Dummy – Queen City Sounds and Art

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond October 2026

Dinosaur Jr performs at The Ogden Theatre on October 29, 2026, photo by Jeff Fowler

Thursday | 10.01
What: Carín León
When: 7
Where: Ball Arena
Why: Carín León is a bonafide international star who built his career on performing various styles of regional Mexican music like Banda, mariachi, norteño and combined that more traditional and folk music with R&B, rock and country into a highly accessible form that is essentially modern pop music. He may not be so well known in English playlist formats but he’s playing at Ball Arena in Denver and at The Sphere in Las Vegas and other large venues throughout North America a testament to his status as a commercially popular artist who has garnered Latin Grammy Awards as well as an appearance at Austin City Limits. His energy as a performer on both recordings and live has an immediacy and authenticity with an instant appeal. In 2026 he collaborated with Jelly Roll on the single “Lighter” for the official album of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. His new album Muda released May 7, 2026.

Thursday | 10.01
What: Plastic Mystic, Church Fire, Watch Yourself Die and Clay K & The Vertebrates
When: 7/7:30
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Four of the front range’s best bands on one bill on a Thursday night beginning with art rock/prog/post-punk band Clay K & The Vertebrates from Fort Collins. Watch Yourself Die is like if a noise rock prog band put the focus on confrontational performance art that is so committed it crosses over into a psychedelic experience. Church Fire is the premier political industrial dance pop band from Denver. Plastic Mystic is a spirited fusion of garage rock, post-punk, hardcore and grunge.

Saturday | 10/03
What: Candy Chic album release w/The CDs and Lu Lagoon
When: 7 ($10)
Where: Matchbox
Why: Candy Chic is celebrating the release of its new album B-Side Movies. The quartet is in the realm of indie rock but with clear inspiration drawn from 1980s synth pop and the new album as the title suggests has a cinematic aspect in its production and songwriting but also with the kind of earnest emotional expression that seems like more something from another era, not the performative earnestness that plagued a certain segment of indie rock in the 2000s. Throughout one gets the sense that the songs were written as the soundtrack to a coming of age movie or a film about navigating early adulthood perhaps written by Brian K. Vaughan. Live the band performs with the appropriate enthusiasm appropriate to such possible inspirations.

Saturday | 10.03
What: Denver Porchfest
When: 12-7PM
Where: Baker District Porches
Why: This inaugural edition of the one day, short form festival runs throughout the Baker Neighborhood and features 193 local bands with donations to benefit East 7th Arts which provides art and music therapy for children with autism. There will be some of the best local acts across various porches and please consult the website linked for more details and possibly check the social media of bands listed for when and where they will be performing.

Monday | 10.05
What: Automatic w/Donzii
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station Perplexiplex
Why: Automatic is a post-punk duo from Los Angeles comprised of Izzy Glaudini on synths and vocals and Halle Saxon on bass and vocals. Lola Dompé, daughter of Bauhaus/Love and Rockets drummer Kevin Haskins, is the group’s former drummer and vocalist. The 2025 album Is It Now? demonstrated the band was capable of creating evocative, atmospheric music with minimal elements. Opening the show is Donzii, an electro post-punk performance art No Wave-adjacent band originally from Miami. Jenna Balfe is a commanding and ritualistic singer whose dance moves are like something out of avant-garde dance theater, fun and pure rock and roll and bassist Dennis Fuller sounds like he studied heavily listening to John Taylor and Larry Graham before developing his own powerful style.

Monday | 10.05
What: Love Spells w/Orca
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Love Spells aka Sir Taegen Harris released his debut full length album Love Is the Law on July 24, 2026 via RCA. The artist grew up in and around Houston (now based in Los Angeles) and found solace in fantasy fiction as a youth but eventually discovered poetry as a vehicle to crafting lyrics for his early musical endeavors as a rap artist. Later in his teens he switched musical gears some and fused hip-hop production and more dream pop and indie rock style songwriting and the new album with his impressive use of falsetto vocals is a bit like if Prince came up on later R&B and dream pop and wrote emotionally vibrant songs about, frankly, similar subject matter like love, soul searing heartbreak and struggles with mental health. Isn’t that what “Let’s Go Crazy” is about?

Monday | 10.05
What: Shiner w/Criteria and Replica City
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Shiner is one of the secretly influential rock bands out of the 90s from Kansas City, Missouri. Its evolving sound is in the realm of post-hardcore and math rock but with deep atmospheric elements that crosses over into what was called space rock before everything in that realm of sonics got lumped in with shoegaze. Originally running from 1992-2003 the band reconvened in 2012 and has been putting out fascinating records since including its latest epic The Y Section (2026) that has more than a passing resonance with what Failure has been up to of late. Opening is Denver’s great post-hardcore/post-punk trip Replica City and Criteria from Omaha, the noisy post-punk band including former Cursive member Steve Pedersen and A.J. Mogis who runs Presto! Recording Studios with his brother Mike Mogis, a musician whose studio engineering credits are a not insignificant portion of modern indie rock.

Tuesday | 10.06
What: Big Thief w/Iris DeMent
When: 6:30
Where: Red Rocks Amphitheater
Why: Big Thief has become one of the biggest and most influential indie rock bands since its 2015 inception with both Adrianne Lenker and Buck Meek having noteworthy solo careers parallel with the band. Though its music is associated with Americana and indie folk there has been an ambitious songwriting instinct obvious from its early releases but all serving music that is brimming with raw emotions channeled into vulnerable, poetic expressiveness. With the release of Double Infinity (2025), Big Thief showed that it could work with many songs and hone a new kind of sound for the band that seemed to incorporate more of its electronic elements and a more edgy noisiness than was more obvious on earlier records. It also included extensive contributions from ambient/avant-garde legend Laraaji.

Buzzcocks in 2024, photo by Janette Beckman

Tuesday | 10.06
What: Buzzcocks w/Minds Eye and The Pitch Invasion
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Foundational post-punk band Buzzcocks is celebrating its 50 years of existence with this tour. After it started in Manchester, UK in 1976 Buzzcocks were the first punk band with an independently released EP, Spiral Scratch (1977). Even that initial release was the sound for what was coming after punk with an knack for pop hooks and a different kind of sensibility that was solidified in subsequent albums so that it innovated one branch of post-punk and really early pop punk. Early singles like “Orgasm Addict,” “What Do I Get?” and “Every Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve)” are still staples of punk and post-punk playlists and sound just as exciting as when they were first released because Buzzcocks were seemingly not writing just for the late 70s. These days only Steve Diggle from the classic lineup is still in the band but it’s one that has released music since the tragic death of former lead singer and guitarist Pete Shelley in 2018 including 2026 album Attitude Adjustment.

Friday | 10.09
What: MVTANT w/Pink Stiletto, babybaby4ever, Velocity Garden and Kill You Club DJs
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: MVTANT is an industrial darkwave artist from San Antonio whose version of EBM is more steeped in the realm of techno and earlier progenitors of the style like Front Line Assembly and Fad Gadget. But in the dystopian dance music of the artist’s output you can hear the impact of electronic Krautrock and horror cinema soundtracks thus perhaps the title and themes of the 2024 album Electronic Body Horror. Pink Stiletto’s own darkwave flavor is more in line with a fusion of disco and synthpop. And babybaby4ever is the best modern synthpop artist most people outside of Denver haven’t had the pleasure of witnessing and Lily Conrad’s command of rich synth tone and playful stage performance is top tier.

The Jungle Giants, photo courtesy the artists

Friday | 10.09
What: The Jungle Giants w/Morning Silk
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: The Jungle Giants are an indie rock quartet from Brisbane, Queensland, Australia who garnered a bit of international attention with the release of its 2013 album Learn to Exist noted for its irrepressible energy and creative hooks. In May 2026 the group released its first album in five years with Experiencing Feelings of Joy. The lead singles from the album showcased how The Jungle Giants aren’t just influenced by rock music and its vocal cadences have the hallmarks of hip-hop and R&B. All evident on previous releases but on the new album the songs have a richly developed atmospheric and production element that sounds geared for more mainstream appeal.

Saturday | 10.10
What: Pink Fuzz w/The Well and Tart
When: 7
Where: The Federal Theatre
Why: Pink Fuzz released its most recent single this week with “Don’t You Wanna Go To Heaven?” b/w “Manipulator” for digital download and streaming but also as a flexi disc. As usual the band lives up to its name with deeply hooky and melodic stoner rock. One of the opening acts The Well is from Austin and released its fourth full-length studio album …And Flames Ran Like Living Animals via Spaceflight Records on September 14, 2026. The trio’s burning, granular distortion puts into focus its heavy melodies and a knack for injecting pop hooks into metallic psychedelic rock. Fans of White Hills and the more urgent end of Black Mountain will appreciate the edge The Well brings to what feels like uplifting music. The band’s music video for “New Hallelujah for the Damned” was recorded at the SST warehouse and includes a cameo by Greg Ginn the founder of SST and, you know, Black Flag, Gone and several other bands over the years.

49 Winchester, photo by Daniel Pracopcyk

Saturday | 10.10
What: 49 Winchester w/Landon Smith
When: 7
Where: The Gothic Theatre
Why: 49 Winchester from Castlewood, Virginia has been growing its cachet as a country rock band since 2013. The sextet released its first three albums independently before being signed to New West Records in 2022. From its 2014 self-titled debut the band has show signs of the influence of music well beyond what one might assume like harder edged rock but the aesthetic and themes of the music is rooted in their background in Appalachia and the region’s genre eclectic musical traditions. The group’s new record Change of Plans is brimming with songs about transitional periods of life and how life events can drastically shift one’s outlook and give one perspective on priorities and the course of how you’re going through the world. The album includes a soulful rendition of one of the most bluesy of Black Sabbath song with “Changes.” It’s a song that seems totemic for where 49 Winchester is today and perhaps its own audience.

Saturday | 10.10
What: Die Spitz w/Farmer’s Wife
When: 7
Where: Boulder Theater
Why: Before its 2025 debut album Something to Consume even dropped, Die Spitz had major underground buzz for its spirited live show. Is Die Spitz punk or metal or just some hybrid of the two that isn’t beholden to either. The vocals on the song have the kind of thrillingly feral quality one heard in early Hole and any point in the Babes in Toyland catalog. They haven’t steered clear of guitar solos but use them creatively with a fiery flair that coupled with the urgent rhythms and the dual vocals bypasses expectations. Die Spitz also has wonderfully pointed yet thoughtful and heartfelt social commentary that fits well with how the music sears through any static of what the band is supposed to sound like and how some of the most exciting and edgy music now is supposed to be delivered other than with conviction and passion.

Monday | 10.12
What: Castle Rat w/Unto Others and Wrath Knight
When: 6:30
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Castle Rat wisely leaned into the fantasy imagery on stage and its lyrics from the beginning. The musicianship and well-crafted songs speak for themselves. The outfits, aesthetic and subject matter of the songs just make it more fun for people that show up to witness the spectacle. Many bands have tried a similar thing and found lacking because it is just cheesy or inept. Castle Rat’s debut full length The Bestiary (2025) offered tales of adventure and peril set to music that isn’t just trapped in doom or retro metal or heavy psychedelic rock but a fusion of all of that into its own flavor. Just look at press photos of the band and live footage on the internet and if that doesn’t seem appealing for some reason maybe don’t go but you might be missing out on one of the best live acts in the realm of metal going now.

Tuesday | 10.13
What: Sawyer Hill
When: 6:30
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Sawyer Hill got started playing in bars in Northwest Arkansas with a band of older kids before going solo and promoting his songs in social media where he garnered a wide fanbase. His song “Look At The Time” went viral and charted well with Spotify leading to signing to AWAL. His rich and charismatic baritone voice and passionate live performance can be heard fully utilized on Hill’s debut album Everybody’s Home, Nobody’s Happy (2026) where he somehow fuses some of his background in blues rock and perhaps gospel music and early Beck. But really Hill comes off like a singer from another era like a lost artist from the 60s or 70s who would have been sharing bills with honky tonk bands.

Wednesday | 10.14
What: zzzahara w/Faerybabyy and Bruha
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: zzzahara returns to Denver for a headlining show. They put out their album Distant Lands in June 2026 and its layered, bedroom pop style truly sounds like a dream-journey of self-discovery and healing. Inspired by a dream in which the songwriter spoke to their departed brother the record is steeped in embracing authentic feelings that we often keep buried as we hurtle through our lives. It is an album about reconnecting and perhaps growing from that process. It could be described as dream pop, shoegaze, psych and all the other atmospheric guitar genre tags you want but it also sounds like it’s informed by the possibilities of production and in some ways is like a pop cognate of They Are Gutting a Body of Water.

Thursday | 10.15
What: Raynes w/David Wimbish & The Collection
When: 7
Where: The Federal Theater
Why: The Los Angeles-based trio Raynes released its latest album Bloom in 2025 and further established its pop approach to songwriting. The group is often associated with folk due to its core of acoustic instruments and strong vocal arrangements. But Raynes has a backing of synths and a combination of live drums and electronic percussion. The result is what sounds like a fusion of chamber pop and bluegrass. Openers David Wimbish & The Collection released the album Heavy Love in 2026. Rooted in especially vulnerable and intimate songwriting style of folk pop, the new set of songs came about in the wake of Wimbish’s various life changes and challenges including dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in September 2024. And an often unspoken or explicitly dealt with in music directly aspect of being flooded with challenges is depression and the ways we employ to process those feelings. Whether through medication or various other approaches appropriate to given circumstances and nuances of what triggers the mind’s and body’s response to overwhelming, often prolonged, experiences. In delivering the music Wimbish and his bandmates involve the audience in putting together the set list and sharing stories from their lives for a kind of communal show and a way to bond with people that most artists wouldn’t attempt.

Friday | 10.16
What: REZN w/Lowheaven and BleakHeart
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Chicago’s REZN threads together doom and heavy rock with psychedelia and shoegaze into epic song cycles that explore transitional life phases and existential states reaching for an inner truth through honest experiences. Its latest album Cycles in the Infinite Dream isn’t as dark as previous albums but that’s like saying Kylesa’s later albums aren’t as heavy or as dark as the earlier records when that’s not so much true as the sound has evolved. Denver’s BleakHeart will open the show with its own radically vulnerable atmospheric heavy music somewhere in the meeting of dream pop, doom and post-punk.

Saturday | 10.17
What: The Wrecks w/Worry Club and Kid Sistr
When: 6
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Earlier in its career The Wrecks were more in the realm of indie/alternative rock seemingly influenced heavily by pop punk and emo. But its newer releases have incorporated what might be described as dream pop with greater attention to the atmospheric element of the songs and not a shoegaze adjacent sound so much. The band has been releasing singles over the past two years hinting at a new album on the horizon as the successor to 2022’s Sonder. Kid Sistr started out in New York near NYC but have been based out of Los Angeles for half a decade and its own music brings together punk-adjacent grit akin to 90s alternative rock, the kind of melodic immediacy and emotional uplift of Snail Mail and Soccer Mommy and a celebration of queer identity. The trio’s new EP American Teenage Prophecy is a vulnerably yet exuberant set of songs that lay out the struggles and triumphs of wading fully into one’s identity rather than one imposed by culture.

Saturday | 10.17
What: Fruit Bats w/Matthew Logan Vasquez
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Fruit Bats is the project of Eric D. Johnson who formed the band in 1997 in Chicago and enjoyed critical acclaim for a string of albums including a handful for Sub Pop before he dissolved the project in 2013 and performing as EDJ. But an offer to open for the 2015 My Morning Jacket inspired Johnson to reform the band. Since then the band has been prolific in its release schedule including 2026’s The Landfill. The record is like a companion to the 2025 album Baby Man which itself represented a shift in focus of Johnson’s songwriting to a more observational and stream-of-consciousness approach taking inspiration from his immediate environments with The Landfill seemingly drawing upon how landscapes in the midwest with hills such as they are more or less constructs of human civilization building upon the past and finding various uses for the land that change over the course of decades and centuries and the resonances we as individual humans have with that history and present in ways that aren’t always obvious but discernible if we take the time and develop the sensitivity to be aware. Musically it’s still in Johnson’s warmly folk style but coming across as even more like Bob Dylan than before.

Saturday | 10.17
What: A Strange Happening, Rowboat and The Picture Tour
When: 8 doors, 9 show, $10
Where: The Squire Lounge
Why: One of the best all local bills of the week with the indie, gritty dark American A Strange Happening whose songs are conceptual in terms of lyrics and as recording projects. The high concept approach isn’t obvious without a rewarding closer listen. Rowboat fuses folk based songwriting and deeply personal poetry infused with heartfelt social commentary. Yet also comes across like an intense, countrified shoegaze band. The Picture Tour makes no bones about being a dark post-punk band with elements of garage rock and shoegaze baked into its commanding and transporting songs.

Sunday | 10.18
What: Clejan’s “Strings of Valhalla” Tour
When: 1pm
Where: The Roxy Theater (2549 Welton St.)
Why: Clejan grew up in Atlanta and as with many kids he was urged into learning a classical instrument and for him that was the violin. But being in Atlanta as a kid in the 90s and 2000s he was exposed to the city’s hip-hop scene which was hitting the mainstream by the turn of the century and as a young person he was aware of the development of trap and as an artist himself he combined violin music with trap inspired in part by what he saw Lindsey Stirling blending her background in classical violin with pop, rock and EDM. Clejan released his new album Valhalla in 2026 and is currently touring in support of the album with this rare matinee show at The Roxy Theater near downtown Denver.

Monday | 10.19
What: Slow Pulp w/snuggle
When: 7
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Madison, Wisconsin spawned, Chicago-based indie rock band Slow Pulp recently issued its new album Melodie on Anti- September 18. 2026. The record sounds like a unification of the more indie folk flavor of its full-length debut Moveys (2020) and the more shoegaze/psychedelic rock style that informed the 2023 album Yard. But with more attention given to dynamic shifts and the textural and evocative possibilities of contrasting acoustic instruments and electronics. The album has a melancholic and reflective cast with explorations of self identity and how we move through the world and impact others with our self-perception and how that may differ from how we’re perceived. The mix of tender and effusive means the album doesn’t get stuck in a mood and reflects a yearning for reaching for one’s own potential and possibilities.

Wednesday | 10.21
What: MUNA w/hemlocke springs
When: 7
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Los Angeles-based synth pop trio MUNA met while students at USC and originally started making music in a more left field mode but shortly found more fruitful collaboration on material based in songwriting. Early in the band’s career they were signed to a major label and then dropped due to inadequate commercial performance, surely the sign of where major labels have been for years. But MUNA were signed to Phoebe Bridgers’ Saddest Factory Records (in partnership with Dead Oceans) in 2021 and subsequently released its two finest and commercially successful albums of MUNA’s career including 2026’s Dancing on the Wall. Commercial considerations aside because who cares about that if a band doesn’t have the goods. MUNA’s punchy songwriting, typically strong hooks, tonally rich vocal performances and infectiously upbeat songs on an album inspired by the immense challenges to democracy and civil society posed by the second Felon47 administration injects some joy into one of the darkest times in modern American history and fortifying a spirit of resistance thereby.

Praga Khan of Lords of Acid, photo courtesy the artist

Thursday | 10.22
What: Lords of Acid w/Princess Superstar, Tony and the Kiki and Mz Neon
When: 6:30
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Lords of Acid has been running since 1988 from Antwerp, Belgium with a sound that early combined industrial dance music with acid house and techno. The band’s aesthetic might be described as hedonistic camp with often cartoonish songs about sexuality and drugs with the 1991 debut album Lust becoming landmark in industrial music. Led by Praga Khan with an evolving cast of collaborators across the last few decades the live show is a spectacle befitting the bombastic and outrageous lyrics. And yet the music itself is well crafted and aimed for a sweaty dance floor.

Thursday | 10.22
What: Ceremony w/Destiny Bond and Pink Lady Monster
When: 7
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Since 2004 Ceremony has been evolving its sound from an early more hardcore-inspired style to the noisy garage rock/post-punk of 2012’s Zoo and then more post-punk for L-Shaped Man (2015) and In the Spirit World Now (2019). With the new album Tell Me Your Dream Ceremony turns back to a more expansively aggressive sound while maintaining experimental elements that prevent the songs from sounding regressive. You hear keyboards accenting the angular, driving guitar and the guitar otherwise embracing unconventional melodic structures and the album ends on a melancholic, brooding, resigned note so as much as the record feels like a reconciliation with earlier impulses it also embodies and points in new directions. Opening is the great Denver hardcore band Destiny bond and Neo-No Wave legends Pink Lady Monster.

Friday | 10.23
What: Cop Killer, Team Nonexistent, Mouthful, Legs. The Band and Thinkdeath
When: 6/7, $15
Where: Ante Up
Why:With a name like Cop Killer you had better at least try to live up to what that sounds like and the Denver-based hardcore band does with lyrics that aim at take out authoritarian impulses in society. Team Nonexistent is a powerful amalgamation of grunge and riot grrrl. Legs. The Band is like a blend of garage-y blues rock and punk.

Lesser Care in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 10.23
What: Lesser Care w/Moonpool and Gooey Cookie
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Lesser Care has more or less quietly become one of the bands of choice for discerning fans of the post-punk and shoegaze crossover with a sound that is both ferocious and transporting. Its guitar tones are vibrant and not in the spindly post-punk style too many bands have adopted partly because Lesser Care is aiming to create deep and often dense atmospheres in which to get lost and dissolve the worst feelings in life. All of its albums are different and worth a thorough listen and its 2026 EP Lincoln Leather is one of its most sonically realized offerings to date introducing a decided post-hardcore element that brings more drive and push into the music that wasn’t already lacking it.

Monday | 10.26
What: Visceral Cuts w/Moon Pussy and Probes
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Visceral Cuts is a noise rock/metal/punk duo from Denton, Texas whose entire output is a tribute to horror cinema with song titles from classic horror films sublime to schlock, slasher to body horror, cosmic to creature feature with music to transform and honor the spirit of the films. Moon Pussy isn’t horror themed though from the name that sounds like a science fiction horror film. Instead it’s a mutant noise rock trio that has been responsible for some of the most potent and boundary defying music for nearly a decade.

Monday | 10.26
What: Failure w/Quannic
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Failure is one of the most influential bands that emerged in the wake of the alternative rock era that isn’t as well known as some of its peers like Tool. But when Haley Williams cites your band as a direct influence your reach is far beyond the cult following Failure has garnered across more than three decades. Its expansive guitar sounds, its cinematic yet intensely emotional songwriting that spans space rock shoegaze is like a modern version of art rock utilizing newer sounds and technology in crafting the band’s deep moods. Pick up any of its records and prepare for an engulfing sonic journey from its classic 90s albums including Fantastic Planet (1996) to its even more ambitious albums since reuniting after a 17 year hiatus in 2014 including the new record Location Lost (2026). With members of the band having experience in sound design both the records and the live show hit with a full spectrum of evocative sound and concepts.

Tuesday | 10.27
What: Taylor Bickett w/Fairhazel
When: 7
Where: Goosetown Tavern
Why: Indiana born, Nashville-based singer-songwriter Taylor Bickett released her debut album Nothing I Can’t Undo via If This Then Records. With minimal production on the record and Bickett’s expressively vulnerable and vivid vocals centered lends her stories an immediacy and intimacy that suits her songs that are a slices of life and daydreams that incorporate humor and personal and social insight. “Nothing I Can’t Undo” expresses the desire to backtrack on mistakes and aim for what you really wanted or intended set to a backdrop of transitional life moments. “Politician” gently but sharply draws the portrait of the kind of politician we’ve come to accept as a representative while knowing we can do better. Bickett’s offers instantly relatable observations with music that frames it with gentle dramatics that pull the listener in.

Tuesday | 10.27
What: Dummy, American Culture, Golomb and Precocious Neophyte
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Dummy has consistently evolved its sound from its early days in the late 2010s. Every one of its three albums and two EPs showcase a band that may get lumped in with indie pop but live the band comes across more as a shoegaze band that incorporated elements of IDM, Krautrock and a more experimental version of psychedelia. The latest record Do You Love the Color of the Sky? sounds like Dummy has taken the clear inspiration of Stereolab through a 90s big beat filter for a sound that fuses more pop musical ideas and electronic dance music with imaginative songwriting. If you were a fan of the left field pop of Mandatory Enjoyment (2021) and the psychedelic post-punk shoegaze of Free Energy (2024) the new album is the next step and more in that evolution in blurring the line between electronic and analog psychedelic dance pop. Also on this bill are Denver shoegaze punk/indie pop legends American Culture, heavy space rock pop group Precocious Neophyte and Columbus, Ohio’s post-punk/indie pop/experimental rock trio Golomb.

New Constellations, photo by Cameron Browne

Tuesday | 10.27
What: New Constellations w/Vox Rhea
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station Perplexiplex
Why: Portland, Oregon synth pop duo New Constellations released its debut album It Comes In Waves on May 15, 2026. The record delves into the relationships gone sideways and the aftermath but articulates the emotions in the moment more vividly than so many songs about heartbreak as well as what it looks and feels like to recover from being headlong in melancholic moods and being open to connecting again and how that takes work as well. The band’s singles have certainly made the rounds of indie radio and playlists and hearing the music disconnected with immediate context is striking because the production end creates sonically rich melodies and rhythms that augment singer Harlee Case’s impassioned yet introspective vocals so even the often ethereal and synthwave pop sound hits a little harder. Fans of Phantogram and Metric will likely resonate strongly with wat New Constellations are putting out.

Thursday | 10.29
What: Dinosaur Jr w/Stef Chura
When: 7
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: In the history of rock since 1984 few bands have as much cache of influence as Dinosaur Jr. The members of the band came out of the hardcore scene and that sound and sensibility can be heard in its early music. But Dinosaur Jr also indulged its classic rock, speed metal and jangle rock influences in creating a signature sound that would go on to inspire other bands to experiment with sheer volume, unconventional pacing and fusing noise with melody completely. Before splitting in 1997 Dinosaur Jr all but blueprinted much of alternative rock with groups like My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Built to Spill, Swervedriver, Uncle Tupelo and Kurt Vile have drawn their lineage to the Dinosaur’s granular guitar sound and willingness to go off a song’s established map without losing sight of the essence of its appeal. The first three albums are classics of pre-alternative era rock but subsequent records have all been worthwhile including its 2026 album There Near. Is it possible the trio upped its own game? The vocals sound more vivid and confident than ever and stylistically we hear some chances taken while not compromising the wild guitar gyration pyrotechnics and fluidly expressive rhythms that have yielded decades of memorable music.

Tassles in February 2026, photo by Tom Murphy

Thursday | 10.29
What: Julian St. Nightmare, Tassle, SFRM and Tickle Fight
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Julian St. Nightmare hasn’t played many shows since it reunited for live performance this past summer. The band was one of the best of the groups to emerge to local underground notoriety in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Initially fusing surf rock, darkwave and post-punk by the time the band went on hiatus in early 2024 it was one of the most compelling bands in Denver performing with an impassioned intensity that transcended supposed genre. Now a trio the emphasis is more on the electronic composition end augmented by moody yet fiery guitar and strong rhythms with live drums. SFRM (formerly Sellfarm) is somehow a powerful industrial darkwave/noise solo project. Tassels started as a bedroom dream pop/weirdo psych project but became a live band with the addition of bass. For a time the band had a live drummer but this show is going to be a return to drum machine loops. But the appeal of the live version of Tassles has always been the interplay from Nick Tassinari’s explosive, noisy yet tunefully dream-like guitar and Molly McGrath’s imaginative and confident bass lines coming off like a lo-fi Jesus and Mary Chain collaborating with Current Joys.

Diles Que No Me Maten in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 10.30
What: Diles Que No Me Maten w/Sunswept and Ardo
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Diles Que No Me Maten has for several years been crafting music that blurs the line between poetry and songwriting. Stylistically the group is often considered psychedelic rock or folk or jazz but is really a unique sound that contains multitudes including trickles of avant-garde electronic music. Its new album Escrito en Agua (2026) has a title that seems like a reference to the phrase inscribed on the grave of English Romantic poet John Keats, “Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water.” This is referenced without naming the poet on the Bandcamp page. But the great Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish and the album in general sounds like a processional mourning for something we’ve collectively lost and trying to find one’s way back to vitality. It is also one of the least readily classifiable of the band’s offerings. One of the opening acts is Sunswept which is the ambient/pastoral folk flute and electronics project of Sarah Christensen whose songs also defy easy classification and also put the mind into a state of tranquility.

Friday | 10.30
What: King Buffalo w/L.A. Witch
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: For over a decade King Buffalo has been one of the more interesting bands to emerge out of the synthesis of desert rock, heavy psychedelia and doom. It’s not just crushing, disorienting riffs which might be enough. King Buffalo has a keen ear for how the rhythms can be both hypnotic and carry a tasty hook while layering in fiery and transporting guitar solos that link directly back into the flow of the song. With six albums under its belt King Buffalo is set to release its new album Doomsayer on December 4, 2026. The first since 2022’s Regenerator the early music from Doomsayer promises something easily on par with any of the group’s previous releases and the track listing hints at a great story arc of a dark mystical journey through a mythical west reflecting the turmoil and tests of the current era. There’s a better than half chance you’ll get to experience a lot of the new album on this tour.

Friday | 10.30
What: Greg Freeman w/Trinity Ace
When: 7
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Calling Greg Freeman simply “alt-country” seems inadequate given his recorded output. In particularly the recently released All Set The Bone (2026). It’s like a psychedelic rock band had a folk phase and ditched that in favor of noise punk and then rediscovered a love of power pop hooks while still sounding borderline unhinged. Freeman sounds like he’s really letting loose some inner demons and purging accumulated angst throughout the record and yet we get moments of peace. It is a lot but doesn’t feel like too much. Like a fusion of The Replacements, Songs: Ohia and early John Dwyer projects.

Saturday | 10.31
What: Julia Jacklin w/Jordan Patterson
When: 8
Where: The Gothic Theatre
Why: Julia Jacklin’s journey to internationally touring artist from Australia seems unlikely. She grew up in the Blue Mountains region of New South Wales and didn’t meet anyone that was a full time musician until after she moved to attend Sydney University and, according to 2017 interview with Knar Bedian for Sound of Boston, living in a garage and working in a factory after graduation. Jacklin became involved in the local scene playing in various bands before her debut album Don’t Let The Kids Win (2016) caught the attention of the press outside of Australia and she started touring. Jacklin has also taken an active role in co-directing her music videos. Over the past decade Jacklin has released four critically acclaimed albums including The Gem released on September 25, 2026, her first for 4AD. Some of the album seems to be about the uncertainties and shifting emotions of being in a relationship and navigating how life circumstances and one’s own tendency to analyze various situations and feelings. Jacklin’s sensitive, warmly ethereal and finely nuanced vocal performance is impressive and immediately affecting and her guitar work along with that of Jacob Diamond provides the perfect musical accompaniment to figure out and understand, yes, various facets of one’s life.

White Rose Motor Oil, photo courtesy the artists

Saturday | 10.31
What: White Rose Motor Oil album release of SPIDER! w/Black & White Motion Picture and Tensas and The Mourners
When: 7
Where: Bar404
Why: Denver’s White Rose Motor Oil is celebrating the release of its latest album SPIDER! The new record shows the band expanding its sound palette some with some moodier numbers but which still simmer with the fire that has helped render its rock Americana into something uniquely its own and not easily classifiable. Eryn DeSomer’s powerful vocals, always a centerpiece of the band’s sound, too ventures into different ranges of expression than expected. The guitars are more textural and edgy but expect the same sophisticated songwriting and insightful lyrics and raw power. It’s the kind of music one would hope Jim Jarmusch would include in his next film because it has enough classic rockabilly vibe with modern sensibilities to pair well with his aesthetic.

Day | Date
What: Halloween Cover Show: The B-52’s, Wire, Misfits, The Monks, Beat Happening, surprise set and Kill You Club DJs
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Some of Denver’s best rock/No Wave-adjacent/garage punk/post-punk/post-hardcore bands are coming together for tribute sets throughout the night and it’ll probably be pretty legit in terms of the versions of songs you’ll get to see. All night Kill You Club DJs will provide the proper soundtrack for a Halloween on Saturday.

To Be Continued…

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond April 2025

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

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

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

The Bug Club, photo courtesy the artists

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

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

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

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

A Strange Happening, photo by Tom Murphy

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

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

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

Dead Boys circa 2017, photo by Jeff Fasano

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

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

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

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

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

Salads and Sunbeams, photo courtesy the band

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dead Pioneers, photo courtesy the artists

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

The Backseat Lovers, photo by Allyson Lowry

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

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

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

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

The Velveteers, photo by Jason Thomas Geerin

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

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

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

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

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

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

Godspeed You! Black Emperor, photo by Tom Murphy

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

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

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