Sunswept – Queen City Sounds and Art

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond October 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Buzzcocks in 2024, photo by Janette Beckman

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

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

The Jungle Giants, photo courtesy the artists

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

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

49 Winchester, photo by Daniel Pracopcyk

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Praga Khan of Lords of Acid, photo courtesy the artist

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

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

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

Lesser Care in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

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

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

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

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

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

New Constellations, photo by Cameron Browne

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

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

Tassles in February 2026, photo by Tom Murphy

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

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

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

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

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

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

White Rose Motor Oil, photo courtesy the artists

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

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

To Be Continued…

A Brief Guide to Ghost Canyon Fest 2026

Denver’s premier left field music festival spanning weirdo heavy music to ambient, noise rock to post-hardcore and avant-pop among others runs Thursday August 26, 2026 through Sunday August 30, 2026 in various venues. Below is a brief description of the artists with links. For more information and to buy tickets please visit: ghostcanyonfest.com.

Th 08.27 at HQ doors 7pm
Wax Trax Music Panel: DIY In the Age of Slop: A Discussion Sponsored by Smashed Plastic: Local music heads discuss the perilous future in the age of tech bro oligarch vampires. 7pm

Ryan Wong & Sunswept: A fusion of improvisational impulses weave together guitar and cosmic flute soundscapes. 8:45pm

Kathryn Mohr: Psycho-cinematic pastoral ambient grunge folk. 9:30pm

Holy Sons: Dark psychedelic industrial folk drone. 10:30pm

Six Organs of Admittance, photo from Bandcamp

F 08.28 Free In Store at Wax Trax Broadway Bazaar 4pm
Prairiewolf: Library music jazz kosmiche in the extended IDM spectrum. 4:15pm

Six Organs of Admittance: Tripped out extradimensional ritual folk noise. 5pm

F 08.28 Hi-Dive 7pm doors
Supreme Joy: Psychedelic No Wave post-punk. 410,757, 864, 530 Dead Carps can’t be wong. 7pm

Dust Congress: Self-styled “pioneers of the depressive realism genre” but really deconstructed baroque pop. 7:45pm

Silkworm: Influential, scrappy, angular, emo-adjacent noise rock. 9:15pm

The Gotobeds: Like a 90s K Records band fueled by a punk interpretation of C86. 8:30pm

Steve Von Till: Apocalyptic drone psych Americana from one of the founders of Neurosis. 10:30pm

claire rousay, photo by Katherine Squier

S 08.29 Bug Theate doors 12:30pm doors
Nora Mal: Pastoral shoegaze from Salt Lake City joined by Chaz Prymek of Lake Mary and Mike Fuchs of Passive Tourist. 1pm

Shane Parish Plays Autechre Guitar: Improvisational guitar wizard interprets the electronic music and tonal detail of Autechre for acoustic instrumentation. 1:45pm

Daniel Higgs: Poet, mystic, visual artist and legendary singer/lyricist for Lungfish. Keen crafter of transcendent ambient psychedelia. 2:45pm

claire rousay: Masterful musique concrète ambient collage pop. 3:45pm

S 08.29 Hi-Dive 6pm doors
Watch Yourself Die: Borderline terrifying confrontational performance art post-punk prog. 7pm

Blacks’ Myths: Free-associating free jazz and drone collage commentary on cultural historical moments. 7:45pm

ABANDONS: The sound of civilization collapsing and evolving into more exciting forms. 8:30pm

Water Damage: Organic motorik Neu!-esque drone rock featuring noteworthy members of Austin’s experimental scene including Thor Harris. 9:15pm

Moor Mother: Avant-garde free jazz noise and the poetry of cultural heritage. 10pm

Kowloon Walled City: Colossal and crushing post-hardcore noise rock. 11pm

Su 08.30 Wax Trax Broadway Bazaar free in-store, show 1:15pm
Burn Barrel: Kansas City-based crushing post-hardcore noise rock including members of Canyons. 1:30pm

Circling Over: Melancholic, transcendent, shoegaze-adjacent post-metal. 2:15pm

Arson Charge: Thrashcore scorchings of the baked in abuse of human culture. 3pm

Su 08.30 The Skylark Lounge 4pm doors
Blööd Ôath: Demented and thrillingly abrasive metallic post-punk like a collision of Oblivians and The Cramps. 5pm

Infinite Ohm: Hypnotic drones and other mind-altering sounds courtesy Justin Lemons (and the name of his studio, label and this project). 5:45pm

Violenteer: Brooding, menacing and caustic industrialized noise rock for fans of Unsane and Shellac. 6:30pm

Great Falls: Relentless and unhinged mathcore. 7:15pm

Dead Rider: Left field noise rock and experimental electronic strangeness with connection to avant-guitar rock band U.S. Maple. 8pm

Midwife: Cathartically heartbreaking ambient folk heavenmetal. 9pm

Queen City Sounds Podcast S6E15: Sarah Christiansen

Sarah Christiansen, photo courtesy the artist

Sarah Christiansen has been a fixture of Denver’s experimental music and improvisational scene since 2022. Her solo project Sunswept which finds her playing flute and synthesizer with live production and processing is a high point of any show with a unique style of ambient. The duo she’s in Snowswept with Derrick Bozich (aka Snowflyer) combines her skills for soundscaping and Bozich’s gift for spontaneous synth composition and left field electronic dance music. Her trio Field Theory is like a New Music ambient jazz combo that expands notions of what that music can look and sound like. Christiansen also organizes a monthly event called Emergent Forms that brings together musicians in the local improvisational music world and puts them into combinations to explore the possibilities of the art form. She is also a volunteer with Creative Music Works having been an early booster of the group’s activities and shows.

Originally from Saint Louis, Missouri, Christiansen moved to Colorado in 2016 and wasn’t initially involved in the music scene. But she caught some shows of local artists notably R A R E B Y R D $, the experimental hip-hop group that incorporates jazz, Latin music, ambient and neo soul. In 2022 Christiansen witnessed the early Avant Garden events hosted at Mutiny Information Cafe and run by noteworthy experimental musicians Meca’Ayo Cole, Victoria Lundy and Jennifer Bobola eventually working with Bobola in the short-lived band Fireball Rose. In December 2024, Texas-based label Aural Canyon released the debut and only Sunswept album Germinations. You can regularly see the musician/composer live at DIY spots and an occasional club show in Denver and the Colorado Front Range and her latest endeavor outside her regular efforts is a collaborative duo with singer-songwriter Ryan Wong (Supreme Joy etc.) for the first night of Ghost Canyon Fest 2026.

Listen to our interview with Sarah Christiansen on Bandcamp and follow her exploits at the links below and see Sunswept and Ryan Wong in a collaborative performance for the opening night of Ghost Canyon Fest on Thursday, August 26, 2026.

Sunswept on Instagram

Sarah Christiansen Linktr.ee

Spices Peculiar and Sunswept Carry Us on a Soothing and Transcendental Journey Across Time on Ambient Jazz Improv Track “7/9/25”

Spices Peculiar, photo courtesy the artist

“7/9/25” is a collaborative composition between Spices Peculiar and Sunswept. The processed flute flows and perfectly swirl with the layers of synth, field recordings and textural samples to produce a singular aesthetic that evolves across the track’s twenty-five minutes. Shaken bells haunt the background, white noise wind, electronic bird sounds in the night, it feels like music designed to represent different parts of a single day, perhaps as the title suggests, a cool night in summer. Sounds echo and seem to tumble gently in the near distance and a low drone serves as a backdrop toward mid-song as the synth drifts into an eerie quality and shimmering noises resonate from an unknown source like a new type of bird resounding in the moonlit landscape. Breezes stir the surroundings and toward the fourteen minute mark we become aware of the flute back in the mix as a recognizable quantity like a signal of a more diurnal sound palette coming into aural frame and what feels like a string of shells and sparkling synth threads streak by and fade replaced by another stream of each. Clearly the product of careful production and sensitive improv the whole piece is experienced as an organic journey across time expressed in under half an hour but more fully than many days feel when you’re at the grind of a regular job and this song is much more soothing and worthy of one’s attention as an extended song that wouldn’t be out of place on a program like Hearts of Space but focused on pastoral sounds. The track is part of the Spices Pecular Ambulant that released May 1, 2026. Listen to “7/9/25” on Bandcamp and follow Spices Peculiar at the links provided.

spicespeculiar.com

Spices Peculiar on Facebook

Spices Peculiar on Instagram

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond February 2026

**babybaby4ever releases the new album at Hi-Dive Saturday February 6**

Clementine Was Right, photo by Tom Murphy

Monday | 02.02
What: Worst Night of the Year Fest II: Clementine Was Right, Caspar Milquetoast, Al Ameda and Small Houses
When: 7/7:30
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: At least this is in February and not January so the name of the event is by circumstance a bit of a joke this year. And given world and national events it seems unlikely as well. But music, yes, Clementine Was Right is the band that combines vivid and heartfelt poetry with emo-flavored country and atmospheric rock and live the band is truly exuberant. Caspar Milquetoast is a band that sounds like what a lot of bands were trying to do mixing psychedelia and folk rock but opting more for an indie pop sound than Laurel Canyon retro and that has meant more original songwriting.

Tuesday | 02.03
What: Hobbyist, Pet Traits and Reposer
When: 7:30
Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Room
Why: Chicago-based Hobbyist like many bands from the Windy City is coming at music from a different angle. This one is noise rock adjacent in terms of sensibility and yes there is guitar and bass but electronic beats and a fusion of downtempo and punk attitude. At times the band dips into a mutant kind of blues rock but its 2024 album People, Like Used CD’s sounds like edgy art pop. Think post-punk made by former theater kids who are writing music to have an emotional resonance and appeal beyond narrow genre categories. Fans of Two Ton Boa and Mecca Normal will probably find something to like here.

Thursday | 02.05
What: Buñuel w/Squid Pisser, Spiritual Poison and Almanac Man
When: 7/8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Buñuel is the San Francisco-based avant-garde noise rock/No Wave band. Fronted by Eugene S. Robinson formerly of experimental rock legends Oxbow. This newer band has a similarly menacing and intense sound that is part experiments in arrangement and rhythm that sometimes hits the ear as some kind of industrial noise rock like a sister band to Swans, Live Skull or The Jesus Lizard whose Duane Denison contributes guitar to the group’s most recent album Mansuetude. Squid Pisser is glitchy, demented grindcore from Tommy Meehand (GWAR), Michael Armendariz (Duck Duck Goose) and Seth Carolina (Starcrawler). Spiritual Poison is the “ambient” project of Primitive Man’s Ethan McCarthy and some of the best music he is making. Almanac Man are an angular noise rock band whose style of post-hardcore is rooted in both DC and West Coast punk.

Friday | 02.06
What: Weakened Friends w/Team Nonexistent and Queen Frog
When: 8/9
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Portland, Maine’s Weakened Friends released its third album Feels Like Hell in October 2025 through Don Giovanni. The trio tapped into that 90s grunge pop sound and the loud-quiet-loud sort of sound structure early on but by now has refined it into something with more nuanced emotional range. The new record seems to be informed by the existential exhaustion, exacerbated by the current social and economic climate, of feeling like maybe your closest relationship has run out of steam yet you’re not ready to let it go while taking an assessment of every aspect of it and realizing in the end that a lot of those feelings are projection and you’re really tired of yourself and how you are and the ways in which you self-sabotage. And how that reflection allows you to grow and be present for the people you care most about but maybe allowed yourself to forget along the way. Team Nonexistent is in a similar lane of music but from Denver and with a little more edge in the presentation.

Friday | 02.06
What: Judge Roughneck’s 30th Anniversary Party w/Reptiles & Samurai
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Judge Roughneck’s history reaches back to 1995 when ska was entering into its ascendance in American mainstream music but instead of being the kind that plagued the airwaves for a time with a watered down version of the music, Judge Roughneck seemed to have some authenticity and musical chops. The band’s fusion of reggae and ska with soul set it apart from many of its peers and thirty years later and with the recent tragic passing of former trombone player/back vocalist David Dinsmore, the group is still fronted by lead singer and multi-instrumentalist Byron Shaw. This show celebrates its legacy of excellence that transcended genre.

Friday | 02.06
What: Patrick Dethlefs and The Still Tide
When: 7
Where: Swallow Hill
Why: Patrick Dethlefs has been one of the more gifted songwriters out of Colorado for more than a decade and his style of folk Americana is poetic and emotionally vibrant. In 2025 he released his latest record Patty, a collection of songs that told stories of life and made sage observations about the human psyche and society that felt both like something from another, better, era and a commentary about the present times without some kind of didactic statement or grandstanding. All of which is easy and understandable to do but the lack of which lends Dethlef’s record an unspoken elegance of expression. The Still Tide might be described as a dream pop band but one that rocks a little more at times and singer/guitarist Anna Morsett is a bit of a prodigy player with songwriting that doesn’t make that obvious because it is all folded into how captivating the songs so often are.

Saturday | 02.07
What: babybaby4ever album release for 4ever is a long time w/Pleasure Prince, Xenon Thief and WNGDU DJ
When: 7/8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Over the last handful of years discerning fans of synth pop in Denver that have been fortunate enough to witness a babybaby4ever show have an artist worthy of her influences. Lily Conrad grew up in Golden, Colorado and started playing music at a young age getting into playing guitar and then cello by her middle school and teen years. In 2016 in college Conrad started making music and performed her first show as babybaby but in the past couple of years she changed the project name so that it was more findable via internet search engines. Early on playing out in and around Denver Conrad was part of the local DIY scene playing house shows and underground venues like the now defunct Posh House. Around that time she started playing keyboards in the live version of psychedelic garage rock band Rose Variety with her friend Becc Perez. The pandemic era stretched time in weird directions but since the world opened up again Conrad started playing around more often in her solo project at venues that could better represent her developing sound and its highly developed, rich synth tone and production. The show now includes props and aspects of performance art from Conrad making a babybaby4ever show memorable both visually as well as for the finely crafted songs that have the spontaneity and vulnerability of classic indiepop and the robust and enveloping melodic tonality of 80s New Wave. In 2026 babybaby4ever releases the new album 4ever is a long time via Denver-based imprint Witchcat Records. The nine songs are loosely a kind of breakup album as breakthrough. The lyrics and moods honor the heartache and the will to move forward by embracing vital experiences and the roots of who were are and what makes our lives feel vibrant.

Tuesday | 02.10
What: Midwife and Amulets w/Sunswept
When: 7:30/8
Where: Chautauqua Community House 900 Baseline
Why: Midwife brings her emotionally vibrant, ambient folk soundscapes to a rare appearance in Boulder. Opening is Amulets, the solo project of Randall Taylor who has collaborated with Midwife on both his records and her own and his compositions that combine pastoral drones and tape collage is definitely spiritual kin to Midwife’s own songwriting. Sunswept is a flute and synth-driven ambient project from Denver comprised of local improve and experimental music scene star Sarah Christensen.

Tuesday | 02.10
What: Sudan Archives w/Suhreetah
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Sudan Archives came up playing violin and while studying ethnomusicoloy at Pasadena City College she attended the legendary club night Low End Theory and wrote her own music and did some deep diving into violin players across cultures and by 2017 released her self-titled debut EP. Since then, Sudan Archives has made a name for herself a talented composer, songwriter and performer blurring the lines between R&B, classical music, experimental electronic composition and dance music. Her latest album is the sprawling and entrancing The BPM (2025).

Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy, photo by Christy Bush

Wednesday | 02.11
What: Michael Shannon & Jason Narducy and Friends Play R.E.M. w/Bob Goldthwait
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: For the past dozen years acclaimed actor Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy (Bob Mould Band, Superchunk, Sunny Day Real Estate) have been working together to play albums live by mutually loved artists like The Modern Lovers, The Smiths ad Neil Young. But the past two years the focus has been performing classic albums by college rock/early alternative rock band R.E.M.. Last year the duo performed Fables of the Reconstruction with four original members of R.E.M. joining them on stage for their two shows in Athens, Georgia, the hometown of the group. For this tour Shannon and Narducy will by joined by Jon Wurster, John Stirrat, Dag Juhlin and Vijay Tellis-Nayak in celebrating the 40th anniversary of the album Life’s Rich Pageant and of course the show will include some choice cuts from across R.E.M.’s catalog.

Palehorse/Palerider in 2017, photo by Tom Murphy

Thursday | 02.12
What: Palehorse/Palerider w/Glass Human and BleakHeart
When: 7/8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: This will be a front to back show of heavier Denver bands that don’t fit comfortably in the realm of metal though they might each be considered within that lane of music. Palehorse/Palerider combines desert rock, shoegaze and tribal/pastoral rhythms and soundscapes in its evocation of emotional weight. Glass Human is able to navigate being an art rock band and heavy shoegaze with pop songcraft with surprising mastery. BleakHeart is like if a doom band discarded those trappings in favor of more existential, dark and heavy post-punk.

Friday | 02.13
What: Plastik Mystik album release w/Cherry Spit, Pale Sun and Soneffs
When: 7/8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Plastik Mystik is refreshingly difficult to pigeonhole because its sound hits the ears as some kind of amalgam of punk fury, dark post-punk sophistication and mutant garage rock left of center fractured song structures. After a handful of singles the past couple of years the group is finally releasing its debut album. The rest of the bill is filled out with some of Denver’s finest. Cherry Spit is a ferocious noise rock/post-hardcore quintet whose sound fuses angular, caustic sounds and impassioned vocals with a mathematical precision that breaks enough with being more calculated to be interesting. Pale Sun is arguably Denver metro’s greatest shoegaze band with former members of Bright Channel, Pinkku and Space Team Electra. Soneffs make music at the intersection of indie rock songcraft, psychedelia and shoegaze.

Saturday | 02.14
What: The Cowboy Confessional: Sea of Heartbreak – Real Stories, Fake Cowboys w/Christie Buchule, Erin Christian, Susan Earley, Sarah Chase Fountain and musical guests Salads & Sunbeams
When: 2
Where: Mutiny Information Cafe
Why: This will be an afternoon of confessional storytelling in the spirit of the subversion of the Valentine’s Day holiday. With musical guests, masterful pop band Salads & Sunbeams and their layering of poetry, 60s psychedelia and 90s indiepop.

Saturday | 02.14
What: Heartbreak Holiday: Gentleman Deluxe, The Schofields, Scooter James, Micah and the Mirrors & Silver West
When: 6
Where: The Federal Theatre
Why: Gentleman Deluxe is the solo Americana project of Aaron Howell, the charismatic frontman of MF Ruckus, White Fudge and various other bands over the years. This effort showcases Howell’s ability to write stripped down songs without losing the emotional sensitivity he can bring to a song that perhaps isn’t as obvious from his more bombastic bands but the sensibilities of which can be heard in his other songwriting. Also on the bill is former Tin Horn Prayer and Pinhead Circus member Scooter James with his own solo work and cosmic country artist Silver West.

Saturday | 02.14
What: DeVotchKa A Tribute to the Music of Little Miss Sunshine
When: 7
Where: The Boulder Theater
Why: DeVotchKa was already a bigger band in Denver metro around the turn of the century that worked hard to hone and refine its masterful songwriting and sound that got pigeonholed as “gypsy punk” and Americana. But the affecting lyrics and the sophistication of its songwriting with elements of jazz composition and classic pop songcraft and a little luck landed the group’s music on the soundtrack for the 2006 film Little Miss Sunshine which adapted songs from the group’s albums How It Ends (2004) and Una Volta (2003). This is a rare chance to witness a great deal of that music live.

Monday | 02.16
What: Weval – Chlorophobia album tour w/CERVAL
When: 8
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Weval is an electronic duo from Amsterdam that for nearly a decade and a half have produced some of the more sonically rich dance and pop crossover music of recent years. Its fusion of deep house, techno and the kind of low end heavy electronic pop that fans of Big Black Delta, Sextile and Moderat would fully appreciate with songs that seem to fit both the dance club and indie radio formats.

Thursday-Saturday | 2.19-2.21
What: Ron Funches
When: Varies by date
Where: Comedy Works (downtown)
Why: Ron Funches launched his comedy career while working various jobs in Portland, Oregon in 2006. Since then he has been on numerous television shows including a memorable but short bit in Portlandia in 2011. His surreal and sharply observed material exposes aspects of American culture and the collective psyche with great wit and insight. His unique vocal style and renders his inspired storytelling into bypassing expectations and giving a new perspective on what you may think is already familiar. Fans of Mitch Hedberg will definitely be into what Funches has to offer.

Friday | 02.20
What: Rowboat, Loose Charm and Owosso
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Room
Why: Rowboat is a band whose music has some roots in folk but Sam McNitt has refined those influences into something more moody and literary with fine sonic textures and an intense delivery that creates a fascinating contrast with the sensitivity and delicacy of the songwriting. Owosso is a band that seems to draw inspirations from angular, DC post-punk, 90s emo and noisy shoegaze. Loose Charm makes music out of another era when alt-country wasn’t watered down into indie Americana, when it had more slivers of punk and early 90s alternative rock in its spine.

Friday | 02.20
What: Atmosphere w/Sage Francis, R.A. the Rugged Man, Kool Keith and DJ Mr. Dibbs
When: 6
Where: Boulder Theater
Why: From humble origins as an alternative hip-hop group forming in 1996, Atmosphere has become one of the most popular acts out of that musical milieu. Celebrating its 30 year anniversary for this tour including a club show at Boulder Theater, Slug and Ant bring their hyper verbal, emotionally vibrant and imaginative hip-hop as well as legends of the art form including innovators like Sage Francis and Kool Keith who have both pushed the boundaries of hip-hop with experimentation in sound delivery of subject matter. Mr. Dibbs maybe became more well known in the 2000s but he was honing his skills at turntablism actively as an artist since the early 90s and has worked with Atmosphere and El-P as well as Doseone and numerous other noteworthy artist of hip-hop.

Friday | 02.20
What: Taraneh w/Tassles and Warper
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: New York’s Taraneh sounds like it draws equally from more avant-metal, post-punk, noise rock and shoegaze to make its own sound that is deeply atmospheric and edgy with soulfully delivered vocals. While sounding nothing like Kylesa and Slow Crush, fans of those bands will find something to appreciate about the way Taraneh combines heaviness, electronic music and psychedelic flourishes. Warper recently put out a new album that showcased its complete absorption of heavy 90s emo and shoegaze and fused it into its own flavor. Tassles started out as sort of a bedroom shoegaze band but as the live project has evolved into more of a band its robust guitar sound backed by live bass and the in person experience expands upon the strong songwriting of the project’s recorded releases with robust sound that doesn’t take away from songs that are like the next evolution or two beyond chillwave with meditations on life and how you have to fantasize about something that engages the mind and otherwise dissociate to get through the nightmare of life under late capitalism and how it manifests in your personal existence.

Saturday | 02.21
What: Dressy Bessy & The Tammy Shine Album Release w/Hotel Wifi and Cribbo
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Dressy Bessy doesn’t play live in its hometown in Denver often and it has become a bit of a tradition to play the Hi-Dive in February. The indiepop band includes Apples in Stereo guitarist John Hill and fronted by the charismatic Tammy Ealom who super old school Denver people may know from The 40th Day or Sissy Fuzz. But obviously Dressy Bessy eclipsed all of that with national and international fame of the kind that doesn’t fill stadiums but does allow one to have opportunities most smaller bands can only dream of. This show celebrates the release of Ealom’s debut solo album as Tammy Shine called Ok Shine Ok on Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records with a special lathe cut of edition of songs from the album available from local imprint Witchcat Records. Of course the record has the charm and spirited energy that Ealom brings to Dressy Bessy if the songwriting is a little different and more spare but doesn’t spare the energy and attitude that is the singer and songwriter’s signature style. Plus, Ealom produced the album herself and it fully reflects her unique creative vision.

Sunday | 02.22
What: clipping. w/Open Mike Eagle and Cool Prongs
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: From its inception clipping. was a band that had experimental leanings baked into its beats and aesthetic. But its latest record Dead Channel Sky is the fullest development of its albums as works of science fiction as much as music but not the kind that’s instantly corny and heavy-handed. Sure the title seems like a nod from the opening lines of William Gibson’s 1984 cyberpunk landmark Neuromancer. But the relentless yet sparely executed beats and flow of words is like hearing something like Busdriver working with The Prodigy. But more stark and reflecting the dystopian mood of the world today. At times it feels like it makes statements on the unsustainability of striving culture and and a world seemingly on fast forward driven by the demands of late capitalism but which does nothing but wear out mere humans.

Thursday | 02.26
What: MDC w/The Elected Officials, Poison Tribe and Shit Drugs
When: 7
Where: The Federal Theatre
Why: MDC just had a provocative name with radical left perspectives in its lyrics being against racism, homophobia, the perils of imperialistic capitalism (as if there’s any other kind) and fascism. All that at time when mainstream culture seemed to reflect the insipid “Morning in America” nonsense promoted by the Ronald Reagan administration which also funded death squads in Latin America and interfered with American elections in 1984 in a way that is still buried for fear of general public upset. Fast forward some forty years and things are somehow even worse so MDC (Millions of Dead Cops or Multi Death Corporations or whatever darkly funny and irreverent name the band chooses to adopt at any given time) is more relevant than ever.

Gogol Bordello, photo courtesy the artists

Friday | 02.27
What: Gogol Bordello w/Puzzled Panther and Boris and the Joy
When: 7
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Gogol Bordello spawned in 1999 in New York City named in part from 19th century Ukrainian writer Nikolai Gogol. Frontman Eugene Hütz, also from Ukraine, started playing in bands in the country of his birth with an appreciation for strong lyrics and thus another reason for the literary connection. The singer/musician spent a good deal of his youth in various parts of Eastern Europe, Austria and Italy including refugee camps in the wake of the Chernobyl meltdown ultimately landing in Vermont prior to his migrating to New York where he met the future members of his band. Fortuitously, Gogol Bordello came together when NYC was experiencing an upswing in underground rock with bands of disparate styles starting in the late 90s and 2000s. With a sound that has been perhaps self-described as “gypsy punk” perhaps as a way to capitalize on Hütz’s Romani background and incorporation of Romani musical ideas into rock as well as Ukrainian and Russian punk which has its own rich history and unique development. The band’s impassioned performances and unique sound distinct from other bands from New York of the time has since garnered Gogol Bordello a bit of a cult following across the past three decades as it successfully evades easy categorization except its own style. On February 13, 2026 the band released its new album We Mean It, Man!, potentially a reference to the Sex Pistols song “God Save the Queen” as well as a statement of intent. It has all the hallmarks of the band’s infectious energy and fusion of punk, glam rock, Eastern European folk and orchestral flourishes.

Friday | 02.27
What: Clusterfux w/Prescription and Arson Charge
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Clusterfux has been around for more than 30 years as a staple of the local scene with its amalgam of skate punk and crossover. Brothers Josh and Justin Lent have been longtime supporters of local community including with their shop Chain Reaction Records. Their irreverent and intense records hasn’t exactly lost its edge and intent as evidenced by December 2025 single “American Gestapo.” Arson Charge also makes no bones with its own brand of hardcore taking aim at the dark corners of one’s psyche and American culture. Prescription is one of the old school hardcore bands from Denver’s 90s punk scene that came across as being humorous and pointedly political back then and now with its new album Lab Rats.

Hex Cassette in 2021, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 02.28
What: Hex Cassette, “Horse Girl,” Brock “‘”the Brick” Bronson and aithworker
When: 8
Where: The Crypt
Why: Hex Cassette is Denver’s premiere industrial dance/darkwave performance art act. Zachary Graves is a commanding and hyperkinetic figure whose music is well-crafted and compelling on its own but his stage banter in which he cajoles the audience in hilarious heel fashion is second to none. “Horse Girl” is not the Chicago band. It is the performance troupe/experimental pop band from Denver whose shows are all fairly unique and often involving a concept and musical elements can be drastically different from the previous show but always wortth seeing.

Brotherhood of Machines in 2016, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 02.28
What: 4digit, Virga Delta, Brotherhood of Machines (album release) and Sell Farm
When: 8/8:30
Where: DMV
Why: Brotherhood of Machines is set to release his new album for this show. The project is a unique layering of ambient methodology, environmental industrial, techno noise and cassette collage music. Virga Delta is industrial ambient glitch. Sell Farm is a ferocious amalgam of industrial rock and noise akin to Nine Inch Nails.

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond November 2025

**They Are Gutting a Body of Water performs at The Marquis Tues 11/4, photo by Brian Karlsson**

Saturday | 11.01
What: Moon Pussy w/Old Deer
When: 3
Where: Mutiny Information Cafe
Why: This is your last chance of 2025 to see the noise rock juggernaut trio Moon Pussy. Whereas many noise rock bands are a permutation of post-hardcore and sludge metal, Moon Pussy is genuinely strange and both humorous and ferocious which is not a combination one sees often enough. Vocalist Crissy Cuellar’s on stage banter and absurdist (in the delivery) jokes does little to mask how smart the band’s music is or its inherent sophistication of concept and execution. Old Deer brings the doom to posthardcore in its own weighty style of noise rock.

Saturday | 11.01
What: Native Daughters, Abrams and BleakHeart
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Instrumental, heavy noise core outfit Native Daughters doesn’t play out often these days and usually at bigger venues. But its epic, cinematic sprawl of post-rock post-metal has evolved to a degree of highly expressive and vivid sonic storytelling without words. Abrams is the perfect amalgamation of shoegaze and atmospheric post-hardcore like Torche and Cave-In. Fantastic, melodic harmonies and transporting guitar streams in heavy momentum and luminously gritty leads. BleakHeart will likely be in its new manifestation but probably still have the gorgeously dark and orchestral fusion of dream pop and heavy post-rock.

Sunday | 11.02
What: Ada Lea w/Porlolo and Autumnal
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Ada Lea released her third album when i paint my masterpiece in August 2025 and further established her status as a modern master of finger picking style with expressive and beautifully intricate guitar work paired with her delicate yet assured vocals. She is currently signed to Saddle Creek Records which is fitting since an act to which she might be favorably compared is Azure Ray. Porlolo is the indie/acoustic band from Denver whose own aesthetic is adjacent to that of the headliner but Porlolo has been around considerably longer as a live act. Erin Roberts’ existential and poignant lyrics and occasionally dryly humorous stage banter with commanding vocals is what has keep the project a local favorite. Fort Collins’ Autumnal comes out of the indie folk corner of the Colorado music universe but its songs will assuredly appeal to those with a taste for pastoral slowcore and the tenderest of indiepop.

What: Ryan Davis & The Roadhouse Band w/Caspar Milquetoast
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Acclaimed songwriter Ryan Davis and his band released one of the secretly great albums of 2025 with Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band “New Threats from the Soul.” On the surface it’s like some indie Americana thing but not long into the first song it becomes apparent that what you’re hearing is weirder and more creative but not in expected ways. It has the dapple lap steel flourishes enhancing the melodies like you’d expect from a solid country record but there are synths in the mix and tape loops so that at times things seem otherworldly and unpredictable but in the pocket of strong songwriting. It’s a fascinating effect. Plus Will Oldham contributes vocals to the album so you know it’s definitely coming from a different kind of place. The lyrics are also like something out of a Cormac McCarthy novel but sung like an artist out of the whole Laurel Canyon scene of the early 1970s.

they are gutting a body of water, photo by Kasey Agosto

Tuesday | 11.04
What: they are gutting a body of water w/Fib
When: 7
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: For several years Philadelphia’s they are gutting a body of water has been stirring noise and grime into drifty, warping shoegaze to create something like the equivalent of a lo-fi cassette only release by one of those weird late 2000s bands that would have belonged on Siltbreeze. Like Times New Viking or Eat Skull. But if those bands were more into Slint and Planning For Burial. Crush yet transcendent guitar tone, left field rhythmic structures or none at all and just stretches of raw sound that drops into fragmented melodies like these people listened to a lot of Canadian band Women coming up as well. The group’s new album LOTTO pushes the songwriting into even more unpredictable territory.

Wednesday | 11.05
What: Martin DuPont w/Church Fire and French Kettle Station
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: After a nearly 25 year hiatus, French coldwave/New Wave band Martin Dupont re-emerged as a live project in 2023 and a new album of re-recordings of older songs titled Kintsugi. In 2025 a record of new material dropped called You Smile When It Hurts establishing that the members of the group were capable of crafting quality resonant songs on part with its acclaimed earlier material. Church Fire is Denver’s premiere industrial dance pop group. The impassioned performance style of the band always made it a standout but with expanded production as a trio and a dynamic light show Church Fire brings a large stage show visual impact to any venue. French Kettle Station is a one-man New Age dance project with no small amount of visceral energy of his own even when he’s triggering prepared electronic passages or performing live synth.

Thursday | 11.06
What: Packaging w/Barbara, Paw Paw and DJ Ryan Wong
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Packaging is the new group formed between Daniel Lyon of Spirit Award and Daniel “Connor” Birch of Flaural. Their debut, self-titled album dropped October 10 and no surprise, perhaps, its lush and enveloping psychedelic pop benefits from the contributions of multiple artists out of the wider indie rock realm including Luke Temple (Here We Go Magic), Ash Reiter (Sugar Candy Mountain), James Barone (Beach House), Andreas Wild (Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats), Curt Kiser (Carriers) and Andy Rauworth (Gauntlet Hair). Its luminous melodies and melancholic urgency helps to set the music apart from yet another post-2010s psychedelia project. Its songs have emotional heft and the music is entrancing and commanding.

Death to All, photo courtesy the artists

Friday | 11.07
What: Death to All playing Spiritual Healing and Symbolic w/Gorguts and Phobophilic
When: 6
Where: The Gothic Theatre
Why: Death to All features former members of foundational extreme metal band Death including Gene Hoglan, Steve DiGiorgio and Bobby Koelble as well as former Cynic member Max Phelps on guitar and vocals. This tour the assembled band will perform the classic albums Spiritual Healing (1990) and Symbolic (1995), both albums that represented a progression of the band in new directions that would shape where technical death metal of the future worth listening to would go. Anyone that has caught the Death to All tours in recent years can attest to how legit the presentation and musicianship has been with some of the greatest heavy music of all time getting a live performance treatment that honors the legacy of founder Chuck Schuldiner’s vision with some of the only musicians that can make it happen.

Friday | 11.07
What: Hi-Dive 22 Year Anniversary Night 1: Nuclear Daisies, Cleaner, American Culture and Supreme Joy
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Hi-Dive has arguably emerged as the premiere small club in Denver with solid bookings every week across a fairly broad spectrum of genres, styles and subscenes. Pick any week and there is at least one show that’s worth going to but probably really a few. It has had some of the best sound in a room of its size with a skilled sound crew. This two night celebration of Hi-Dive begins with sets from garage-psych giants Cleaner, shoegaze/indie pop legends American Culture, left-field post-punk/post-garage phenoms and headlined by noisy shoegaze dance dream pop group Nuclear Daisies.

Friday and Saturday | 11.07 and 11.08
What: Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country Tour w/The Fretliners
When: 7
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Daniel Donato started developing ideas for his version of “cosmic country” while playing in bands around Nashville and coming up with a fusion of country, rock and roll, the free associating improv he heard in the Grateful Dead and folk psychedelia. Think a sound and vibe more like a honky tonk end of Gram Parsons and you’ll have an idea what you’re in for. The live shows are imbued with a spirited creativity in the performance and inspired free flowing improvisation that goes beyond where most bands operating in musically adjacent territory seem to be able to conjure. The band is currently touring in support of its 2025 album Horizons.

Saturday | 11.08
What: Melodies Never Lie, Salads and Sunbeams, Mouth Cathedral at Squirm Gallery, benefit for Jeanette Vizguerra
When: 7
Where: Squirm Gallery
Why: Jeannette Vizguerra was detained by ICE on 3/17/25 with the aim of deporting the well-known immigration activist and remains in custody at the ICE detention center in Aurora. Her case received some press attention and despite the charges against her, Vizguerra’s situation parallels that of many others who are struggling with a broken and now very punitive system of immigration in the USA particularly with the involvement of the militarized and extremely politicized ICE organization which is an extension of the failed and catastrophic “War on Terror” that is now being used to persecute thousands in America and is essentially a private army of the most corrupt president in US history employed to terrorize people living in America. So this show is a benefit for one of the most visible people targeted by ICE and will hopefully help to create a ripple effect of resistance to the wave of fascism and tyranny plaguing not just America but the world. For more information helping Vizguerra click on the link in the band names. Melodies Never Lie is the ambient indie pop shoegaze solo project of Isaac Rivera whose roots in Denver underground pop, experimental rock and avant-electro goes back two decades. Salads and Sunbeams is the finely honed psychedelic indiepop group from Denver whose members came up in the DIY world and the underground scene developing skills and aesthetics that incorporate classic songwriting methods with modern sensibilities. Mouth Cathedral creates gorgeously transporting, ethereal dream pop.

Saturday | 11.08
What: Hi-Dive 22 Year Anniversary Night 2: Glacial Tomb, Palehorse/Palerider, Mournful Ruin and Eagle Wing
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: This second night of the Hi-Dive anniversary celebration features music on the more heavy side. Glacial Tomb is a long-running death metal doom trio from Denver. Palehorse/Palerider makes a cinematic, unclassifiable heavy music that blends psychedelic, dark Americana and tribal post-punk. Mournful Ruin is more on the grindcore-influenced end of sludgy death metal. Eaglewing is a sort of throwback to early New Wave of British Heavy Metal sound akin to Judas Priest in moments and includes Yancy Green formerly of Aberrent and now of Roskopp.

Steven Lee Lawson, photo courtesy the artist

Saturday | 11.08
What: All Through the Night and Steven Lee Lawson
When: 3
Where: Mutiny Information Cafe
Why: All Through the Night is an Americana band that sounds like it makes music for a Jim Jarmusch film set in the highways and byways of Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming meaning moody, emotionally immediate and drawing from eclectic roots rather than a more traditional country or rock and roll base. Steven Lee Lawson is a brilliant songwriter, lyricist and multi-instrumentalist whose music is also tending toward an Americana sensibility but he clearly draws inspiration from the likes of Harry Nilsson and 60s psychedelia.

Ax and the Hatchetmen, photo courtesy the artists

Saturday | 11.08
What: Ax and The Hatchetmen w/Kids That Fly
When: 7
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Chicago-based Ax and The Hatchetmen haven’t been around long enough to have played the legendary Chicago venue Lounge Ax but its brand of melodic indie rock with elements of jangle-y psychedelia wouldn’t have been out of place had the club endured through to today. Though the band has been around since 2018 its debut album So Much to Tell You debuted on October 24 via Arista Records. But the group has had EPs and singles along the way and the whole early pandemic stretched everyone’s timelines a bit so this band had time to incubate and hone its songwriting. The new record showcases how the band is able to orchestrate diverse influences into a sound that feels like a blend of power pop, turn of the century New York post-punk, soul and garage rock.

Sunday | 11.09
What: Emergence w/Voicecoil and Absynthe of Faith
When: 8
Where: Club 404
Why: Emergence was one of the prominent EBM/industrial bands of the 2000s that went on hiatus toward the end of that decade. The band commanded large audiences at the time in Denver and toured nationally before splitting around 2005. In 2024 the core of the group with new collaborators reconvened to re-start Emergence with a new sound palette.

Tuesday | 11.11
What: Agriculture w/Rhododendron and Clarion Void
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Agriculture is the black metal band from Los Angeles whose sound struck a chord among fans of noise rock for its forays into wild sonic strangeness in its songs. The group’s new record The Spiritual Sound isn’t short on classic thrash style riffs and melodic breaks yet still feral rawness in the vocals and the erupting and imploding song dynamics and escalating sense of surreal hysteria. Agriculture is currently touring in support of its excellent new album The Spiritual Sound. Presumably Rhododendron is the experimental prog noise thrash band from Portland, Oregon and Clarion Void the death/blackened doom/sludge metal band from Colorado Springs.

Thursday | 11.13
What: Boris w/Cloakroom
When: 7
Where: The Gothic Theatre
Why: Boris is celebrating the 20 year anniversary of the release of its 2005 album Pink. The sprawling epic of a record was and still is a peak for the group in its complete disregard for needing to fit in with being a metal band, a shoegaze group, a heavy psych blues outfit, a noise project or post-rock. The sounds have grit and edge while simultaneously ethereal and uplifting and dense with tone and texture that swims and hurtles in often unpredictable directions. Pink sounds like it could have come out in the late 70s, the early 90s or in any of the most recent two decades and still come off as something mind-altering in its maximalist sonics. Opening is the Indiana-based heavy shoegaze band Cloakroom whose 2025 album The Last Leg of the Human Table proved it was capable of not only searing and transporting psychedelia but also pop hooks worthy of the best indie rock bands. Something about Cloakroom’s music feels like it’s coming from a near future science fiction universe where the world is both in deep civilizational decay and an underground cultural renaissance transmitting the kind of music we want to hear.

King Princess, photo by Connor Cunningham

Thursday | 11.13
What: King Princess w/spill tab
When: 7
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: King Princess has built a body of work that uses lush production and introspective lyrics to explore the nuances of personal psychology, social dynamics and relationships with creativity and sensitivity. The latest album Girl Violence and its masterful use of saturated synths, tonal processing and layers of atmospheric noise help to place the singer’s soulful vocals in settings that immerse the listener in the emotional moment of the song. It’s a bit of a journey of a record with contributions from Joe Talbot of IDLES fame.

Friday | 11.14
What: Underworld
When: 7
Where: The Fillmore Auditorium
Why: With the 1994 release of its landmark album Dubnobasswithmyheadman, Underworld helped to usher in an era of music fusing progressive house, techno, ambient, downtempo and psychedelic electronic music that proved influential on at least a generation of like-minded artists. The record is structured to be a little like experiencing the music at a rave with expert pacing and layers of rhythm and atmosphere to craft a sustained mood of sensuous transcendence. The duo’s latest album Strawberry Hotel (2024) is decidedly less dark and brooding than the aforementioned but still brimming with mysterious moods and the completely enveloping production one would hope to get from masters of the art.

Friday | 11.14
What: Kill You Club 8 year anniversary w/Nuxx, Puerta Negra, Lazer Bullet and Severed Reality
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Kill You Club has been bringing some of the most interesting and cutting edge darkwave/Goth-adjacent bands to Denver for several years now. The kinds of artists the more traditional Goth scene seems to bypass and be unaware exists until a half decade or more later. Possibly because Brian Castillo has his finger on the pulse of what’s cool in that realm of music whether the more electronic end or the post-punk acts that are pushing the boundaries of what that music has been. Headlining this night is the edgy, synthwave punk/industrial trip hop artist Nuxx.

Friday | 11.14
What: Felly w/Breakup Shoes and Lady Denim
When: 7
Where: Fox Theatre
Why: Felly released his latest album Ambroxyde in June further solidifying his reputation as an artist who can take the gentle and delicate and turn it into something feels like it has some emotional substance even as his vocals are often bordering on the ethereal. The title track sounds like it coalesced out of the surrounding weather and that’s a feeling you get from the new album. It’s like something that feels instantly comfortable yet able to build in energy and enthusiasm without losing a sense of intimacy. It makes the music impossible to simply dismiss as another indie folk thing as the songwriting itself is more lush and sophisticated than appears on the surface.

Suzanne Ciani in 2023, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 11.15
What: Suzanne Ciani w/Clarice Jensen
When: 7
Where: Central Presbyterian Church
Why: Suzanne Ciani is an innovator in synthesizer music composition with an influential career spanning more than fifty years. Her work, musical and sound effects, has been featured on soundtracks, television and in a pinball machine game called Xenon. In the 1980s her compositions became associated with new age music and by extension modern ambient. Ciani in recent years seems to have expanded her live performance itinerary and her 2023 appearance at this same venue showcased her gift for imaginative soundscaping on a large format with an inherent sense of play in the performance and songcraft.

Saturday | 11.15
What: Broken Record album release w/Precocious Neophyte and Safekeeper
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Room
Why: Broken Record is a Denver-based band that formed after singer/guitarist Lauren Beecher and bassist Corey Fruin moved to the Mile High City from Connecticut in 2017. Both had roots in the underground and DIY scene in and around New Haven and in forming Broken Record around some material Beecher had been working on what emerged was music that reflected the influence of punk and hardcore, certainly in the ethos of the group, as well as the atmospheric melodic qualities of The Cure. If you caught the band early on you might be excused to hearing in the music a touch of Hüsker Dü’s emotionally rich and fierce yet gentle aesthetic. The fledgling outfit found a home in the local hardcore scene and played early shows with the likes of then relatively newly founded bands like Destiny Bond and Ukko’s Hammer. And yet Broken Record never seemed out of place even though the catharsis of its music wasn’t formed from the same set of sounds but the emotional core of the songwriting shared a similar vulnerability and intelligence in expressing emotion with a keen sensitivity in the language of emotionally charged rock music.

The quartet released its debut full-length I Died Laughing on April 24, 2020 and of course could not tour around the record due to the global pandemic. But on that album one hears the knack for melodic jangle and shimmer embedded into earnestly energetic hooks with the expert pacing and Beecher’s warmly thoughtful vocals that strike the perfect emotional coloring for songs that are often poignantly melancholic and always deeply observant. For the 2023 album Nothing Moves Me the songwriting seemed to experiment further with tone and style incorporating delicately minimal guitar leads and triumphant choruses while seeming to be able to mine the more interesting ends of adolescent angst as a lens by which to understand the sometimes disillusioning aspects of adulthood. Like an entire record of what your teenage self might have to say about your current adult self. The 2025 album Routine and its cover of suburban American would-be normalcy takes the band’s established themes further to seemingly comment with great insight into the compromises and perils of navigating life in late capitalism and how that can cast a pall over your life if you’re not equipped to find some meaning in a socioeconomic environment seemingly designed to erode your joy and ability to live a full and dignified life. But also on the album the band seems to find the threads of psychic resistance to it all in creative acts and writing songs that feel like a shaking off of the gloom with music that feels like an expression of basic human solidarity.

The Green Typewriters, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 11.15
What: The Green Typewriters, Mr. Pacman and Pythian Whispers
When: 7
Where: Feldman Mortuary
Why: A rare show at a mortuary in Denver with psychedelic, experimental indie pop group The Green Typewriters. The band’s songs seem to stem from philosophical concepts as projected through the lens of analog human experience and emotions. Mr. Pacman is visionary blend of synthwave and punk with performance costumes like video game characters. Pythian Whispers is a psychedelic ambient cinematic noise prog band.

Cap’N Jazz, photo from the Polyvinyl Records website

Saturday | 11.15
What: Cap’N Jazz w/Rainer Maria
When: 7
Where: The Summit Music Hall
Why: Cap’N Jazz only released one full-length album, 1995’s Burritos, Inspiration Point, Fork Balloon Sports, Cards in the Spokes, Automatic Biographies, Kites, Kung Fu, Trophies, Banana Peels We’ve Slipped On, and Egg Shells We’ve Tippy Toed Over – often called Shmap’n Shmazz. But that record proved to be a template for a realm of math rock, emo and indie rock in all its messy and frenetic glory and its core of earnest emotions seemingly unleashed at once across twelve songs in thirty-one minutes, ten seconds. It sure wasn’t for everyone because those more into pristine arrangements and established, classic pop/rock songwriting structure and sounds probably found it just completely amateurish—which is an essential part of its appeal for others. When the group split in 1995 its members went on to groups like The Promise Ring, American Football, Joan of Arc and Make Believe. Cap’N Jazz has reunited a few times since it first broke up but this is its first wider tour since the 90s and along for this journey is Rainer Maria whose own poetic emo/space rock sound seems to resonate with the emo and shoegaze fusion that has been bubbling in the past several years.

Tuesday | 11.18
What: Brighde Chaimbeul
When: 8
Where: The Bug Theatre
Why: Brighde Chaimbeul is a Scottish musician who grew up in a musical family and herself learned fiddle and piano before setting out to play the smallpipes and bagpipe for which she is perhaps most well-known these days. She has worked with experimental pop artist Caroline Polacek and composer Colin Stetson and she recently released her latest album Sunwise. It is a rousing journey of a record that establishes a strong mood with drone and folk minimalism. It helps to expand the aesthetics of ambient with a profound sense of place through unconventional instrumentation for a sound one immediately associates with that broad genre of musical experience. It has a folkloric feel like the sense one gets when watching the 1970s films of John Boorman. It’s a deep record and one whose songs performed live are sure to mesmerize in this rare performance at one of Denver’s premier venues for the avant-garde as presented by Creative Music Works.

PORTUGAL. THE MAN, photo by Nathan Perkel

Tuesday and Wednesday | 11.18 and 11.19
What: PORTUGAL. THE MAN w/Ya Tseen
When: 7 both nights
Where: Fox Theatre (11.18) and Mission Ballroom (11.19)
Why: PORTUGAL. THE MAN has offered plenty of left field indie/psychedelic/hard rock/punk over the years with a body of work that is immediately identifiable if not so easy to pigeonhole into a simple marketing category. In 2025 the band has released one of its albums in its 21 years with Shish. The record is an endearing and at turns entrancingly melodic and harrowingly intense tribute the band’s home state of Alaska and the search for meaning not just in an edge of the world place like Alaska but in the tentative state of the world in general perhaps as embodied in the challenges of living in a place that is often so isolated and laden with snow. Jack London would certainly recognize what PORTUGAL. THE MAN is putting out there on Shish.

Wednesday | 11.19
What: The Beths w/Phoebe Rings
When: 7
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: The Beths are an acclaimed power pop band with a noteworthy career offering memorable songs often informed by a euphoric sense of joy in the performance even when the subject matter waxes heavy. But there’s something different about where the music is coming from partly because the group hails Auckland, New Zealand and its members have backgrounds in jazz. So the intricacy and attention to the delicacy of the performances comes off as natural and confident and fans of Kiwi rock in general and C86-era indiepop will immediately connect with its music. The band is currently touring behind its new album Straight Line Was a Lie which is rich with heartfelt lyrics, unconventional hooks and a keen ear for small sonic details that make the songs linger with you.

Diles Que No Me Maten, photo by Tom Murphy

Wednesday | 11.19
What: Diles Que No Me Maten, Pink Lady Monster and Sunswept
When: 7
Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Room
Why: Diles Que No Me Maten from Mexico City is a band that on the surface is an odd psychedelic rock band with roots in Krautrock. But a closer listen and witnessing a live performance reveals the group seems to be coming from a background/interests in No Wave, experimental poetry and the more odd post-punk of The Fall with vocals that are part singing and part spoken word. So a good fit with Denver No Wave funk poetry weirdos Pink Lady Monster and the avant-folk psychedelia of Sunswept.

Juliet Mission in 2015, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 11.28
What: Juliet Mission, In A Darkened Room and Redwing Blackbird
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Room
Why: Juliet Mission is the secretly great shoegaze/alternative rock band from Denver with one of its bonafide guitar heroes Doug Seaman who among other projects was and still is in influential alternative rock band Sympathy F. Tony Morales from that group is also in Juliet Mission and its exquisite soundscapes and emotionally expansive songs are rooted in Denver’s long tradition of moody, atmospheric rock partly in helping to establish that sound inspired by late nights and the former sprawl of urban decay inviting the imagination to project one’s dreams upon forgotten and neglected spaces. Redwing Blackbird is a darkwave band more in the vein of The Cure with the sparkling guitar jangle and mastery of melodic tone.

Saturday | 11.29
What: Malkasian – Heavy Blues album release, Riff Dealer and A Strange Happening
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Malkasian released its latest album Heavy Blues on October 22, 2025 but you can get a copy of the vinyl at this show. The band could be described as heavy, psychedelic blues rock but it is weirder than that simple designation suggests. The vibe with its references to the occult and, um, “Long Pig,” suggest that the title of its previous album Macabre wasn’t just a throwaway descriptor. The mood is reminiscent of the 1989, spooky debut album by stoner rock pioneers Masters of Reality. A Strange Happening must be friends of someone in one of the other bands but even if not its own ambitious alternative pop songwriting and high concept storytelling in an Neil Young-esque gone indie rock vein is strong recommendation in itself.

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond August 2024

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

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

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

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

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

“Horsegirl” in 2021, photo by Tom Murphy

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

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

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

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

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

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

Plack Blague in 2023, photo by Tom Murphy

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sunny Day Real Estate, photo from Subpop.com

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

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

Barns Courtney, photo courtesy the artist

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nina Nastasia, photo courtesy the artist

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

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

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

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

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

Bikini Kill circa 1995-1996, photo by Lisa Darms

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

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

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

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

Daniel Rachel, photo courtesy the author

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

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

Pleasure Prince, photo courtesy the artists

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