Skrobisz of Multicult and The Wayward Fame. The music of Overcalc combines guitar experiments with layers of electronic elements to produce texural tones and rhythms akin to something one might have heard on an old Faust record. The latest album from Overcalc is 2022’s Fruits of the Decision Tree recently issued on Sleeping Giant Glossolalia. Opening the show is Equine, the solo guitar soundscaping project of former Motheater and Epileptinomicon member Kevin Richards whose experiments in rhythm and feedback sculpting with unique guitar chords and arrangements of amps bridges the gap between drone and the avant-garde.

Monday | 07.31
What: Big Thief w/Lucinda Williams https://www.redrocksonline.com/events/big-thief-466494/
When: 6:30
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Big Thief has been evolving its idiosyncratic brand of indie folk since its 2015 inception in Brooklyn. Its 2022 album Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You contained aspects of field recordings within its pastoral, deeply atmospheric, delicate pop songs grounding what could be ethereal faire especially given Adrianne Lenker’s introspective tones that seem to be a little like getting to hear what it’s like to sit inside a reflective, cinematic daydream. Lucinda Williams is opening this show but the country rock and folk singer is an influential and pioneering legend in her own right and the headlining status could have gone either way on a bill like this. Her latest album Stories From a Rock n Roll Heart dropped at the end of June and reflects her sharp ear for crafting not just strong personal stories but bluesy rock songs in a way that teems with life rather than a retread of a well worn musical path.