Friday | 05.01
What: TRAITRS w/Occvlts and Redwing Blackbird and KillYouClub DJs
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Toronto’s TRAITRS released their new, fourth, album Possessor on March 13, 2026. The record solidified the duo’s gift for combining icy synth melodies with emotionally-charged vocals to match lyrics that feel like they’re a declaration against a world that currently seems to pile tragedy upon oppression at an increasing pace with no seeming relief in sight. The songs come across like a resistance to a sense of inevitability and an embrace of life and humanity. Strident and melodic bass lines provide an anchoring quality along with the expertly crafted drum machine beats. Fans of Pornography period The Cure will hear plenty of resonance here. Redwing Blackbird from Denver opening also draws plenty of inspiration from The Cure in the guitar work but the electronics are a bit darker and the songwriting more pointed in its social critique.
Friday | 05.01
What: Disgustingest, Insipidus, Monkey Man and Tassles
When: 7
Where: D3
Why: Disgustingest is a brutal almost to the point of abstraction death metal band from Denver with song titles that seem to aim for the extremes of the music and to the brink of the absurd where humor meets authenticity. Insipidus is more a technical death metal band with passages of melody and feral vocals mixed in with the sonic brutality. More in the vein of Slayer and Possessed than Death but with a similar level of instrumental virtuosity. Monkey Man is also a band tha has plenty of technical ability on display in the performance but its music is more like sludge metal in the vein of a more blues-infused Melvins. Tassles won’t be metal. It’ll just have a similar level of intensity but its own music is rooted in bedroom dream pop but with robust guitar sounds and a rhythm section that elevates the already sophisticated songwriting to something raw and epic. But without sacrificing the introspective and vulnerable quality of the songs.
Friday | 05.01
What: Abrams, Colfax Speed Queen and Rugburn
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Abrams just put out its latest record Loon. The Denver band has often navigated the sonic territory of post-metal/stoner rock and grunge but this new album leans further into its atmospheric instincts almost to the point of the album being a heavy shoegaze album but with plenty of math-rock riffs and experiments in rhythm and creative time signatures. Fans of Cave In and Coalesce will find something to dig into with the new set of songs. Opening are bands on the more psychedelic end of the Denver scene with the great garage psych group Colfax Speed Queen and the more straight ahead psych rock band Rugburn.
Saturday | 05.02
What: NEPTUNE, Debaser and Nightshark
When: 8
Where: Glob
Why: NEPTUNE is the “PostPythagorean junk rock” band from Boston. Live it’s like seeing people who built their instruments out of non-musical components or modified pieces of instruments to create unique sounds and a combination of it all along with electronic components so that you will see a band unlike really anyone else out there now unless you get to see something of a vintage Einstürzende Neubauten set. Debaser is a mostly drums and also modified other instruments solo project comprised of Monkey Mania founder Josh Taylor. It comes off as something like lo-fi jazz and noise rock also unlike many other things. Nightshark is a wild free jazz punk trio that has been around for over 20 years but relatively recently got back together to occasionally play a show if it’s something that seems worth the time to bring together the elemental forces of its members.
Saturday | 05.02
What: Trauma Ray w/Glixen, Keep and Money
When: 6
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Trauma Ray is a shoegaze band from Forth Worth, Texas that put out its latest EP Carnival in February. While there is plenty of melancholic atmosphere across its five songs the EP showcases the heavier side of the band’s sound which seems to have always been a part of its songwriting particularly experienced live like the members of the band came up on Deftones and the more atmospheric emo. But it’s not a metal record and Trauma Ray gives us ample sonic introspection and gentle energies. Glixen from Phoenix is in a similar lane with the heavier shoegaze sound but its guitar style is more winding and warping like they have been inspired in part by both My Bloody Valentine and We Are Gutting a Body of Water. Keep from Virginia is also something of a shoegaze band but its guitar sonics lean post-punk and together with the vocals suggest some influence from The Chameleons and The Church. Money from Oklahoma City may be the least obviously shoegaze since its sound is more in the vein of a post-hardcore band that possibly discovered Failure and Hum in its journey of musical development.
Saturday | 05.02
What: Ritual Noize Fest: Hex Cassette (4), Whorticulture (4:40), Plack Blague (5:20), Julien-K (6:10), Aesthetic Perfection (7:15), Lords of Acid (8:45) and She Wants Revenge (10:25)
When: 3
Where: Reelworks
Why: This is a solid showcase of a certain vein of newer and classic artists in the realm of music popular in the Goth scene. Hex Cassette is an industrial dance project with a humorously confrontational performance style and genuinely well-crafted and heartfelt pop. Whorticulture is what might be described as an industrial dark pop duo from Denver in an EBM vein. Julien-K includes Ryan Shuck of Orgy fame in a different kind of industrial rock band with a touch of metal in its guitar sound. Aesthetic Perfection is more on the techno end of industrial pop with flourishes of post-punk style bass and guitar in the mix. Lords of Acid is of course the legendary band whose music has most often been, and rightfully so, associated with Goth-industrial music but is also rooted in acid house, Belgian techno and whose live shows are often the spectacle that the name suggests. The group’s influential, 1991 debut album Lust was recently repressed onto double pink vinyl. She Wants Revenge is one of the post-punk revival bands of the 2000s whose song “Tear You Apart” has become a perennial hit among Goth night DJs.
Sunday | 05.03
What: Bush w/Mammoth and James and the Cold Gun
When: 6
Where: Fillmore Auditorium
Why: When grunge and alternative rock was waning in popularity toward the mid-90s Bush released Sixteen Stone in 1994 in the wake of the death of Kurt Cobain and thus the breakup of Nirvana and helped boost alternative music into popular culture for at least a few more years. Comparisons were inevitably made with the melodic distorted guitar and vocal style. But one element that wasn’t seemingly compared was how Gavin Rossdale had songs critiquing what is now called toxic masculinity at a time when that wasn’t popular for rock bands except as made prominent earlier by Nirvana. Rossdale also had an anti-war and terrorism song in “Bomb” and he addressed issues of managing insecurity with honesty on “Little Things.” Shortly into the new century Bush split but reunited in 2010 and has been more prolific than it had been during its initial run including its 2025, and tenth, album I Beat Loneliness. The latter reflects how Bush has all along embraced sounds and styles of music outside of rock without sacrificing crafting a solid hook yet augmenting the emotional resonance of the music with production that enhances the group’s sonic palette rather than stay stuck in another time and trying to regain past glory.
Sunday | 05.03
What: Mac DeMarco and Mock Media
When: 6:30
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Mock Media opens this show with its songs that sound like a fascinating mix of power pop and The Clash. A casual listen to the title track of its forthcoming album Rat Bastard (out July 17, 2026 via Mac’s Record Label) it sounds like something of a tale of life in a small town and its social dynamics but rendered in poetic terms and like a song from a musical about that milieu and its citizens. But listen to the band’s earlier work and its style of post-punk is equal parts No Wave funk and like they were keen listeners of the ways Wire switched up its rhythms in an instant throughout a song. Of course the headliner is Mac DeMarco who is a modern indie rock legend but one whose own body of work is underrated for the sensitivity of his lyrics and the inventiveness of his songwriting and guitar work.
To Be Continued…
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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