Oryx – Queen City Sounds and Art

Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E48: Oryx

Oryx is a trio based in Denver that has been evolving its evolving its unique style of heavy music since forming in 2012. When the band emerged it’s grittily colossal metal sound fit in well with the then ascendant doom metal underground with roots in sludge rock and grindcore. Early Oryx shows and releases showcased a band seemingly able to balance a precise musicianship with a wall of sound that felt spontaneous and on the verge of collapse. It suited well the band’s lyrics that evoked the precarious place the world has been in due to the effects of human civilization under the yoke of rapacious capitalism driven by greed and the accumulation of wealth into a few hands at the expense of all.

Some of Oryx’s early music had a thrilling density of frequency and rhythm but something about their shows have felt cathartic and liberating. That component of the group’s identity has manifested most fully in terms of songwriting on its new record Primordial Sky. The album doesn’t skimp on the beautifully brutal riffs and elegantly pummeling rhythms but also there is a wide open quality that while the lyrics describe a world on the brink of being post-human due to the hubris of societies that seem to be taking a casual attitude toward anthropogenic climate catastrophe and feckless approach to the rise of fascism and authoritarianism worldwide which have historically accelerated mass destruction. And yet the Oryx album doesn’t sound like it’s built on despair. Instead its poetic and mythical lyrics and the sound of the music come off as both looking at the world to come and looking back from another era when the current one we’re living in has passed. The band’s 2021 album Lamenting a Dead World seemed like an angrier affair but one with an accurate diagnosis of the state of things. The new album isn’t hopeful per se but realistic in its spirit of looking forward to a time when things can begin again without the toxic legacy of the world now to poison the possibilities.

Listen to our interview with Oryx on Bandcamp and follow the group at the links below. Primordial Sky is available on streaming, digital download and cassette from their Bandcamp page and on colored vinyl through Translation Loss Records.

Oryx on Facebook

Oryx on Instagram

Oryx on Bluesky

Oryx on Translation Loss Records

Oryx LinkTree

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond January 2025

**Oryx performs at Hi-Dive on January 10, 2025, photo courtesy the artists**

Friday | 01.03
What: RAREBYRD$ album release w/Machu Linea and Shocker Mom
When: 9pm
Where: Roxy on Broadway
Why: RAREBYRD$ is an experimental hip-hop group from Denver whose mix of sensuous soundscapes, earthy romanticism and radical compassion and sensitivity has produced a powerful and playful body of work that hits deep. This show ushers in the release of its first album on vinyl with Pa$$-A-FiSt. On hand for this show is electronic pop producer and DJ extraordinaire Machu Linea and his creatively imaginative R&B-inflected songwriting as well as ambient indie pop genius Shocker Mom.

Brian Posehn, photo from brianposehn.com

Thursday-Saturday | 01.09-01.11
What: Brian Posehn
When: Varies by date
Where: Comedy Works Denver
Why: Brian Posehn is an active and prolific whose career spans decades including doing some writing and performing on the beloved comedy show Mr. Show. He’s had parts in The Big Bang Theory, The Mandalorian, Lady Dynamite, New Girl and he’s been in films like Devil’s Rejects and Uncle Nick. But his comedy that is partly surreal and confessional spanning subjects from personal issues, nerddom and his status as a lifelong metalhead. There’s something charming and immediately relatable to Posehn’s delivery that makes even his more playfully transgressive material accessible.

Oryx in 2021, photo courtesy the artists

Friday | 01.10
What: Oryx, Midwife, Many Blessings and Aridus
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Oryx is the doom/sludge band from Denver that recently released its latest album 2024’s Primordial Sky (available through the group’s Bandcamp digitally and on cassette and through Translation Loss on limited, colored vinyl editions). Starting out as a the duo of guitarist, vocalist, synth player Thomas Davis and drummer Abigail Davis, Oryx recently added bassist Joshua Kauffman who contributed to the writing of the new record. The sounds of the new release are more open and cavernous than the previous Oryx offerings which were inspired forays into brutal yet epic and cathartic compositions blurring the line between grind, doom and Oryx’s own style that incorporated unconventional rhythms and a heaviness that was dense yet dynamic. The new album is a commentary on the hubris of our civilization seem built on a bedrock of endless consumption at the expense of all. Also on this bill is “heaven metal” artist Midwife whose immersive soundscapes of processed guitar and vocals are like if folk music was being transmitted from a future existing in the consequences of current human hubris but expressed from deep emotional places processing despair and loss. Many Blessings is the solo harsh noise project of Primitive Man guitarist and vocalist Ethan McCarthy. Aridus is a moody black metal band from Santa Fe that includes Galen Baudhuin who contributes to the live lineup of influential “Cascadian black metal” legends Wolves in the Throne Room.

Saturday | 01.11
What: Celebrate the Life of David Dinsmore featuring Judge Roughneck and Lost Dog Ensemble (vinyl release party) as well as Tivoli Club Brass Band and guests.
When: 6:30
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: The late David Dinsmore passed away in 2024 suddenly due to health complications when he was on the verge of doing more music of a wide spectrum of expression. He was of course the long time trombone player in the great jazz ska funk band Judge Roughneck, he was a singer and musician in Tom Waits tribute band Lost Dog Ensemble, he performed experimental music in various projects including Bowshock. He was a friend to many in the local scene and certainly a fan of supporter. What isn’t obvious is his broad taste in music and his willingness to get out and see new music regularly, weekly. He was someone who isn’t often celebrated but is one of the true linchpins in the music scene, some of the social connective tissue in one person and he is already greatly missed. This show is a celebration of his life with performances from a couple of his old bands.

Saturday | 01.11
What: Boot Gun, Ipecac and Radio Fluke
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Boot Gun isn’t just some classic rock revival band though that’s certainly one of the flavors of its music. Its members have absorbed modern psychedelic garage rock and a touch of prog. But its vocals are at least as strong as the musicianship and it seems obvious someone in the band has spent some time listening to a lot of soul records and southern blues rock. Ipecac similarly is hard to pigeonhole as purveyors of fuzzy hard rock with fiery musicianship and a charismatic, soulful vocalist but all of that is what makes the group noteworthy in the realm of music taking inspiration from another era.

Thursday | 01.16
What: Pink Lady Monster, Ray Diess, Part Weapon and Babybaby
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Pink Lady Monster is like the reincarnation of both a No Wave band and an avant-garde glam rock band with the performance art aspect very part of the delivery of the music. Ray Diess likewise incorporates performance art into his experimental, hyperpop strangeness. Part Weapon actually fuses psych rock, shoegaze and post-rock into a cohesive whole that isn’t a boring mish mash of elements or a derivative manifestation of any of them. BabyBaby is what happens when someone who has spent time making more conventional music with others lets loose and crafts gorgeously entrancing experimental electronic pop like something from the memory of blissful dreams.

Teacup Gorilla, photo courtesy the artists

Friday-Saturday | 01.17-02.01
What: JANE/EYRE with live music from Teacup Gorilla
When: See link for dates and times.
Where: Buntport Theater 717 Lipan St.
Why: Denver-based theater production troupe Grapefruit Lab is putting on an encore run of its debut full-length show JANE/EYRE, a queer exploration of Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 novel of the same name. The show includes musical performances by art folk/indie pop group Teacup Gorilla with songs written by the band and former Bad Luck City, current The Gentlys frontman Dameon Merkl. The multimedia show in its first run was an inspired examination of issues of class, religion, gender identity and sexuality. This remount of the show also celebrates the release of Teacup Gorilla’s debut full-length album also titled JANE/EYRE now available on digital download, streaming and limited edition vinyl.

Saturday | 01.18
What: ABANDONS, Church Fire, Oyarsa
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: With its new album Liminal Heart, Denver instrumental, ambient post-metal band ABANDONS has made a great stylistic leap forward. Its earlier work didn’t fit into a neat and easy category with songs that seemed as informed by Pelican and Isis as Slint and 90s slowcore, especially live. With the new record the music is more deeply atmospheric and meditative with even greater attention paid to soundscaping details in the composition and the recording. The band lets tones hang and drift organically, setting them in motion and playing into where the sounds carry the melody. Fans of Mogwai will appreciate how ABANDONS now seems to embrace even more a richly moody dynamic to the way the songs unfold.

Saturday | 01.18
What: ZEPHR Record Release w/Tuff Bluff and Black Dots
When: 9
Where: The Squire Lounge
Why: Heart on sleeve punk trip ZEPHR is releasing its latest album at this show sharing the stage with power pop/garage punk greats Tuff Bluff fronted by former Pin Downs and The Manxx guitarist and singer Sara Fischer and pop punk inflected quartet Black Dots. It’ll be an evening of music that reflects and represents an era of Denver punk that was a bit more diverse and cohesive.

Saturday | 01.18
What: Ashes Fallen, Redwing Blackbird, Hypersomnia
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Club
Why: Ashes Fallen is a three piece post-punk band from California whose sound incorporates New Wave-esque keyboard work and slightly quavering Goth rock style vocals. But its guitar work and gift for moody, icy synth melodies set it apart from a cookie cutter modern darkwave band. Redwing Blackbird is a similarly-minded duo but Paul Baker’s guitar style is more in line with the vibrantly moody, melodicism of The Cure and a touch of shoegaze soundscaping. Hypersomnia is an electro darkwave dance project from Colorado Springs seemingly influenced by classic EBM but without waxing into future pop.

TopHouse, photo by Electric Peak Creative

Saturday | 01.18
What: TopHouse w/The Wildwoods
When: 7
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: TopHouse will release its new EP Promise on February 14, 2025 and this show will likely give you an early exposure to that music aside. The band started off in Missoula, Montana but relocated to Nashville where the prospects for developing its blend of bluegrass, Americana and chamber pop more fully among a wider range of peers and for larger audiences in a place where music the music industry is long established and robust. The band’s recorded output seems to reflect the sonic clarity and the intimacy of the live show with its lively and detailed instrumentation captured as perfectly as its uplifting vocals.

Lana Del Rabies, photo courtesy the artist

Monday | 01.20
What: God Is War, Lana Del Rabies, MPW, Maltreatment, Ethan Lee McCarthy and Ashen Glaze
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: God Is War is a noise/power electronics artist from Los Angeles whose aggressive, industrial style is also menacing and more layered in its composition of atmospheric layers than a more straight ahead artist operating in similar spheres of music. Lana Del Rabies is an artist that is refreshingly challenging to genre tag. Her ritualistic drones, industrial noise atmospherics and intense and theatrical live performances are cathartic and mesmerizing. Fans of HIDE and Lingua Ignota should definitely check out her music and go to this show. Maltreatment is the solo harsh noise project of Brandon Artus from death/grind group Vermin Womb. MPW is an electro-harsh noise and tape manipulation artist from Denver. Ethan Lee McCarthy will be doing some noise of his own that doesn’t fall under the aegis of his Many Blessings or Spiritual Poison projects. Ashen Glaze’s own compositions fall under the umbrella of noise but with his clear vocals and pounding, disintegrating rhythms and overtly industrial beats his stuff is more akin to a Justin Broadrick project of Omaha’s CBN.

Thursday-Saturday | 01.23-01.25
What: Phil Hanley
When: Varies by date
Where: Comedy Works Denver
Why: Phil Hanley is a comedian from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada who worked as model in New York and Europe before trying his hand at stand-up. Now Hanley tours regularly and his crowd work videos are among the best you can find online showcasing his gift for turning awkward moments and unpretentious human insight into great moments of shared humor and absurdity.

Ghosts of Glaciers, photo courtesy the artists

Friday | 01.24
What: Ghosts of Glaciers, Palehorse/Palerider and Clarion Void
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Ghosts of Glaciers released its latest album Eternal in October 2024 and its searching, wandering, drifting aspects of its sounds give the music an enigmatic quality suggestive of the title of the album. But not to worry, the band soars off into the fiery post-rock flourishes that have been the hallmark of its music since it evolved out of its earlier doom metal inclinations. But the band has always been different from many of its peers in being inspired in part by experimental, progressive metal bands and being capable of shifting back from intense and forward charging riffs into almost ambient tranquility with a vulnerable grace. Also on the bill is the current incarnation of heavy desert shoegaze band Palehorse/Palerider who also buck expectations with songs that sure fit what you might expect but the imagination behind the songwriting makes a difference as evidenced by previous shows in which the band had an almost tribal musical configuration in its rhythms and the execution of its instrumentation. Clarion Void’s death sludge sound seems to have been tempered by the sludgy waters of a time in heavy music when stoner metal seemed overly abundant and these guys just took that foundation and gave it some edge without losing the melody.

Alan Sparhawk, photo by Sophia Photo Co.

Saturday | 01.25
What: Alan Sparkhawk’s The White Roses Tour w/Circuit des Yeux
When: 8
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Alan Sparhawk’s 2024 album White Roses, My God is to most people familiar with his legendary slowcore band Low a drastic departure. But Low’s last two albums were part of a series of departures from expectation and the most experimental of the band’s career and for some the group’s best and most daring releases to date. For this second solo album Sparhawk couldn’t simply do what was expected of him. He seems to have took a deep dive into the realm of hyper pop, psychedelic IDM, trap and whatever amalgamation of all of that is manifest in the music of 100 gecs and SOPHIE. But true to form Sparhawk has created a unique piece of work that may not be fully appreciated by fans of Low or anyone with narrow expectations of what Sparhawk “should” be doing. There is a playful and alien beauty to the songs that exults in irreverent humor and a self-aware vulnerability that challenges listeners to set aside presumptions and indulge in experiencing something new and unexpected from a familiar artist who has done a ton of soul searching and the processing of grief and seems to have concluded that to indulge divergent creative instincts that feel like a renewed self and the freedom to reinvent is the best and most fulfilling path forward after some of the worst pain of one’s life has crashed into your psyche.

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, phot by Kyle Cassidy, from the band’s Wikipedia page

Saturday | 01.25
What: Ted Leo and the Pharmacists – Shake the Sheets 20th Anniversary
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Ted Leo and the Pharmacists have been touring for the 20 year anniversary of the 2004 release of their Shake the Sheets album. That record came out right before things started completely collapsing for the Lookout! Records imprint and for the band marked a sound that was a complete unification of its punk and indie rock impulses. Its exuberant, melodic punk was not the pop punk that was the bread and butter of the label and arguably the band’s creative peak to date with songs that are political and non-didactic.

Extra Kool and Time, photo by Tom Murphy

Wednesday | 01.29
What: Extra Kool and Time vinyl release party for The Grimies w/Box State University, Helga Pataki and Preacher vs. Choir
When: 8
Where: The Crypt
Why: Extra Kool and Time are two of the most gifted lyricists and rappers in Denver of recent years but whose work has not often been championed in local much less national press and culture. Years ago they worked on tracks together in a project they called The Grimies with singles appearing on obscure compilations now challenging to track down. But separately and contributing to each other’s work they have written poignantly personal and vulnerable, insightful and emotional songs about life and society that are vibrant and heartbreaking. Time has frequently released music with the brilliant producer AwareNess as the experimental hip-hop duo Calm. and along with Extra Kool and artists under the label umbrella of The Dirty Laboratory they were a force in alternative hip-hop in the 2000s. That world imploded or faded away in “commercial relevance” if not in impact in influence around the 2010s but the legacy of that time has continued in the more interesting hip-hop of today and certainly Time and Extra Kool didn’t stop creating powerful work just because the crumbling music culture wasn’t shining as much of a spotlight on alternative hip-hop for a long time. In September 2024 Extra Kool and Time finally released their fully collaborative album titled The Grimies. It’s full of vivid and emotionally resonant bars traded by both artists with tales of Denver and existential exploration of what endures in the mind and heart long term, the ghosts that haunt us, our communities and our various cultures. It’s a deep record with richly realized production from the likes of Fumes the Threat, AwareNess, Satyr and Preacher vs. Choir with contributions from Illogic. In typical operating fashion from Time and Extra Kool the openers are up and coming artists from a variety of musical styles including punk band Helga Pataki, young hip hop crew Box State University and aforementioned San Diego based production collective Preacher vs. Choir.

Thursday | 01.30
What: Head Slug, When The Sun Explodes and Plastik Mystik
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Head Slug is a weirdo ambient slowcore project with haunted soundscapes and vulnerable guitar work, melancholic moods. When the Sun Explodes is also a noisy shoegaze band apparently that has its roots among students at D.U.. Plastik Mystik (aka Plastic Mystic) is a band that splits the difference and mix and matches elements of post-hardcore, noise rock and deconstructed Dischordism.

Michael Blaustein, photo from neonentertainment.com

Thursday-Saturday | 01.30-02.01
What: Michael Blaustein
When: Showtime varies by date
Where: Comedy Works Denver
Why: Michael Blaustein co-hosts the Stiff Socks Podcast, has been on MTV’s Battleclips, On Campus Tour and the reboot of Punk’d. But watch his clips and shorts and you see a brilliant comedian with gift for surreal humor and turning any situation into art with his masterful crowdwork.

Friday | 01.31
What: Cursive w/Pile
When: 8
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Cursive is one of the most important and influential bands out of 90s post-hardcore/emo and helped to put its hometown of Omaha, Nebraska on the map as one of the flagship bands of the Saddle Creek Records imprint. Cursive could also never be pigeonholed as post-hardcore or emo beyond convenient touchstones for the style of music from which it emerged and which impacted its development. Cursive has always been more experimental and deft at pop songcraft than might seem obvious and its breakthrough records Domestica (2000) and The Ugly Organ (2003) offered insight into the American psyche of that era with a poignancy and poetry to match the band’s exuberant energy as a live band. Its new record Devourer (2024) is the recognition of and embracing of being a consumer and integrator of creative work and culture as part of the process of interpreting and passing forward the legacy of the world in which one finds oneself but also the dark side of that process and how that process can have a negative aspect that affects not just others but oneself and the physical and psychological ecosystem. Heady concepts aside it’s vintage Cursive with the memorable hooks and willingness to go off predictable sonic habits. But hey the great slowcore/post-punk/post-hardcore noise rock band Pile is opening so get there early and see two of the most consistently interesting rock bands of the past 30 years at one show.

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E04: REZN

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 on Bandcamp and catch REZN on tour now (dates, streaming music and more information available at rezn.band) including a stop at the Hi-Dive in Denver with local doom legends Oryx on Friday, July 7, 2023.

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.

Best Shows in Denver November 2021

Julien Baker performs at Gothic Theatre on Nov 13, photo by Alyssa Gafkjen

Wednesday | 11.03
What: Brandy Clark w/Kelsey Waldon
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: If famous country music stars performing songs you’ve written is a sign of your significance as an artist, Brandy Clark has had a resoundingly successful career. Kenny Rogers, Reba McEntire, LeAnn Rimes, Kacey Musgraves, Keith Urban and Darius Rucker have all performed songs penned by Clark. Her critically acclaimed 2020 album Your Life Is a Record garnered her accolades for her own work even from more critical reviewers because her arrangements and thoughtful lyrics were undeniably well crafted and affecting even if you’re not a fan of country music or acoustic pop. Producer Jay Joyce encouraged Clark to expand her musical range with sounds and ideas that brought a quality to the songs that pushed beyond the boundaries of Clark’s previous work for arguably the best record of her career thus far. The 2020 pandemic put plenty of plans for touring and promoting records on hold so this is a chance to see the award winning singer and songwriter at an intimate venue.

Wednesday and Thursday | 11.03 and 11.04
What: Wolf Alice w/The Blossom
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Wolf Alice is hitting its stride with its new album Blue Weekend. Earlier records like 2017’s Visions of a Life and 2015’s My Love is Cool showcased the music of a band learning its powers and creative instincts in often thrilling ways during some years when too many rock bands were trying to cop some of that classic rock or psychedelic garage cachet. Wolf Alice walked a finer line of hard rock and atmospherics fortified by singer Ellie Rowsell’s sometimes gritty vocals yet always emotionally vibrant and nuanced vocals. The new album reveals a band that has not become stuck in what one might expect from previous efforts. Swells in a song don’t inevitably lead to a glorious blowout, rather Wolf Alice takes left field turns in its arrangements perhaps a challenge to foster their growth as a band with consistently compelling results.

Thursday | 11.04
What: Black Dice w/cindygod and H Lite
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Black Dice was an integral part of New York City underground music in the late 90s and 2000s. Its members had come up through punk but took the spirit of open possibilities suggested by that music to do whatever the wanted to. Anything could be an instrument, any rhythmic idea could be made to work. Even ideas about how structure and patterns would emerge through a kind of sound collage cut-up technique that one might compare favorably with the work of Autechre and Aphex Twin. Key to the band’s creative approach and aesthetic was visual art concepts and its various album covers have been designed by members of the band in a style that hits you like graffiti by way of the Situationist International. The band’s methods of composition and expression proved influential to peers like Animal Collective, a band that on the surface makes an updated form of 90s indie pop but like that music truly experiments with the form and musical substance of the songwriting with forays into noise and sampling that enriched the palette of sounds and dynamics available in crafting songs.

In 2012 Black Dice released its then most recent album Mr. Impossible after which its members took time to pursue other projects, Eric Copeland releasing several solo works as well. With the pandemic thus far time seems to have stretched and compressed for most people and what may feel like a handful of years in the living it can stretch to several and in 2021 Black Dice released its latest record Mod Prog Sic. It is classic Black Dice as a free flowing parade of ideas, textures, rhythm and playful tone and signal processing like some futuristic hip-hop/EBM fusion psychedelic beatmaking. We recently had a chance to speak with longtime member Aaron Warren about his early musical days growing up in California and his formative years as an active member of the punk scene in Boulder and Denver in the 90s before ending up in NYC in pursuit of furthering his education and ending up in the city at a time of great creative ferment. Listen to the interview on the Queen City Sounds Podcast.

Thursday | 11.04
What: The Black Angels w/L.A. Witch
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: The Black Angels came together and established its individual style of psychedelic rock before that became too trendy in the 2010s and has been able to develop, refine and then evolve its aesthetic across multiple records. Obvious influences drawn from early psychedelic rock, shoegaze, Middle Eastern drones and compound time signatures out of that music and perhaps a touch of African influence along with industrial and the avant-garde has merely made for a musical career that is much more creatively varied than seems obvious with a live show that is consistently entrancing. Opening is the like-minded L.A. Witch and their engaging take on blending 60s psychedelic pop with noir vibes.

Thursday | 11.04
What: Soccer Mommy w/Alexalone
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Probably virtually every musician touring in 2021 has the same story of an album released early in 2020 or slated or release that year only to have all forward momentum in getting the music out there slowed down or stopped due to the pandemic. When Soccer Mommy’s Color Theory was released at the end of February 2020 it garnered some critical acclaim for its winsome, melancholic pop songs in which the songwriter’s arrangements expanded to give her short lyrical lines expansive and often shimmering background textures paired with ethereal string arrangements. There is a pensive and yearning quality to singer/songwriter Sophie Allison’s words and vocal performance that elevates the music beyond much of the sometimes interchangeable indie music offerings you might hear on a playlist in a public space. Allison is not stranger to luminous and introspective songwriting, but right now she is taking her craft into deeper emotional territory than her admittedly excellent 2018 debut album Clean.

Band of Horses, photo by Stevie and Sarah Gee

Thursday | 11.04
What: Band of Horses w/Miya Folick
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Band of Horses is a band that has managed to make uplifting yet incredibly heartbreaking music with undeniable earworm melodies without losing the emotional impact for the last 17 years. The group formed after the respected indie pop band Carissa’s Wierd split in 2004 and quickly established itself as purveyors of thoughtful songs imbued with an upbeat energy and great forward momentum while never dipping into the realm of the hokey or obnoxious positivity. Probably because the lyrics have consistently hit as grounded and insightful even when written in good fun. Expect the new Band of Horses album Things Are Great to drop in January 2022 but for now you can maybe catch a good deal of that new material live until then.

Friday | 11.05
What: Eventually It Will Kill You 4 Year Anniversary Pre-Show: Wisteria w/Candy Apple, Deadluv and Vitrina
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Brian Castillo has been involved in DJ nights over the years and releasing a few records here and there. But he may have found his niche when he launched Eventually It Will Kill You four years ago releasing mostly experimental music and darkwave like the 2018 reissue of the 1983 death rock classic by Denver band Your Funeral and their single “I Want To Be You” b/w “April Fool’s Day” and releases from Many Blessings, the noise side project of Primitive Man’s Ethan McCarthy, chicago darkwave band Funeral Door and dark minimal synth group Child of Night from Columbus, OH. For the occasion of the anniversary “El Brian” put together two shows including this Pre-Show which includes performances by Pittsburgh based post-punk band Wisteria and jagged, jangly Denver post-punkers by way of hardcore Candy Apple.

Plack Blague in October 2018, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 11.06
What: Eventually It Will Kill You 4 Year Anniversary: Kontravoid, Plack Blague, Many Blessings and Closed Tear
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: For the second night of the 4 year anniversary of Eventually It Will Kill You you can catch some of the stars of underground darkwave and noise with EBM techno artist Kontravoid, industrial disco legend Plack Blague (listen to our new interview with Raws Scheslinger of Plack Blague from our podcast on Bandcamp), the ambient noise stylings of Many Blessings and the gloomy, post-punky dream pop of Closed Tear.

Saturday | 11.06
What: Dan Deacon w/Alex Silva and Patrick McMinn
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Dan Deacon’s 2020 album Mystic Familiar was praised as a solid synth pop album but it sounds more like Deacon has really honed his songwriting after a career of pushing musical ideas ever forward. The instrumental performances have a nuance and energy with a granular level of musical detail that can be enjoyed for simply the sheer joy and dynamic expressiveness Deacon seems to bring to his music. But one has to marvel at the way Deacon orchestrates complex passages and textures to into majestic pop songs that uplift the spirit and living up to the name of the album. His live shows are often a collaborative affair and even with his music surely Deacon will encourage those that show up to become involved in spontaneous and creative ways that don’t happen at other shows.

Saturday | 11.06
What: Gus Dapperton w/spill tab at The Gothic
When: 6 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Forget the hair style, the jewelry, the eyeliner and Gus Dapperton’s stylish sartorial proclivities, the songwriter’s 2020 album Orca is brimming with touching and delicate songs with real insight into the vulnerabilities and haunting thoughts that come to you in your lowest moments. His spare musical arrangements give the vocalization of the lyrics space to issue forth and sit in the air like lingering melodies. It’s an unexpectedly interesting effect from a songwriter who can come across to anyone that hasn’t sat down with the music as saccharine pop but the guy’s music is anything but that.

Monday | 11.08
What: Uniform, Portrayal of Guilt and Body Void
When: 7 p.m.
Where: HQ
Why: Uniform is an industrial hardcore band from New York that came out of the city’s punk and extreme music scene. Its fiery and abrasive electronic onslaught articulates issues of existential confusion and frustration with the destructive forces of society and within our own minds and clawing a path to catharsis. The group’s 2020 album Shame (Sacred Bones Records) is perhaps its most accessible but also its most deeply personal and raw. Also, listen to our podcast episode with an interview with vocalist Michael Berdan on Bandcamp. Opening the show is the great experimental hardcore group Portrayal of Guilt. With music sitting somewhere betwixt black metal, grindcore, hardcore and noise, Portrayal of Guilt consistently delivers scorching songs of poetic yet abrasive beauty. Its new album Christfucker is due out November 5, 2021 on Run For Cover Records. Body Void’s scathing, outraged doom just seems like the perfect complement to the whole show and its 2021 album Bury Me Beneath This Rotting Earth out on Prosthetic Records is not short on tortured crushers.

Tuesday | 11.09
What: Slow Pulp w/Mamalarky
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: When many bands in the 2010s were evoking a bit of 1990s fuzz rock and grunge, Slow Pulp took a hint of that but went in more a direction of atmospheric pop and experimental soundscapes as a structure for its more hushed and introspective songs. Tourmates Mamalarky from Atlanta is on a similar wavelength with songs of unconventional structure, rhythmic strategy and tonal palette. Like maybe its members came up listening to early Liz Phair demos, Broadcast, Virginia Wing, Deerhoof and Electrelane. The group’s outstanding 2020 self-titled album never gives you a chance to get too settled into a sound but draws you along for a ride into a colorfully dreamlike realm of lush pop adventures.

Wednesday | 11.10
What: Nothing w/Frankie Rose and Enumclaw
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: Nothing has been on a great trajectory of developing into and beyond punk-influenced shoegaze reaching a high state of creativity on its 2020 album The Great Dismal. Whorling sheets of guitar drone bursting up and receding like waves punctuated by electronic crackles and an aesthetic as much informed by electronic music as by rock at this point. Frankie Rose has spent time in such bands as Crystal Stilts, Dum Dum Girls, Vivian Girls and Beverly but her solo albums is where she has perhaps been most free to utilize her imaginative guitar work, production and songwriting. Though these days she’s also in a band with Matthew Hord of Pop. 1280 called Fine Place which is more in the realm of dub-influenced darkwave pop. So it may be awhile before you get a chance to see a solo Frankie Rose performance for a bit. Enumclaw is one of the few modern bands that sounds like it was heavily influenced by Dinosaur Jr without ripping the band off and injecting a good deal of fuzzy dream pop like they listened to The Smiths but found a way to mix Morrissey out of the proceedings.

Wednesday | 11.10
What: Armand Hammer w/Trayce Chapman and Time (from Calm.)
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: The psychedelic sounds in the beats to Haram, the 2021 album by Armand Hammer with The Alchemist, is reminiscent of the ways cLOUDDEAD tapped into subconscious spaces to evoke a mood that complements the surreal vibe of the lyrics. Fans of Gonjasufi and early Sole records will appreciate the way this pairing of artists collage tone and texture to create great depth of sound and expression. Plus opening is Time whose existential and deeply philosophical and playful lyrics are an antidote to the programmed ignorance of the American education system and the current state of the culture.

Thursday and Friday | 11.11 and 11.12
What: Silverstein w/The Plot In You and Can’t Swim
When: 6 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater and Gothic Theatre
Why: Silverstein is one of the few bands that walked the line between pop punk and screamo without sounding a parody of itself and where the distorted, screaming vocals really did sound like a primal expression of an intense peak of feeling in the context of the songs. What has kept the band worth a listen is the songwriting and how, as is the case with the better pop punk, the most critical examination in the lyrics is aimed at one’s own shortcomings and finding a way to get through those moments of feelings of failure and intense self-judgment rather than lash out at someone else like a challenge to oneself to truly feel these things you don’t want to in an attempt to be a better person even if you fall short because life and self-betterment is often a process of reworking habits and not some perfect formula to follow.

Friday | 11.12
What: Glacial Tomb, Noctambulist, Necrosophik Abyss — CANCELED
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Glacial Tomb and Noctambulist are two of the best and most brutal and imaginative technical death metal bands out of Denver at the moment and if that’s your thing they’re both on the same bill.

Friday | 11.12
What: Phony Ppl w/Kent Washington
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: Brooklyn’s Phony Ppl have done some music with Megan Thee Stallion but their own music is a richly expressive sort of art soul music and jazz-inflected hip-hop without making boundaries between any of those styles. There is a gentleness to the music that makes it instantly accessible even though the specific content is very musically sophisticated and challenging. These five guys take heady musical elements and ideas and bring to it a loose and playful spirit that sounds like it should be music for the kind of arty dramas that have yet to be made about the poignant periods in the lives of regular people.

Saturday | 11.13
What: Julien Baker w/Dehd
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Little Oblivions is not the album a lot of people were expecting from Julien Baker. Her first two records of hushed and introspective folk rock had an undeniable emotional power in part because of Baker’s own stirringly emotional vocals. For this record Baker expanded the palette of sounds including more electronic elements and more expansive, brash soundscapes that seem perfectly suited to what really feels like a burst of expressing emotions kept under wraps for too long yearning to be let out. There is an intensity to the record that almost makes Baker’s previous albums seem safe by comparison if they too weren’t informed by a strong emotional honesty themselves. Easily one of the top albums of the year in the realm of rock. Opening is psychedelic surf pop band Dehd from Chicago. Don’t let that short descriptor throw you off because Dehd performs with an often unsettling intensity as well for a band whose moody music is not short on nervy energy too.

Saturday | 11.13
What: Nitzer Ebb w/DJ Eli
Where: Oriental Theater
Why: EBM/industrial legends Nitzer Ebb don’t tour much these days and no matter which of their music you’ve heard the live band is more scrappy, more visceral and more powerful than you could really expect. Their 1987 album That Total Age remains a stone classic of 1980s electronic industrial music.

Saturday | 11.13
What: Big Dopes album release w/Bellhoss
When: 9 p.m.
Where: Roxy on Broadway
Why: Big Dopes is one of the best Denver bands not enough people know about yet. Its new EP Destination Wedding picks up where its outstanding 2019 album Crimes Against Gratitude left off with affecting lyrics and exquisitely crafted melodies. Fans of C86 era pop, Magnetic Fields and Carissa’s Wierd will likely appreciate the band’s attention to sonic detail and knack for a poetic and thoughtful turn of phrase. Also on the bill is the utterly idiosyncratic pop group Bellhoss. Although many have compared Bellhoss and singer Becky Hostetler, at least according to the project’s website, to artists like Waxahatchee and Soccer Mommy, Bellhoss is weirder and more interesting than those comparisons would suggest (though both artists are obviously notable in their own right) and often comes off like some kind of weirdo indie pop thing with intricate and eccentrically shoegaze-y guitar. Really a show with two of the most compelling bands in the Denver scene post-2017 when the music scene in the Mile High City started to severely fragment even as it expanded.

Monday | 11/15
What: Surfbort — CANCELED
When: 8 p.m.
Where: The Coast (Fort Collins)
Why: Surfbort is a weirdo punk band that’s probably a little too rough around the edges and real for a lot of people who call themselves fans of punk but it’s also one of the most interesting and powerful bands in the world of punk today. They don’t have a lot of releases but its new single “FML” has a strange music video that includes Fred Armisen of Portlandia fame whose own background in punk and his own unusual sense of humor vibed with that of this New York band.

Monday | 11.15
What: Exhumed w/Creeping Death, Bewitcher and Victim ov Fire
Where: Oriental Theater
Why: Indeed, it’s influential deathgrind band Exhumed from San Jose, California. Though the music can be brutal and forbidding in a way that might be reminiscent of Cannibal Corpse it nevertheless performs the music with great energy informed by a sense of irony and humor with lyrics often aimed at the corrupt American political and economic system that has metastasized into an oligarchy with a wide gulf between the ultra rich and the poorest members of society.

Tuesday | 11.16
What: Tonstartssbandht, Paul Jacobs and Wally
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Between its gentle lo-fi psychedelia and almost found sound collage aesthetic, Tonstartssbandht from Orlando, Florida is a different animal in the realm of modern psychedelic pop. Andy and Edwin White draw on a broad spectrum of influences from more traditional music to classical music, classic rock and they have a High Rise tribute band called High Rise II. So even though their relatively pastoral 2021 album Petunia can come off just shy of too weird and gritty for yacht rock there are plenty of bizarro nuggets in the mix to keep it interesting. Paul Jacobs’ 2021 album Pink Dogs on the Green Grass gave us a solid batch of wefting and warping psych pop that somehow both hits the ears reminiscent of both Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Clarke and the Himselfs and Odessey & Oracle period The Zombies. The textural quality of his guitar sound keeps us grounded as vocals and wind sounds and even the percussion carries us away into ethereal realms of daydream wonder. In the case of both artists it seems odd to consider how they might pull this stuff off live and yet they do.

Black Marble in May 2017, photo by Tom Murphy

Tuesday | 11.16
What: Black Marble w/Voight
When: 7 p.m.
Where: HQ
Why: Black Marble has spent some years perfecting a sonic equivalent of Polaroid photos cast in the colors of lo-fi, New Wave-y post-punk. The 2021 album Fast Idol finds Black Marble less in the realm of entrancing gloom pop and more in some upbeat mood with a sound that makes one think about what forbidden music might have sounded like if it was the USA rather than the USSR that cracked down on the immoral popular music of a decadent other empire. Live the music hits with full fidelity resulting in two different experiences of the music. Denver’s Voight really wants to be a dark techno band playing in dark rooms in the neo-urban decay but is still stuck in industrial shoegaze mode. And yet remains one of the best bands in the Mile High City because the music isn’t rote, predictable, safe pabulum and ferocious live.

Tuesday | 11.16
What: Nick Lowe’s Quality Rock & Roll Revue w/Los Straightjackets
Where: Oriental Theater
Why: Nick Lowe is one of the pioneers of power pop. He would have sealed that reputation had he remained in Rockpile with one of the other greats of that form of music Dave Edmunds. But Lowe’s solo career speaks for itself with soulful pop rock classics like “Cruel to Be Kind” and “I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass.” This run of music is a nod to the sounds that influenced Lowe from rockabilly to soul and beyond.

Wednesday | 11.17
What: Caribou w/Jessy Lanza
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Boulder Theater
Why: Dan Snaith has written some of the most inventive yet accessible electronic music for nearly 20 years as Caribou. Employing traditionally acoustic instrumentation alongside synths/electronic instruments and programming, Snaith taps into some of the same emotional pools of yearning, introspective pondering and nostalgia as the later chillwave and bedroom pop composers he influenced directly or indirectly. His most recent album Suddenly (2020) seemed more somber than other releases but still flowing with hazy yet bright melodies. Even in the most down moments, Snaith incorporates a playful creativity in the mix to convey the nuances and complexity of existence and how we experience life.

Wednesday | 11/24
What: Kraak & Smaak w/Capyac
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: Dutch musical production trio Kraak & Smaak are masters of blending a tropical beat with layers of synth melody modified in real time to give a sense of fluid movement giving the music the aural equivalent of 3D visuals. The effect being an enveloping music with a cinematic sensibility like a somehow benevolent spy movie funk without any violence or skullduggery involved, just adventure and relaxing moods. It’s most recent EP, Scirocco, is like an unlikely but satisfying blend of Ennio Morricone, Boards of Canada and Simple Minds. If the band’s recent live streams are any indication, this current tour will be like seeing some long lost electro funk great of the past playing music that seems familiar yet fresh.

The Velveteers, photo by David Mermilliod

Friday | 11.26
What: The Velveteers w/Dreadnought and Dry Ice
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: The Velveteers were a promising band from early on in their career in Denver and Boulder playing house shows, small clubs and DIY spaces. While many bands were trying for that classic rock sound, The Velveteers were rapidly outgrowing those early influences into their own sound with fuzzed out riffs and surging song dynamics that made the band sound like it was taking off in multiple directions lending its performances a fiery energy. Through developing the group, creating their own music videos and a little bit of touring, The Velveteers came to the attention of Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys who offered to produce the trio’s new album Nightmare Daydream. Sure it has expert production and clearly the band got some polish in Auerbach’s studio but this set of songs also sound so focused yet as thrillingly effusive as it ever has.

Friday | 11.26
What: Baroness
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Savannah, Georgia’s Baroness never got to tour behind its 2019 album Gold & Grey for the reasons most bands didn’t do a lot of touring in 2020 and a good chunk of 2021. But now the group with new guitarist Gina Gleason will get a chance to perform older favorites as well as material from the aforementioned album showcasing a seemingly different approach to songwriting different from the brash, bombastic and playful style of previous records. John Baizley’s vocals still soar with great expressive control but the music seems more tied in with the rhythms and beautiful minor chord progressions so that when the songs engage into expansive choruses they always seem to resolve in ways that feel like the group decided to push themselves to say something different and worthwhile with each song. It’s frankly their best album and it would be simply lazy and clumsy to merely refer to this era of Baroness as sludge metal.

Primitive Man in April 2015, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 11.27
What: Primitive Man w/Spectral Voice and Oryx
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Denver is fortunate to have an exceptional extreme metal scene with many bands worth a deep listen. This show, though, showcases three of the best. Spectral Voice and the angular brutality of its dark death metal has evolved from an earlier sort of a blackened deathgrind sound into more refined sonic brutality without losing its raw edge. Oryx has never been short on an inventive evocation of musical heaviness and commentary on the hubris of human civilization. It’s 2021 album Lamenting a Dead World perhaps says it all with the title but the vocals sound especially feral and the parallel rhythms and guitar leads flow with a primordial energy that embodies an inevitable path to doom for the planet if things don’t take a different turn amongst us humans. And of course Primitive Man brings the most crushing and emotionally harrowing death grind you’re likely to experience anywhere. The Denver trio did not tour or play much if anything in the way of live shows in 2020 or much of 2021 so its caustic 2020 album Immersion and its nightmare vision of what seem like end times didn’t get to unleash what is hopefully a catharsis of the eschatological mood that has cloaked the planet since the onset of the pandemic until recently. That these great works of music from Oryx and Primitive Man are still so relevant does speak to the excellence of their conception and execution but also to how far we have to go as a species to prove ourselves worthy of continued existence.

Best Shows in Denver 1/9/20 – 1/15/20

Oryx_AlvinoSalcedo2_web — Oryx performs at Hi-Dive on January 9, 2020, photo by Alvino Salcedo

Thursday | January 9

TheMilkBlossoms_Jun24_2017_TomMurphy_web — The Milk Blossoms, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Oryx, Cthonic Deity and Zygrot
When: Thursday, 1.9, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: In the realm of Denver extreme metal it would be hard to find a more solid line-up this month than this. Oryx is perhaps rightfully considered a doom band but its wall of noise is a shifting, mind-altering experience that creatively uses drones and riffs to comment on the world in a way the reflects and exorcises the sense of despair at the way our economic and political system normalizes the ways in which our lives are eroded through the environment, the fake prosperity figures that hide the poverty and desperation that permeates much of society in America and elsewhere and a cultural climate that favors a cultural identity anchored to the fortunes of the world’s oligarchs. And yet it’s not a bummer, there are hopes and dreams in its grinding and harrowing aesthetic. Cthonic Deity released one of the most promising fusions of death metal and hardcore with 2019’s Reassembled in Pain. Zygrot is a crusty grindcore quartet that releases its self-titled debut in September 2019.

What: Billy the Poet, The Maykit and Chella and The Charm
When: Thursday, 1.9, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake

What: The Milk Blossoms w/Turvy Organ and Midwife
When: Thursday, 1.9, 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall

Friday | January 10

DonChicharron_SpencerHigbee — Don Chicharrón, photo by Spencer Higbee

What: Don Chicharrón, Roka Hueka, TúLips, DJ Charlie Continental, Dos Luces Brewery, benefit show for Casa de Paz & Metro Denver Sanctuary
When: Friday, 1.10, 8 p.m.
Where: 3 Kings Tavern
Why: As indicated above this is a benefit show for Casa de Paz & Metro Denver Sanctuary, organizations aiding the local immigrant populations. It features some of the the city’s best Latin music-inflected acts. Also for this show Don Chicharrón is releasing its new 7” “Valle b/w En La Gruta Del Rey De La Montaña” through Snappy Little Numbers the proceeds from the sales of which will benefit the same organizations.

What: Space in Time, The Honey Blazer Band and Star Garbage
When: Friday, 1.10, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive

What: Empty Caskets, Piss Poor, Moon Phase, Cagemates
When: Friday, 1.10, 7 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective

What: Daikaiju w/Lost Relics, Stone Deaf and Messiahvore
When: Friday, 1.10, 7 p.m.
Where: Tennyson’s Tap
Why: Daikaiju is a flame wielding, Kabuki/La Lucha Libre-looking, acrobatic, surf rock/punk spectacle of the highest order.

Saturday | January 11

ImABoy1 — I’m A Boy, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Origami Angel, Short Fictions, Flora De Luna and Obtuse
When: Saturday, 1.11, 7 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: Origami Angel is a band from the Washington, D.C. area that is mining a similar sonic territory as bands in the past half decade or more going beyond the neo-pop punk into a hybrid of math-y emo and indie pop. So a bit retro but at least not yet another band thinking it is discovering Laurel Canyon all over again and with earnest, heartfelt performances. Obtuse is a like-minded band from Denver whose 2019 album Who’s Askin’ is a gloriously raw and incisive examination of one’s insecurities as a normal reaction to a society and economic system seemingly designed to make everyone feel like an inadequate failure. Their songs are an acknowledgment of those anxieties and an attempt to not be completely sunk by them.

What: New Ben Franklins and I’m a Boy 7” split release
When: Saturday, 1.11, 10 p.m.
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Long running alt-country/American band New Ben Franklins and power pop sensations I’m A Boy are releasing their split 7” tonight at The Skylark.

What: Daikaiju w/TripLip and Today’s Paramount
When: Saturday, 1.11, 8 p.m.
Where: The Squire Lounge

What: Dressy Bessy w/Pout House, Television Generation
When: Saturday, 1.11, 7 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive

What: To Be Astronauts w/Too Many Humans, Decatur and Star Garbage
When: Saturday, 1.11, 8 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake

Sunday | January 12

TheVanillaMilkshakes_Jun20_2015_TomMurphy — The Vanilla Milkshakes with Frank Registrato on drums circa 2015, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Total 80s Live with Bow Wow Wow w/When in Rome and The Vanilla Milkshakes
When: Sunday, 1.12, 8 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Bow Wow Wow is an English New Wave band assembled by then Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren in 1980 when he convinced members of Adam Ant’s band to form a new group that was fronted by 13-year-old Annabella Lwin who McLaren had heard singing along to the radio at her laundromat job. The other singer of the band in the beginning was George O’Dowd who left the group early and became famous as Boy George of Culture Club and as a solo artist. Bow Wow Wow somehow managed to break into the mainstream with hit songs like “C·30 C·60 C·90 Go!” and a lively cover of The Strangeloves’ 1965 recording of “I Want Candy.” This current version of the band will not include Lwin who hasn’t been in this iteration of Bow Wow Wow since 2013, now performing as Annabella Lwin of the original Bow Wow Wow.” So while it won’t be the original line-up except for bassist Leigh Gorman, you can hear those hits as well as When in Rome whose 1987/1988 single “The Promise” has been a staple of 80s synth pop playlists for decades. The Vanilla Milkshakes are a pop punk band with attitude and an offbeat sense of humor that will probably make the nostalgia seekers wonder how they got on the bill but end up liking a lot of the songs in spite of themselves.

Wednesday | January 15

E-scapes_Jan12_2019_sm — e-scapes, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Weird Wednesday: Yao Guai, Lady of Sorrows and e-scapes
When: Wednesday, 1.15, 9 p.m.
Where: Bowman’s Vinyl and Lounge
Why: Weird Wednesday this month includes ambient prog project Yao Guai, emotionally expressive darkwave solo act Lady of Sorrows and experimental synth pop composer e-scapes.

What: Miró Quarter
When: Wednesday, 1.15, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Newman Center (Denver University)

What: Ceasefire, Disowned, Barking Mad, Pontius Pilate and ASALT
When: Wednesday, 1.15, 7 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective

Best Shows in Denver 06/13/19 – 06/19/19

**Tacocat, performs at Larimer Lounge on Saturday, June 15. Photo by Helen Moga**

Thursday | June 13

TurvyOrgan_JakeCox1 — Turvy Organ, photo by Jake Cox

What: Turvy Organ album release w/Panther Martin, Sour Boy Bitter Girl
When: Thursday, 06.13, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: The Ghost at the Feast is Denver indie rock band Turvy Organ’s new record. What has always set the group apart from the oft-necessary but lazy “indie rock” overarching term is that it most certainly is not operating to jump on some trendy sound or bandwagon. Yes, you’ll hear the echoes of Modest Mouse in some of Ilya Litoshik’s vocals but from there the dynamics of the music and the songwriting is too idiosyncratic to fit into the mold of anyone else. The new album has what sounds like a story arch trying to make sense of a deep yearning for place and identity and coming to accept things as they are. Very Zen. But that journey is one worth taking with the band. There isn’t a single sonic flavor Turvy Organ employs across the album except for maybe some tasty, energetic melodic bass lines. That may even be how the record ties together outside of Litoshik’s highly charged and wide-ranging vocals. Splicing together post-punk moodiness and wiry energy with the frayed musical and emotional edges of 90s lo-fi rock, Turvy Organ has not just come to terms with what it’s about as a band The Ghost at the Feast but with what it’s like to be an underground rock band at this juncture in our culture where if you’re not doing it for the right reasons you’ll undermine your goals by not seeming honest.

What: TOKiMONSTA w/Holly and Blackbird Blackbird
When: Thursday, 06.13, 9 p.m.
Where: Club Vinyl
Why: TOKiMONSTA garnered a name for herself for crafting imaginative and lush downtempo beats that wouldn’t be out of place in the body of work of some of the more melancholy artists on the Warp and Stones Throw roster. She has a real gift for expansive, complimentary synth lines and multiple layers of percussion to accent the tempo of her songs. As a DJ TOKiMONSTA mixes in plenty of material from across a broad spectrum of modern electronic music.

Friday | June 14

Thou_Nov30_2018_TomMurphy — Thou, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Electric Funeral Fest Night 1
When: Friday, 06.14, 3 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive/3 Kings
Why: This is the fourth edition of Electric Funeral Fest which features some of the most interesting acts in underground “extreme” and experimental metal. Tonight’s programme is as follows:

3 Kings Tavern Stage:
5:15 – 5:55 Fathers
6:15 – 6:55 Dead Now
7:15 – 7:55 Destroyer of Light
8:15 – 8:55 Velnias
9:15 – 9:55 Sourvein
10:15 – 11:00 Acid Witch
11:30 – 12:35 Thou

Hi-Dive Stage:
5:40 – 6:20 Love Gang
6:40 – 7:20 Banquet
7:40 – 8:20 Oryx
8:40 – 9:20 Tia Carrera
9:40 – 10:20 Against the Grain
10:40 – 11:25 Royal Thunder
Afterparty
12:45 – 1:25 Bewitcher

Mutiny Information Cafe Stage:
3:00 – 3:40 Fossil Blood
4:00 – 4:40 Deathchant
5:00 – 5:40 Voideater
6:00 – 6:40 Hexxus
7:00 – 7:40 Greenbeard

What: Anderson .Paak w/Earl Sweatshirt and Thundercat
When: Friday, 06.14, 6 p.m.
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Three of the most creatively brilliant artists of modern hip-hop on one bill anywhere would be noteworthy, at Red Rocks it would be deserving of the word epic.

What: Sympathy F
When: Friday, 06.14, 9 p.m.
Where: Goosetown Tavern
Why: Formed in 1991, Sympathy F is one of the few, if not only, still active bands from Denver’s alternative rock era whose melancholic, jazz-inflected, dream pop reflects an era in Denver where the city felt dark, neglected and wide open. When creative weirdos could rent a warehouse on the relatively cheap and hang out with each other and converse and mutually inspire and otherwise have their own subculture that was vibrant and not well known by the world outside the Mile High City. When downtown had viaducts (Fifteenth and Twentieth Streets) that went from downtown proper to a now long gone warehouse district, where the old Montgomery Wards build stood west of downtown like the abandoned monolithic structure from a bygone era. That the band’s songs are emotionally powerful and moving and intense yet luminous doesn’t hurt because it has been written from a place of nostalgia, but at its heart is a shard of that unique time and place in Denver’s history and it shines forth from the band’s entrancing performances.

What: Daikaiju
When: Friday, 06.14, 7 p.m.
Where: Tennyson’s Tap
Why: Writing about Daikaiju seems folly at this moment so here’s a video that gets at some of the chaotic glory of the weirdo surf band from Alabama.

What: Lazarus Horse, Mt. Illimani, Enji and Sam Morris
When: Friday, 06.14, 8 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: Maybe Eddie Durkin shoulda zigged when he shoulda zagged here and there in life. But haven’t we all? His old band Sparkler Bombs was pushing punk and noise rock and modern proto-psychedelia in interesting directions. But nearly a decade hence, Durkin has been writing songs under various project names including Lazarus Horse. Imagine if someone somehow bought Rainwater Cassette Exchange, The Glow Pt. 2 and a few Julianna Barwick and Grouper records pluse The Velvet Underground & Nico and got sent off with their parents to scientific station duty at Edinburgh of the Seven Seas with spotty internet but a good instruments and pedals and some recording equipment. That’s basically what Lazarus Horse sounds like—drawing on the weirdo rock familiar while sounding ineffably different from even that.

Saturday | June 15

Paranoyds_Tony Accosta — Paranoyds, photo by Tony Accosta

What: Tacocat and The Paranoyds w/Princess Dewclaw
When: Saturday, 06.15, 8 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Seattle’s Tacocat and L.A.’s The Paranoyds are making thought-provoking and emotionally nuanced fuzzy post-surf-punk pop with a refreshing level of depth and spirited energy. Although Tacocat has been associated with the sort of surf punk thing the past decade it’s always been different from all of that because its songwriting has been brimming with irreverent humor, playfulness and a surreal and colorful aesthetic. The cover of its new album This Mess is a Place is striking when you see it at the record store and draws you in with its inviting, retrofuturistic collage style promising something within that will offer interesting stories and perspectives that aren’t trend hopping or trite blandishments about love or needing to always center all content on what’s topical. In that way Tacocat offer a view of a more interesting and vital future for all of us. Paranoyds can be reminiscent of The Raincoats if that band came from southern California instead of London with the wonderful, unconventional choruses and noisy guitar. Watch out for the group’s new 7-inch “Hungry Sam”/”Trade Our Sins” out on Suicide Squeeze July 12.

ChromeWaves_MelissaAtwood — Chrome Waves, photo by Melissa Atwood

What: Electric Funeral Fest IV
When: Saturday, 06.15, 3 p.m.
Where: Red Rocks
Why: See above for Electric Funeral Fest IV. Here is this night’s programme of performances:

3 Kings Tavern Stage:
4:15 – 4:55 Abrams
5:15 – 5:55 Thra
6:15 – 6:55 Yatra
7:15 – 7:55 Chrome Waves
8:15 – 8:55 Teeth
9:15 – 9:55 Gozu
10:15 – 11:00 Tombs
11:30 – 12:35 Torche

Hi-Dive Stage:
4:40 – 5:20 Casket Huffer
5:40 – 6:20 Sun Voyager
6:40 – 7:20 Trapped Within Burning Machinery
7:40 – 8:20 The Munsens
8:40 – 9:20 Fotocrime
9:40 – 10:20 Call of The Void
10:40 – 11:25 Dead Meadow
Afterparty
12:45 – 1:25 Bummer

Mutiny Information Cafe Stage:
3:00 – 3:40 Red Mesa
4:00 – 4:40 Upon a Fields Whisper
5:00 – 5:40 Horseneck
6:00 – 6:40 Dizz Brew
7:00 – 7:40 Dysphotic

JamilaWoods_BradleyMurray — Jamila Woods, photo by Bradley Murray

What: Jamila Woods w/Duendita
When: Saturday, 06.15, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Jamila Woods recently released Legacy! Legacy! with song titles drawn from names of some of the greatest artists, writers and thinkers of color from America and beyond. Rarely do musicians name check the likes of Zora Neale Hurston, Frida Kahlo, Eartha Kitt, Sun Ra, Octavia Butler, James Baldwin, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Miles Davis, Muddy Waters and others of similar cachet at all much less with such style and soulfulness. Woods’ voice is commanding and wise and one gets the sense you’re learning something about the human beings named as they impacted Woods as a person and an artist in her own right. She doesn’t pretend to speak for them but reflect their deep influence through her own lens and how their work has inspired her to do what she hopes is interesting and worthy in her own right. It’s a deep record worth repeated listens. Fans of Nina Simone and Erykah Badu should give Woods a listen.

Sunday | June 16

BertOlsen_Dec21_2018_TomMurphy — Bert Olsen, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Natural Velvet, Church Fire, Rabbit Fighter and Bert Olsen
When: Sunday, 06.16, 8 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Natural Velvet bassist/singer Corynne Ostermann told the Baltimore Sun in 2016 “’Basically, we aim to be a “Sailor Moon” villainess.’” And who wouldn’t want to see that band? Apparently a post-punk band it sure has some nefarious punk energy but the fun kind like what you might imagine a raccoon is thinking. A good fit with Denver’s industrial dance pop powerhouse trio Church Fire whose subversive and politically charged music is not just cathartic but deeply emotional on multiple levels. This is the last show post-punk/dream pop duo Bert Olsen is playing under that name. The group recently lost its drummer and is changing to maybe using a drum machine and changing focus a bit and taking on the name Gila Teen. But it’ll still be Hunter Woods and Aidan Bettis on vocals/guitar and bass respectively so the same luminously evocative songwriting will remain.

Tuesday | June 18

Operator_Britt Kubat_crop — Operators, photo by Britt Kubat

What: Pile w/State Champion and Warring Parties
When: Tuesday, 06.18, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Pile has long been making the kind of post-punk/noise punk/lo-fi music that never really sounds like anyone else. Its new record Green and Gray is filled with the band’s signature, and always interesting, counter-point guitar riffing and richly varied song dynamics. The group switches up the pace in a song, conveying the way a mood will pass through your mind as you’re working through memories and contemplating what your life should be about and diving deep into how it really is. All their records are worth a listen and the latest one may be their best.

What: Charly Bliss w/Emily Reo
When: Tuesday, 06.18, 7 p.m.
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: On 2017’s Guppy, Charly Bliss sounded a bit like other bands mining the 90s, fuzzy alternative pop bands for inspiration but with great energy and Eva Hendricks’ ebullient vocals. With Young Enough the group’s emotional palette seems to have grown exponentially and its sound evolved into a kind of atmospheric power pop but somehow without losing the verve that powered its full-length debut.

What: Lavender Fest Denver: Where in the Hell is Lavender House? The Longmont Potion Castle Story (screening)
When: Tuesday, 06.18, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Oriental Theater
Why: Longmont Potion Castle is the phone prank wizard extraordinaire of all time. His early use of odd sound processing methods for prank calling in the 80s and early 90s went above and beyond other, perhaps more well-known prank call “comedians.” Still mysterious after all these years someone finally made a documentary about his exploits and it’s screening tonight at the Oriental.

What: Operators w/Doomsquad
When: Tuesday, 06.18, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Dan Boeckner is best known for being in some of the most interesting rock bands of the past two decades including Wolf Parade and Divine Fits. But in the past five years and more he’s been in a band that now includes Devojka, Sam Brown and Dustin Hawthorne that has been exploring the use of analog synths to write the kind of bright, brooding pop songs that wouldn’t sound out of place at some weird “New Wave” in the early 80s that hosted the likes of Gary Numan, Sparks and Fad Gadget. Rather than simply ethereal melodies, Operators has a robust low end in its mix giving the music some real power and momentum rather than merely sounding pretty. The quartet is currently touring in support of its 2019 full-length Radiant Dawn.

Wednesday | June 19

Mastodon_JimmyHubbard1 — Mastodon, photo by Jimmy Hubbard

What: Wand w/Dreamdecay
When: Wednesday, 06.19, 8 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Wand bridged the gap between weirdo, psychedelic lo-fi rock à la Pavement with the heaviest metal but without ever come off live like a metal band. More like indie rock nerds who never had to turn their nose up at the kinds of dynamics and sounds one heard in 70s hard rock, prog, the more inspired jam bands and stuff like Sleep. Currently the group is touring in support of its 2019 album Laughing Matter. On the latter it sounds like the group has been listening to some more post-punk and post-rock like Slint.

What: Mastodon and Coheed and Cambria and Every Time I Die
When: Wednesday, 06.19, 5 p.m.
Where: Fillmore Auditorium
Why: On Mastodon’s 2009 album Crack the Sky the Atlanta-based metal quartet aimed to write their version of a classic rock album with strong melodies and great mood and solid songwriting. True enough the overall tenor of the record with its dynamics out of step with most metal at the time, but anticipating where so many rock bands, not just metal, would go over the next decade. This is sort of a Tenth Anniversary type tour but the band recently recorded an homage to its late manager Nick John called “Stairway to Nick John” that is a cover of the Led Zeppelin song that some people may have heard at some point in their lives. The single was released on Record Store Day and the proceeds are going to benefit the Hirschberg Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer.

Best Shows in Denver 01/18/19 – 01/23/19

cursivejpdavis1 — **Cursive performs January 18 at The Bluebird Theater and January 19 at The Fox Theatre. Photo by JP Davis**

Friday | January 18, 2019

the_crystal_method_chapmanbaehler — The Crystal Method, photo by Chapman Baehler

Who: The Crystal Method w/Yoko b2b iAM_Jacko and Skeena
When: Friday, 01.18, 8:30 p.m.
Where: The Fox Theatre
Why: In the 90s The Crystal Method blurred any boundaries that may have existed between various subgenres of electronic music of the time. Rather than specialists, The Crystal Method freely experimented with forms, styles and genres yet crafted a sound of their own with an emphasis on strong beats and a grittily otherworldly, moody atmospherics. The duo’s 2018 record The Trip Home is proof that it hasn’t spent the past two decades insisting its initial vision should dictate the rest of its music while also borrowing heavily from methods and sounds from the past and during the intervening years. If a big beat industrial synth pop album was a thing, The Crystal Method made one.

Who: Hot Rize & Friends w/Michael Cleveland, Red Knuckles & The Trailblazers
When: Friday, 01.18, 7 p.m.
Where: Boulder Theater
Why: Hot Rize, the Colorado-based bluegrass band, is celebrating four decades together with a pair of shows at The Boulder Theater. Its members were hanging out and working at the Denver Folklore Center in the 1970s and learning the craft and methods of that music before essentially popularizing bluegrass to an ever widening audience from the 1980s onward. Depending on your perspective, for better or worse, Hot Rize’s aesthetic of what Nick Forster called “human sized music” impacted the aesthetic of the music on A Prairie Home Companion—old timey music for an era where bigger, louder, better, less elegant seemed to be the order of the day beyond even music. Even if bluegrass isn’t your thing, Hot Rize is an especially compelling live band whose good humor and sheer charisma always makes for an enjoyable performance.

Who: Cursive w/Summer Cannibals and Campdogzz
When: Friday, 01.18, 8 p.m.
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Cursive is one of the bands that put Omaha, Nebraska on the musical map as a place from which noteworthy music was being made. By the time the group garnered more than underground and regional prominence it had evolved its sound out of its early post-hardcore roots and incorporated a diverse set of musical ideas and sounds that proved influential on 2000s indie rock with raw emotions placed in the context of vibrant, atmospheric sounds and textures to give the band’s songs an immersive, even cinematic feel. The quartet’s latest, Vitriola, is vintage Cursive in all its haunted, orchestral, emotionally heightened glory. Summer Cannibals from Portland, Oregon is one of the few newer bands making rock music that’s difficult to pigeonhole to a specific subgenre bandwagoned in the past five to seven years as its not garage rock, not surf rock, not neo-grunge and not psychedelia. And all the better for it. Fuzzy, lively pop songs.

Who: Corsicana album release w/The Milk Blossoms, These Bashful Claws, John Lensing
When: Friday, 01.18, 8 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Dream pop band Corsicana drops its debut album at this show—the sparkling, gentle yet uplifting Perennial.

futuregenerations_shervinlainez — Future Generations, photo by Shervin Lainez

Who: Magic City Hippies w/Future Generations
When: Friday, 01.18, 8 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Magic City Hippies at least have a name that gives a clue what you’re in for. Its posi-hip-hop-inflected funk and downtempo pop is what you would hope New Age-esque hippies might glom onto after getting tired of de-fanged EDM and jamtronica. Opening act, Future Generations, came to their lush and layered songwriting through the production angle early on when singer/programmer Eddie Gore was making beats for friends and his own early experiments in music. As the band came together and brought in ideas and instruments the fledgling band was able to build and learn together without the overt influence of previous bands. Thus its pop songcraft while accessible is clearly coming from a direction where the band is consistently absorbing new sounds and methods so that the band’s creative evolution is part of its act of writing songs. The Future Generations 2018 album Landscape may sound like a solid, buoyant pop album, because it is, but there are plenty of sonic Easter eggs in there for discerning listeners.

Saturday | January 19, 2019

chellaandthecharm_jul29_2018_tommurphy — Chella and the Charm, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Chella & The Charm w/Jennifer Jane Niceley, The Threadbarons (duo) and Many Mountains
When: Saturday, 01.19, 8 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Chella & the Charm’s forthcoming EP Good Gal is the heartbreaking work of Americana genius you need to have in your life in 2019. Chella has identified several strands of our collective pain as a culture and manifested them in a handful of songs with energy and compassion.

Who: Cursive w/Summer Cannibals and Campdogzz
When: Saturday, 01.19, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Fox Theatre
Why: See January 18 entry on Cursive and Summer Cannibals.

Who: Womxn’s March Mosh III: Bonnie Weimer, The Pollution, Lady of Sorrows, Death in Space, Cheap Perfume, burlesque performance by Slut Game Strong
When: Saturday, 01.19, 3-8 p.m.
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: After the official Womxn’s March in Denver, this show will happen with proceeds to benefit Planned Parenthood. It’s a chance to see experimental banjo songwriter Bonnie Weimer at 3 p.m. when the event starts followed by a diverse evening of music including psychedelic punk band The Pollution, operatic darkwave act Lady of Sorrows, guitar/production project Death in Space, political punk band Cheap Perfume and its delightfully irreverent sense of humor as well as a feminist burlesque performance from Slut Game Strong.

Who: City Hunter release of Deep Blood w/Death Scenes and DJ Dead Body and Yung Sherm
When: Saturday, 01.19, 8 p.m.
Where: Syntax Physic Opera
Why: Horror-themed, costumed hardcore band City Hunter will play one of its rare shows in support of the release of its 2018 LP Deep Blood on Youth Attack Records. Expect some serious hijinks on the performance side with what will also be a short set because the band’s longest songs are under three minutes with many under a minute. Fitting for a band whose lead singer looks like the masked killer from an early 80s slasher film. Opening is Death Scenes which is Scream Screen’s Theresa Mercado who will show morgue slides accompanied by music from Kevin Wesley of noise project Prison Glue.

Who: Hot Rize & Friends w/Michael Cleveland, Red Knuckles & The Trailblazers
When: Saturday, 01.19, 7 p.m.
Where: Boulder Theater
Why: See January 18 entry for Hot Rize and its 40 year anniversary shows.

What: Punk Against Trump 2019 – Allout Helter, Cheap Perfume, Over Time, Sorry Sweetheart, No Takers
When: Saturday, 01.19, 7 p.m.
Where: Moon Room at Summit
Why: Some of Colorado’s best, overtly political bands gather once again put on a show in protest against the POTUS Trump. But it won’t be a dour, didactic affair because all of these bands are about having fun and airing out legit social and political grievances.

Tuesday | January 22, 2019

handydiner_oryx_feb24_2017_tommurphy — Oryx circa 2017, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Rockin’ For Roe: Oryx, Rotten Reputation and Church Fire
When: Tuesday, 01.22, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: “Roe” as in Roe v. Wade. This benefit show for Keep Abortion Safe and Women’s Freedom Fund features experimental doom band Oryx, irreverent and heartfelt punk band Rotten Reputation and industrial synth pop powerhouse Church Fire.

Wednesday | January 23, 2019

Quits_May4_2018_TomMurphy_Mod1 — Quits circa Spring 2018, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Ball of Light, Toboggan, Quits and Landgrabbers
When: Wednesday, 01.23, 8 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: Cincinnati’s Ball of Light just released its new album Flux on January 10, 2019. It’s ten tracks of urgent, feral, noisy post-hardcore sounds like what a hybrid of Neurosis and Season To Risk might sound like. Toboggan, not the Spanish band, is a bit like late 90s emo with hooks and coherent lyrics but not short on raw emotion. Quits is the noise rock band from Denver starring Doug “Fucking” Mioducki who used to be in early indie pop band Felt Pilotes before going on to way less melodic but no less emotionally charged bands like Koala, Sparkles, Witch Doctor and CP-208. His bandmates are also noteworthy musicians from other great Denver bands but you can do some homework if you feel like it.

Short Takes #2: August 2018

This is the latest installment of our periodical records review column with the featured album being Them Are Us Too’s posthumous swan song Amends out on Dais Records.

Them Are Us Too – Amends – Dais Records

Them Are Us Too’s gift to its listeners is a nearly unmatched ability to distill all the pain, disappointment and sadness of a lifetime of unrequited love and rejection by others, by society and ourselves into soaring melodies that sublimate those feelings into ethereal shadows that can no longer overwhelm us even if they can still haunt us. Amends may be the final record from the band due to the tragic death of guitarist Cash Askew in the 2016 Ghost Ship fire. But the music’s power to take gentle yet strong rhythms and couple them with intertwining melodies, luminescent and melancholy, as a vehicle for honoring genuine emotional expression is a testament to the duo’s enduring alchemical ability to soothe the spirit.

AZALiA_SNAiL_NEON_RESiSANCE — AZALiA_SNAiL, *NEON_RESiSTANCE*, Silber (US)/Thokei Tapes (Germany)

AZALiA SNAiL – NEON RESiSTANCE – Silber (US)/Thokei Tapes (Germany)

Pretty much impossible to say when this album was written and recorded post-1980. Its sensibility and aesthetic points to 80s and 90s synth pop. The guitar on “Celeste (Can You Feel It)” sounds like something out of a more ambitious New Wave band but set inside a song that could have come out in the past 10 years among artists tapping into 80s pop sounds to capture a sense of nostalgia. But NEON RESiSTANCE isn’t mining nostalgia. It is doing something more interesting and meta by using an older set of musical parameters and sounds with modern production to evoke a personal style of songwriting that looks forward as many bands of the 80s seemed to be doing but avoiding getting that all wrong by really giving the songs an unusual emotional dimensionality and nuance with nostalgia-tinged melodies as relatable self-reflection and not self-obsession. Sonically it’s difficult to compare this multi-faceted pop record to much of anything else but perhaps Nina Hagen’s 1982 experimental rock/New Wave masterpiece NunSexMonkRock. There was little like that then, there’s little like this now and every track is worth your time.

Biostatic_Vaccine — bios+a+ic – *Vaccine* – Symbolic Insight

bios+a+ic – Vaccine – Symbolic Insight

Wesley Davis seems to generate his albums around themes that express the essence of ideas that have taken up residence in his imagination. 2015’s cloudLanD has an airy, drifty feel suggesting a sense of space and peace. Vaccine’s claustrophobic drones and repeating circular phrases spawn others that intersect in ominous, dissonant patterns suggestive of one set of sounds mutually infecting another to produce a third sound that’s darker with descending tones. Not an anti-vax abstraction, but more a comment on not trusting corporations and moneyed interests to provide a cure. In that way, it’s a bit of a cyberpunk ambient album but one that doesn’t make the dystopia seem kinda cool.

CURTA – End of Future Park – self-released

Jake Danna minces no words in his critique of American culture in general and his local community in particular. From the self-appointed expertise on all things and the lives of other people due to the internet and social media (“Ghost Milk”) to the limitations of bravado to dignify one’s life and art (“Prop Comic”) and the poisonous, self-eroding qualities of unreigned-in/unexamined cynicism (“I’m Still Cool, Right? (feat. WC Tank), Danna’s observations are a cogent assessment of the root ills of modern America’s writhing cultural anomy beyond platitudes of left and right. 4Digit’s production as further brought into detail by ManMadeMadMan’s mastering is what shines just as brightly. The beats, the streaming details of sound to accent the mood, tone and texture, the vibrant atmospheres and the masterful flow of melodies to suit the moment are not subtle so much as fully integrated and you get a to take in 4Digit’s imaginative composition with the 26+ minute closing track, “The Life of 4Digit Vol. 1.”

LA-VIE-C'EST-MORT---ARTWORK — Daisy Mortem, *La vie c’est mort*, self-released

Daisy Mortem – La vie c’est mort – We Are Vicious

An always engaging listen akin to an unlikely and thus refreshing synthesis of B-52s, Lords of Acid and breakcore, La vie c’est mort from Bordeaux, France’s Daisy Mortem is a sort of decadent industrial dance pop. A lot of American industrial dance groups fall back too much on mediocre 90s EBM. On this EP, Daisy Mortem taps more into mid-80s New Wave’s melodramatic emotionalism but using the sound palette of modern electronic dance music to craft songs with a giant sonic imprint. Imagine the curiously compelling upbeat and alien quality of Classix Nouveaux minus the schlock and with a sprinkling of influence from Sparks and Fad Gadget. If Fellini had lived to make a movie about Bohemian New York City in the 80s, he would have done well to have tapped Daisy Mortem to score the soundtrack because this band is that exact vibe—bombastic, lush and brimming with vitality.

The-Damned---Evil-Spirits-Front-Cover-600dpi — The Damned, *Evil Spirits*, Search and Destroy/Spinefarm Records

The Damned – Evil Spirits – Search and Destroy/Spinefarm Records

Easily The Damned’s best record since Machine Gun Etiquette. But it would be more honest to say it’s the band’s best record since it’s debut. Most bands more than forty years into their career are creatively treading water. The Damned apparently found some juice in their collective imagination to write an album in the classic style of writing a cohesive record of quality material beginning to end. Most bands write a record this vibrant early in their careers. “We’re So Nice” rocks harder than but has a similarly deft orchestration of melody and harmony one might expect out of The Zombies. It should come as no surprise that Tony Visconti, one of the minds behind shaping the best Bowie records, was on board for Evil Spirits. But even the most brilliant production can’t make up for subpar songwriting. Even if you didn’t know this was The Damned, so many of these songs are striking and timeless. “Shadow Evocation” is like a long lost cousin to something The Moody Blues might have written in the 60s—a windswept, imagination stirring mini-epic. What makes Evil Spirits such a remarkable album is that The Damned prove track to track that they know that if they relied on only one trick, one tempo, one songwriting style they’d bore themselves as much as us and that should count for something in any band much less one that could easily skate along on the laurels of its older classic material. The Damned have create what should in time be considered new classics with this record.

FrogEyes_VioletPsalms — Frog Eyes, *Violent Psalms*, Paper Bag Records

Frog Eyes – Violent Psalms – Paper Bag Records

For its final record, Frog Eyes has refined its raw noir Americana sound to a place of great clarity that brings the conflicted emotions into sharp focus. Carey Mercer still sounds like he’s shaken by the force of emotion even as he delivers his words with the confidence and quaver of a Bryan Ferry. With this album, more than previous Frog Eyes releases, each song sounds like a room, an environment, a psychological space Mercer enters with immediate, cogent commentary. At times, as with “Idea Man,” the music feels like the modern equivalent of an early-to-mid-70s Genesis record with the elegance of sonic detail, mysteriousness and grandeur. Maybe Mercer wasn’t listening to a steady diet of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway or Foxtrot but this Frog Eyes swan song resonates with the artistic ambition and exploring the possibilities of one’s own songwriting and reach as a musician.

Immersion – Sleepless – swim~

Somewhere in England there’s a high tech train station going to the places where it sounds like Boards of Canada songs take place and this is the gentle effervescent music to put you in the mood to be in a place of peace and disconnect from the rough and tumble everyday world. The cycling tones of “Off Grid” seem aimed to help you reprogram your brain to check out of the ambient anomy that comes with life in the twenty-first century and take a trip through a languidly melodic soundscape for nearly fifty minutes before being dropped off in a beautiful place out in the country.

The Milk Blossoms – Dry Heave the Heavenly – self-released

With heartbreaking imagery throughout, this second album from The Milk Blossoms quickly becomes impossible to resist in drawing you in to tender yet intense emotional experiences that might be off putting to those with an aversion to psychological intimacy at this deep a level. But The Milk Blossoms never seem off putting. The band bares its alchemy of words and sounds with a brave openness borne of knowing you’re speaking truth or at least your truth—a quality that never goes out of style and which can never but completely duplicated as something idiosyncratic to the artist in question. The Milk Blossoms make pop music the way some people make something special for a loved one—with great attention to detail and with a care and affection and without expectation of anything in return. Was this written in an old lighthouse? A treehouse? A cottage in the woods waiting for the winter to thaw? Probably not but it has the feel of taking time out in isolation to allow the nuances and strength of feeling to emerge and find their perfect expression.

Oryx – Stolen Absolution – Midnite Collective/Graven Earth

This is the sound of the world around us crumbling and eroding and our inability or unwillingness to reverse course. Like the manifestation of Derrick Jensen’s Endgame. Oryx could have pummeled us with some doom-y deathgrind but there is simply a greater diversity of musical ideas here than all of that. The dynamics, for one, while often insistent, leave enough space so that the crushing avalanche of sound hits harder. It also means that, unlike some bands in the realm of extreme metal, Oryx’s songs never truly feel same-y. Across this album the duo pushes the boundaries of what the music can be by fully integrating brutal sonics with atmosphere. Stolen Absolution’s long stretches feel like an intense journey but none that leave you worn out for having taken them.

Peach Kelli Pop – Gentle Leader – Mint Records

Featuring what might be the album cover of the year for richness of content alone, Gentle Leader is ten songs in the noise pop vein. Upbeat, irreverent, bordering-on-twee-but-confident, Peach Kelli Pop’s songs have great melodic vocal harmonies and wide ranging rhythms. Closing track “Skylight” reveals the band’s experimental guitar edge hinted at earlier in the record confirming that Peach Kelli Pop has more to offer than the exquisite pop gems that have been a large part of its recorded catalog to date.

Sugar Candy Mountain – Do Right – self-released

The retro-futurist sonic flourishes across this album are reminiscent of a sunny Laurel Canyon psych Broadcast in a pop moment. Or perhaps like Death & Vanilla in that the melodies are nostalgic but the undertones and rhythms suggest a grounding outside the English-speaking music world. As the songs on the album fuzz and incandesce one wonders if the band watched a whole lot of reruns of The Ed Sullivan Show and nailed the vibe and the aesthetic when old Ed had on the hippest guests that didn’t have to compromise and could just shine on a program where the evils of the modern music industry weren’t so firmly in place to insidiously influence and water down popular music into the lowest common denominator product, rather when taste makers had taste and a sense of adventure. Do Right may be retro and couched in a sense of nostalgia but the details on album closer “Do You Know The Place,” and throughout the record, those qualities sound surprisingly fresh at a time when looking back four or five decades and more for inspiration is so played out.

Synth_Drone collective – Tone Science – Symbolic Insight

The track names on this album from Denver based synth supergroup Synth-Drone collective suggest a collective telling of life in some far flung future akin to Larry Niven’s Tales of Known Space but with the dark cloak of a minimalist, existentialist Tarkovsky science fiction film like Stalker. The name of the album doesn’t spell out but hints at the scientists of the time depicted in this album searching in earnest for the real science equivalent of the mythical first sound, the teleological ground zero vibration, that launched the universe into dynamic life because it has been discovered that the universe is dying and the only thing that can reverse the process is to discover the appropriate wavelengths to stop the impending doom of all and everything. Except someone in the scientific community knows it’s all for naught and just another attempt by sentient beings to interfere with the natural order of things with the hubristic notion that mortals can fix anything if they set their minds to it when in fact by our temporal nature and perspective we can never known enough to impact everything. Which is a downer but in the case of this album, it’s a beautifully compelling, drone-driven soundscape of a time when humans and other intelligent creatures have to learn to accept the inevitable.

Wye Oak – The Louder I Call, the Faster It Runs – Merge Records

There’s always been a bit of a cinematic quality to Wye Oak’s music and one might perhaps clumsily say the new album is to If Children what Fargo is to Blood Simple—not massively better but more sophisticated, more intentionally stylized with its newfound skill set and sonic palette. The melding of acoustic instruments and electronic production is so complete that the band seems to effortlessly bring to bear tones, rhythms, textures, melodies and atmospheres to craft songs as experiences. Wye Oak hasn’t ditched classic songwriting methods and models, it’s just taken those structures and filled them out with rich content. But what does Wye Oak have to say this time around? Refreshingly the band asks more questions than providing a set perspective. At a time when too many bold-yet-curiously-vapid-and-trite statements are made in the public sphere, it’s asking thoughtful questions and pondering issues about life and the world without a sense of one’s own certainty as a nod to the fact that we can’t know everything while not discrediting our own thoughts and feelings that makes this record remarkable. The title suggests chasing after goals while those goals we are encouraged to think of as ends in themselves become elusive and we are forced to really think about what it is we’re all on about and if the chase is worth it in the end. Because of that, The Louder I Call, the Faster It Runs really is the kind of record that needs to be out in the world questioning the dominant paradigm not with firebrand skepticism but compassionate curiosity for ourselves and others.

Best Shows in Denver 08/9/18 – 08/15/18

EchoBeds_Jan25_2018_TomMurphy — Echo Beds album release Sunday, August 12, 2018 at Mutiny Information Café

Thursday | August 9, 2018

Lady Gang, photo courtesy Jen Korte

Who: Lady Gang EP release w/Venus Cruz & Ginger Perry and R A R E B Y R D $
When: Thursday, 08.9, 9 p.m.
Where: Syntax Physic Opera
Why: Jen Korte has long been known as a respected and talented songwriter in Denver with her inventive songwriting and vivid lyrics. Known mostly for her Americana solo output and her brilliant collaborations with other artists including stints in Gin Doctors and as a guitarist in experimental rock band Teacup Gorilla. Lady Gang is Korte branching out as a songwriter and, this time around, as a producer. It’s a solo project in which Korte uses “a beat machine, a loop pedal, bass guitar, electric guitar and her signature voice.” That voice has some grit, character and confidence. The project’s new EP, released tonight, is Simple Truths, is truth in advertising with Korte finding direct ways of discussing the world in its incredible disarray. The songs resist simple classification. “How Do You Sound” has elements of bluesy psychedelia and hip-hop as interpreted through someone like MC 900 Foot Jesus. “Preface This” like a long lost Helium track with its electro-lounge and mysterious melodic strains. Sharing the stage for the occasion of this release is a collaborative set with two of Denver’s most noteworthy musical figures in jazz/soul/hip-hop phenom Venus Cruz, host of the Jazz Odyssey program on KUVO (one of the most forward thinking radio programs in Denver) and Ginger Perry, one of the Mile High City’s great DJs and not just the kind that shows up with a simple playlist. Oh, and R A R E B Y R D $, one of the most interesting hip-hop crews going that’s injecting a rich spectrum of quality imagination and emotional content into the genre.

Who: Lupe Fiasco w/Mickey Factz, Bill Blue, Dylan Montayne, Connor Ray
When: Thursday, 08.9, 7 p.m.
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: It’s for the best that Lupe Fiasco didn’t actually quit music as he had intended in 2016 after the controversy over “N.E.R.D.” and the infamously supposed anti-Semitic line. In a time when white supremacy has made a curious rise in American political life, it’s essential to have voices who are articulate and unabashed critics of such nonsense not to mention Fiasco’s sharp critique of the down side of America’s actions on the international stage. Initially shelved, 2017’s Drogas Light was described as a prequel to the 2011 album Lasers. Perhaps for this tour Lupe Fiasco will unveil a bit of his new direction as creatively moving forward certainly suits him.

Who: Angélique Kidjo’s Remain In Light and Femi Kuti & Positive Force
When: Thursday, 08.9, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Denver Botanic Gardens (York Street)
Why: Two giants of world music on one bill in a beautiful setting? Both Kidjo and Kuti have deep roots in the development of world music in general but Afrobeat in particular. Obviously Femi Kuti’s father Fela was the founder of Afrobeat and Femi played in Fela’s band starting in his teen years. Kidjo was “discovered” as a jazz musician in Paris but quickly made a name for herself internationally for her powerful voice and inimitable personal style. A rare opportunity in Denver.

Friday | August 10, 2018

MeetTheGiant3_Jun23_2018_TomMurphy — Meet The Giant, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Meet the Giant vinyl release w/Church Fire and The Patient Zeros
When: Friday, 08.10, 9 p.m.
Where: Syntax Physic Opera
Why: Denver-based rock band Meet the Giant releases the vinyl edition of its self-titled debut album tonight with a show at Syntax. The record is a synthesis of moody, deeply atmospheric dream pop, downtempo and fuzzy hard rock. Live the band’s songs have a mysterious yet emotionally vibrant quality accented by a broad dynamic range between the trio’s players. For the occasion Meet the Giant is joined by two of Denver’s best bands. The Patient Zeros emerged from the glut of neo-classic rock, throwback 60s psych-nostalgia and garage rock that seemed to dominate the past several years with its own musical identity and more bluesy like Cream and not a cut-rate Brian Jonestown Massacre. Church Fire is the rare band that bridges electronic dance music, noise, industrial and synth pop and infuses it with a passionate intensity and shamanic stage presence.

Who: Melvins w/WE Are The Asteroid
When: Friday, 08.10, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Melvins have managed to spend its 35 years as a band not just developing its signature sludgy, heavy rock and influencing generations of musicians, it has taken the opportunity to collaborate with other artists in various realms of music. Whether that’s with experimental electronic artist Lustmord or Jello Biafra, Melvins seem to have long realized that you have to keep doing stuff you find interesting and following your curiosity and trying different things along the way. 2017’s A Walk With Love and Death was a double album with half of it being a noisy soundtrack to a forthcoming film in which the band is involved. Now, Melvins are touring its latest record, 2018’s Pinkus Abortion Technician. Reliably great live, do yourself a favor and see Melvins this weekend or if not this weekend sometime if you’ve not before.

Who: Witch Mountain w/False Cathedrals and Wild Call
When: Friday, 08.10, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Witch Mountain is a doom band from Portland, Oregon currently touring in support of its recently-released self-titled album. The quartet has technically been around since the late 90s but with an early 2000s hiatus giving band members some time to pursue other projects, the group reconvened this past decade with female lead singers who really help coalesce the drifty heavy riffs into mythical anthems. Also on board for the show is Denver doom band False Cathedrals and Wild Call who, while not doom, more psych or shoegaze, have an edge and heaviness to its atmospheric rock that will fit right in.

ParkerMillsap2018-JamesCoreas — Parker Millsap, photo by James Coreas

Who: Parker Millsap w/Plain Faraday
When: Friday, 08.10, 8 p.m.
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Parker Millsap is definitely operating with a tradition of music that includes blues rock artists of his youth like Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan who were doing their level best to tap into the original blues artists of the American South and Midwest. But instead of getting stuck there, it’s obvious Millsap took some time to explore traditional folk and country and more modern practitioners of that art who brought their own ghosts and haunted quality and soul to their own music. Like Townes Van Zandt and Jeff Buckley. Millsap’s own voice and playing has a an impressive subtlety and spectrum of detail, texture and emotional colorings and has established himself as a real talent in his realm of music. In May 2018 he released his latest record Other Arrangements.

Saturday | August 10, 2018

Itchy-O-ChristopherCleary2 — Itchy-O, photo by Christopher Cleary

Who: Itchy-O Record Release w/Codename: Carter
When: Saturday, 08.11, 8 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: The Itchy-O’s new full-length Mystic Spy | Psykho Dojo, like any recorded work, could never fully capture the exuberant mayhem and visceral impact of a thirty plus member band in elaborate costumes generating an orchestra of rhythms and tones designed to disorient and inspire. Nevertheless, the new album offers listeners a foray into deep sound design that conveys the sheer detail and atmospheric experience of the band in a different context. It’s the band’s most forward thinking set of songs to date and rendered in a way that is as easy to get lost in on its own terms as the band is live. Each of the band’s albums have been impressive works in their own right in terms of recording and execution as a separate experience from the live show but Mystic Spy | Psykho Dojo is much more than an addendum to an Itchy-O concert, it is the realization of the concept of an esoteric spy film soundtrack and sonic training rhythms for tribal psychics to manifest a more vital future. Joining Itchy-O for this occasion is spy rock/surf band extraordinaire Codename: Carter.

PrincessDewclaw_Aug12_2017_TomMurphy — Princess Dewclaw, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Washout Fest at Globe Hall: Muscle Beach, Rotten Reputation, Sliver, Moon Pussy, Princess Dewclaw, Sonic Vomit, Morlox, Ultraviolet, Eraserhead Fuckers, Bert Olsen, Juice Up, Lepidoptera, Fever Dreams, Saddy, Freak//When//Scene, Monty O’Blivio, Clutch Plague, Television Generation, King Slug and Wayward Sun
When: Saturday, 08.11, 12 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Hands down the most eclectic music festival to happen in Denver in 2018. While many try to encapsulate too many genres with not enough interesting artists, others focus on indie rock and NPR-friendly pop, yet others an uninspired and obvious selection of popular artists and token local artists who aren’t going to ruffle any feathers, the organizers of Washout Fest have dug a little deeper. But more than that, not just artists on the Glasss imprint. It includes notable local noise artist Morlox, ambient project Lepidoptera, noisy psych punk group Princess Dewclaw, the industrial noise rock of Moon Pussy, dream psych pop group Fever Dreams, experimental metal band Sonic Vomit, unconventional punk bands Rotten Reputation and Muscle Beach, fuzz rock bands Sliver and Television Generation, noise hip-hop weirdo Eraserhead Fuckers and much more. The more conventionally-minded festivals have their place, especially when they have a local focus like The UMS and Westword Music Showcase, but this is one where radio-friendly wasn’t the consideration, just quality and putting one’s reputation on the line for declaring the bands as such.

Valley-Queen_by-Pooneh-Ghana — Valley Queen, photo by Pooneh Ghana

Who: Valley Queen w/Tyto Alba
When: Saturday, 08.11, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Valley Queen has been honing its live show and songwriting for four years with numerous national tours under its belt to road test its music. Its gift for reinventing a type of rock music that isn’t part of a subgenre and isn’t necessarily trying to remanifest some older style of music is impressive. The band may have borrowed some from its retro peers and 2000s indie rock but with the release of its debut album, Supergiant (2018), the Los-Angeles based band demonstrated it’s perfectly capable of establishing a signature sound of layered melodies and Natalie Carol’s commanding vocals. Valley Queen is no stranger to Denver having made the Mile High City a regular stop on its tours and tonight the group will share the stage with one of America’s most promising rock bands, the warmly moody and emotionally stirring Tyto Alba from Denver.

Who: Great American House Fire and Sophisticated Boom Boom split release
When: Saturday, 08.11, 8 p.m.
Where: Bowman’s Vinyl and Lounge
Why: It wouldn’t be accurate to say that Great American House Fire and Sophisticated Boom Boom are punk but its roots lie in a similar Denver punk and emo scene of the past two decades. GAHF has a bit more soul and Americana in its sound while SBB is more in the vein of power pop. Both celebrate the release of their split seven inch tonight at Bowman’s.

Who: GhostPulse (single premiere) w/Plume Varia and Ramakhandra
When: Saturday, 08.11, 8 p.m.
Where: Syntax Physic Opera
Why: GhostPulse is premiering its new single “Dreaming In Hypersleep” tonight. The song is a leap forward for a band that was evolving out of its roots in excellent post-rock/instrumental rock band Lucida Tela. The more electronic, soundscape-y sound of its newer material is very welcome in a city where music rooted in mundane reality currently dominates. Plume Varia will compliment the evening well with its own downtempo dream pop and space jazz/Flying Lotus/Gil Scott-Heron-esque band Ramakhandra will keep things in the outer realms of the imagination as well.

Who: Melvins w/WE Are The Asteroid
When: Saturday, 08.11, 8 p.m.
Where: The Aggie Theatre
Why: See above for 8.10 on Melvins.

Sunday | August 12, 2018

Cannons_Jan22_2010_TomMurphy — Cannons circa 2010, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Goon, faim, Soul Vice
When: Sunday, 08.12, 6 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: This benefit for the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition features some of the more interesting local hardcore acts including Goom and Faim from Denver and Soul Vice from Colorado Springs. Yes, the bands are doing a benefit for a political organization but their own songwriting is non-didactic and address social and interpersonal issues in a poignant and powerful way. For instance, faim’s great song “All Talk” takes to task the people in its own world and scene who talk a big game and make a major display of what they want people to think they’re about without doing anything concrete in the real world and in their own lives to address those issues in meaningful way.

Who: Cannons w/Echo Beds (album release), Limbwrecker, In The Company of Serpents
When: Sunday, 08.12, 9 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: Over two years after the release of its debut full-length New Icons of a Vile Faith, Denver’s Echo Beds finds its starkly menacing clamor evolving in new directions with its 2018 album Buried Language (officially out on 8.17 through The Flenser). Still in place is the physicality of the music and its inventive and visceral use of percussion and rhythmic sound but added to the mix is a greater sense of the use of production in executing that aesthetic in a way that is an even more full spectrum stimulation of the senses. This show is a bit of a record release and tour kickoff for the band but also a chance to share the stage with like-minded acts. Cannons was an excellent noise rock/post-hardcore act that was most active nearly a decade ago in Denver. In the Company of Serpents is a doom band but its wall of sound is so colossal and caustic it’s almost more like death metal or grindcore slowed down to the pace of magma. Limbwrecker could be said to be a powerviolence band with a sense of humor.

Tuesday | August 14, 2018

TheChamanas_Perfiles_BrettMuñoz — The Chamanas, photo by Brett Muñoz

Who: The Chamanas w/Picture the Waves, Vic N’ The Narwhals, Los Mocochetes and Ghost Tapes
When: Tuesday, 08.14, 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: The Chamanas is an indie pop band if indie pop were born out of being influenced by not just the type of music that formed the DNA of C86 and American indie pop bands of the 90s (garage rock, psychedelia, folk, noise etc.) but if the folk underpinnings of that music included traditional Mexican music, the various pop traditions of Latin America and Cuban dance music. It’s that mixture that gives the band’s music not only a uniquely eclectic flavor but one that has an immediate connection for fans of earlier and more modern indie pop. Manuel Calderon and Hector Carreon met as sound engineers at Sonic Ranch near El Paso, Texas and after working on projects by other artists the two finally issued their own album as The Chamanas in 2015, Once Once. In 2017 the band released its second album, NEA, titled after the nickname of Carreon’s brother who had recently passed with songs that reflected that loss. With 2018’s NEA II, The Chamanas re-rendered several of NEA‘s songs with five new tracks. Also on this bill are some of the best bands in the Denver music scene whose own music is a brilliant synthesis of musical traditions in Vic N’ The Narwhals, Los Mocochetes and Ghost Tapes.

Who: Wino, Xasthur and Phallic Meditation
When: Tuesday, 08.14, 9 p.m.
Where: 3 Kings Tavern
Why: Robert “Wino” Weinrich will perform some of his starkly evocative solo material at this show. Better known, perhaps, for his tenure in doom legends Saint Vitus and The Obsessed, his solo acoustic material showcases his raw gift for songwriting. Xasthur’s spare black metal with acoustic instrumentation came to Denver in 2017 with a haunting performance capable of deep musical darkness without the usual instrumentation and sound one associates with a similar aesthetic. Denver’s Phallic Meditation is more a doomy psychedelic band but with some experimental noisiness that sets it apart from similarly-minded groups.

Who: Lil Ugly Mane, Kahlil Cezanne, Curta, Cadaver Dog, Many Blessings, Videodrome
When: Tuesday, 08.14, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: When Travis Miller released his debut album as Lil Ugly Mane, 2012’s Mista Thug Isolation, he had already garnered some praise from members of the Odd Future collective for his absurdist imagery and inventive production that really didn’t obey then mainstream hip-hop conventions with his use of noise and black metal soundscapes/samples in some of the beats. So it’s fitting that on this bill are experimental/noise hip-hop artist Curta, hardcore bands Cadaver Dog and Videodrome and noise soundscaper Many Blessings. If there’s a show demonstrating how all those worlds and their various aesthetics aren’t so far apart this whole year so far, this is it.

Wednesday | August 8, 2018

Aseethe-by-Karlee-Barr — Aseethe, photo by Karlee Barr

Who: Yakuza, Aseethe, Oryx, Terminator 2
When: Tuesday, 08.14, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Aseethe’s 2017 album Hopes of Failure is a great example of how one can create an immersive experience with heavy music if you’re willing to go beyond how that music has often been conceived in an earlier era. Not just doom or a subgenre of that subgenre, Aseethe’s music is now more like sound design in the form of songs to render an experience through sound and, live, through the visceral dynamics of how that sound is executed. It would be imprecise and wannabe inclusive to call it ambient. It’s not that. It’s not music that can be easily shuffled off into the background if you wish. Aseethe is in good company for this show with Chicago’s Yakuza, a band that has long been pushing the boundaries of heavy music and Denver’s Oryx and Terminator 2 who both don’t just make experimental metal but whose own songs expand what heavy music can be and the forms it can take when the dynamics aren’t essentially the same trying to fit into what doom or grind are “supposed” to sound like.

Who: Beach House w/Sound of Ceres
When: Tuesday, 08.14, 8 p.m.
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: It could be argued that Beach House has been in something of a creative rut since 2012’s Bloom, or, less charitably, sine 2008’s Devotion. While it’s albums have been enjoyable and yielding worthwhile songs, and the live shows have been reliably moving, the songwriting was starting to get a little stale. With 2018’s 7, it’s like the band reinvented itself. Maybe with the help of producer Sonic Boom, former member of Spacemen 3 and Spectrum, but this set of songs sounds like Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally recognized a need to break their own boundaries as the songs are far more experimental and adventurous than the duo has ever been. The band’s previous two albums were nice but Beach House is better than merely nice and has now proven it. Sound of Ceres is now based out of New York but the band is originally from Fort Collins, Colorado and its own dreamlike pop music shares the quality of intimate sound and mood and personal mythology that has made Beach House’s music so resonant for anyone with a rich inner life and imagination.

Who: Father John Misty with TV On the Radio
When: Tuesday, 08.14, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Love him, hate him or find him mundane, at least Father John Misty has some self-awareness of his own creative output. Joshua Tillman, Misty, recently released his new album God’s Favorite Customer and ditched the unifying concept approach to writing the album, which Tillman told Consequence of Sound in April 2018 was “pretentious.” You have to honor that level of frankness and honesty in an artist. Whatever intentionality went into God’s Favorite Customer, the record is a sonically and emotionally rich listen with collaborations with the likes of Haxan Cloak and Weyes Blood. That visionary art rock/downtempo/experimental R&B band TV On the Radio is on the bill too is more than just a bonus.