The Crooked Rugs – Queen City Sounds and Art

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond November 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

Space in Time circa 2016, photo by Tom Murphy

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

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

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

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

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

Modest Mouse, photo courtesy the artists

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

King Diamond, photo from kingdiamondcoven.com

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

The Crooked Rugs in 2024, photo by Tom Murphy

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

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

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

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

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

Janet Feder of cowhause, photo from Bandcamp

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

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

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

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

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

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

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond April 2024

**Sheer Mag performs at Hi-Dive on Monday, April 22, 2024, photo by Cecil Shang Whaley**

Tuesday | 04.02
What: Ministry w/Gary Numan and Front Line Assembly
When: 6
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Ministry has been enjoying a new chapter of its existence as a band and supposedly as a live act it has revamped, rediscovered and re-embraced a wide arc of its musical output. As pioneers of EBM and industrial metal Ministry has influenced generations of other artists with its imaginative soundscapes and joyfully scathing social critique. Perhaps influential to Ministry is synth people and rock artist Gary Numan who has had top 40 hits in the early 80s with the landmark synthpop hit “Cars” but whose creative vision of human relationships with each other and with technology while incorporating new methods of making music during the long course of his career has exerted an influence on a wide variety of artists. All synth pop bands today are part of his legacy as well as darkwave and synthwave. And live he’s still a compelling artist with an undeniable mystique. Opening are foundational EBM band Front Line Assembly whose Bill Leeb was an early member of Skinny Puppy with a long and impactful legacy in music all his own.

Friday | 04.05
What: Glue Man w/Total Cult and Tuff Bluff
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Glue Man is a punk band that is part of the “new wave of shitty heavy metal.” It must be assumed the latter is a bit of a joke the people in the band put on their Bandcamp page. Really they sound like guys who listened to a lot of JFA and Crucifucks and that’s no bad thing. Tuff Bluff is a power punk trio fronted by Sara Fischer who has been in more cool local punk bands than most people and whose songwriting is a vital fusion of garage rock and classic punk. Total Cult is the latest band from former Nicotine Fits members guitarist Nick Santa Maria and bassist Bryan Webb who have contributed to various noteworthy projects out of Colorado Springs over the years and when Nick was living in Denver for a bit he was also a member of Poison Rites. So Total Cult is not a cookie cutter punk band even if its songwriting components draw from familiar sounds and moods.

Five Iron Frenzy, photo courtesy Leanor Ortega-Till

Friday and Saturday | 04.05 and 04.06
What: Five Iron Frenzy with MXPX and The Ataris (04.05) and with The Swashbuckling Doctors, The Freeze Ups (Op Ivy cover band), DJ Tara 2 Tone and DJ Monkey Man (04.06)
When: 6:30 (04.05) and 6 (04.06)
Where: The Ogden Theatre (04.05) and Washington’s (04.06)
Why: Five Iron Frenzy is the rock and ska band that started in the mid-90s in Denver. The band has probably been dismissed as a “Christian ska” band by people who never actually listened to the music because there is a thoughtfulness, joy and personal insight into the songwriting that transcends genre and presumed belief systems. Five Iron Frenzy is a band that can poke fun at itself and address serious issues with humor without making a joke out of any of it. Rather it’s shows and music are a celebration of shared humanity and the preciousness and all too often precarious nature of life. On Friday night the band shares the stage with ska punk greats MXPX and pop punk stars The Ataris. On Saturday night in Fort Collins the group will perform extensively from its first three albums, a rarity in its live repertoire.

Dust City Opera, photo courtesy the artists

Saturday | 04.06 THIS SHOW HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED TO SEPT 7, 2024
What: Dust City Opera w/Avourneen
When: 7
Where: Swallow Hill
Why: Dust City Opera is a rock band from Albuquerque, New Mexico whose sound interweaves orchestral Americana, dark psychedelia and art pop into cinematic and literary songs filled with evocative tales of “sadness, madness and mayhem.” But within the group’s rich body of work there is a surreal sense of humor and humanity that reveals an empathy for the human condition and the characters and situations depicted in which listeners can identify aspects of their own experiences navigating our often physically and emotionally perilous world. Since it’s 2018 foundation, pick any of Dust City Opera’s albums from its 2019 debut album Heaven to 2022’s horror and science fiction themed Alien Summer record to the 2024 EP Cold Hands (released March 8 via Rexius Records) and you’ll hear imaginatively eclectic arrangements and vivid narratives from a band that seems fully realized even as it’s still relatively early in its career. There is a theatrical sensibility to the music that translates to the band’s live performances that fans of the likes of DeVotchKa and Beirut will appreciate.

The Crystal Method from the band’s Facebook

Friday | 04.12
What: The Crystal Method and Rabbit in the Moon
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Two giants of early American 90s electronic on one bill. The Crystal Method made waves with its 1997 debut album Vegas and its futuristic big beat sound that seemed like the soundtrack for a modern version of cyberpunk. Following the 2017 retirement from music of founding member Ken Jordan, The Crystal Method has become the solo project of Scott Kirkland. The 2022 album The Trip Out feels like a sequel to Vegas with similar sensibilities but even more of a hip-hop element in its sound. Rabbit in the Moon predates The Crystal Method by a year when it was founded in 1992 and quickly became part of the burgeoning American rave scene. Free associating house, trance, breakbeats and other musical styles into an entrancing whole, RITM has been an enduring fixture of American underground electronic music.

Friday | 04.12
What: Jux County play the Pretenders
When: 7
Where: Club 404
Why: Legendary “cowpunk” band Jux County will perform a rare show not of its own music but that of proto-alternative band The Pretenders and in addition to the obvious hits like “Brass in Pocket” and “My City Was Gone,” Jux will probably pull out some deep cuts for the show.

Saturday | 04.13
What: SPELLS, Church Fire, Dead Pioneers and Chap
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Garage punk band SPELLS is celebrating the release of its new album Past Our Prime. The title of the album is a bit on the nose because the members of the band are for the most part in their 40s but that’s how the band, risking a too self-aware outmoded expression, rolls. It’s a reliably insightful set of songs about life and aging and staying engaged with the act of living rather than simply existing even if culture and society suggest maybe you should spend your spare time in the evening watching re-runs of the modern equivalent of Matlock and maybe going on vacation to the same spots once or twice a year. Dead Pioneers puts some fiery lyrics into its own punk and Chap is a bit more on the twee emo end of punk in a way you might actually want to hear because that band too seems to have some cogent commentary on human existence. The band that will not be like the others beyond sheer feisty spirit is industrial dance trio Church Fire whose ferocious and heartfelt songs are corrosive to an ossified culture.

Sunday | 04.14
What: Andrés Cepeda
When: 6:30
Where: Paramount Theatre
Why: Andrés Cepeda is one of the most well known musical artists out of his home country of Columbia. A musician since an early age, Cepeda studied music in college and became the lead singer in Latin pop-rock group Poligamia throughout the 90s before pursuing a solo career by the end of that decade. Cepeda’s musical range and depth has garnered him both critical accolades and commercial success in Colombia with his 2001 album El Carpintero going quadruple platinum. He is a four-time winner of the Latin Grammys and his 2023 album Décimo Cuarto attained Gold certification. His emotionally rich and nuanced vocals and musicianship has made the artist a popular figure at home in a similar status as Shakira and Carlos Vives and he has been a judge on La Voz, the Colombian edition of The Voice for twelve seasons. In April 2024, Cepeda will embark on a North American tour of 19 dates including Carnegie Hall in NYC. Calling the string of dates the Tengo Ganas tour, Cepeda and his band will focus more on the pop, rock and electronic side of his songwriting than the more traditional and Balada style with which his name is often immediately associated.

Sunday | 04.14
What: Dancing Plague, Plague Garden and Alucienma
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Portland, Oregon-based coldwave project Dancing Plague released its latest album Elogium on March 22, 2024. The record is a further refinement of its synth-driven post-punk reminiscent of both Red Lorry Yellow Lorry and D.A.F.. Also on the bill is Denver’s Plague Garden whose style of post-punk fuses melodic death rock, New Wave synth melodies and emotionally refined and bold vocals.

Monday | 04.15
What: Julien-K w/Priest and Plague Garden
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Julien-K is a more EBM-inflected side project of industrial rock band Orgy. Priest is an enigmatic industrial band from Sweden given to stage theatrics like a group out of a cyberpunk novel of the 90s with a sound that seems to be a melodramatic brand of EBM. Plague Garden concludes its three date mini-tour of Denver this night and on measure promises to be the high point of the evening for more discerning ears.

Wednesday | 04.17
What: Meatbodies w/The Crooked Rugs
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Chad Ubovich has been a bit of a figure in the southern Californian garage and psychedelic rock scene having been a bass player for Mikal Cronin’s band and a touring member of Ty Segall’s live group. He’s also been a contributing member of Fuzz. But since 2014 he has forged his own musical identity with his project Meatbodies. The latter expanded beyond Ubovich’s musical foundations to make a kind of noisy and dreamlike music most fully realized on the 2024 album Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom where the band’s eclectic songwriting pulls you in withentrancing melodies and hypnotic motorik beats and fuzzy-hazy soundscapes that somehow taps into the cosmic psych prog realm of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard and Suicide, perhaps Wooden Shijps in a more playful mood.

The Carbon Diablo Ensemble, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 04.19
What: LEAF: Julia Edith Rigby, The Carbon Diablo Ensemble, Mickey Lenny & Nihil Coil and Diggers
When: 6:30
Where: Center For Musical Arts
Why: The Lafayette Electronic Arts Festival proper kicks off this night with an evening of audio-visual artists. Julia Edith Rigby incorporates viola, voice, video, field recordings and sculpture into her performances. The Carbon Diablo Ensemble is an improvisational experimental music collective comprised of Carbon Dioxide Orchestra and Diablo Montalban that will do a live remix of music for the 1902 film A Trip to the Moon directed by Georges Méliès including interactive visual elements, synths, Theremin and dry ice on a copper heart sculpture for a uniquely visceral and sonically engulfing performance. Mickey Lenny and Nihil Coil will combine avant-garde live composition with processed wind instruments and synths and combine that in interactive fashion with retrofuturist imagery. Diggers as manifested for this show will be Eric Barry Drasin and Sean Withers who will recontextualize media imagery and sounds to blur the line between interior and exterior awareness as an exploration of the mediated relationships in which we often find ourselves as a path to comprehend and deconstruct that dynamic.

Friday | 04.19
What: Traindodge w/Self Evident and Almanac Man
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Traindodge is a noise rock/post-hardcore band from Oklahoma City that has been offering up a unique style of its own more akin to the likes of Season To Risk and Shiner. In 2023 the group released its latest album The Alley Parade which synthesizes a power pop knack for melodic hooks and pummeling and caustic riffs. Denver-based Almanac Man is also on the bill and is on the verge of releasing its new record of contorted and propulsive, math-y noise rock in Terrain (due out May 14, 2024 on The Ghost is Clear). Think a DC post-hardcore band that came up in the midwest on a steady diet of Amphetamine Reptile and Touch and Go bands.

The Non-Renewed, photo courtesy the artists

Friday | 04.19
What: The Non-Renewed album release party w/mlady and May Be Fern
When: 7
Where: Town Hall Collaborative
Why: Denver-based, queer indie rock duo The Non-Renewed is celebrating the release of its self-titled debut album at this show. Meghan Mallon and Mellik Gorton were singers and songwriters in their own right before coming together as creative partners during the early days of the pandemic. The album was recorded by Judybelle Camangyan over two weeks when the producer/engineer also known as JB flew in from Los Angeles to help their college friend Mallon realize the 8 song record. The music is like a look back on a period that many Americans seem to have moved on from even if the early pandemic left an indelible mark on the lives and psyches of people worldwide with reverberations still felt deep inside us and after effects that seem mysterious until they’re traced back to the lingering impacts of the ways the early pandemic affected how we relate to one another, how we have lived and how we have had to learn to live differently. The album’s gentle rhythms and warm melodies make its themes of grief, heartbreak, loss of all kinds and resilience in the face of multiple stressors hitting all at once seem like experiences we can parse and handle with grace and dignity.

The Playground Ensemble in 2019, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 04.20
What: LEAF Day 2: jesterN, Playground Ensemble, Kevin Sweet, Paulus van Horne & FMSHAGGI at Center for Musical Arts
When: 6:30
Where: Center for Musical Arts
Why: jesterN repurposes found or “decontextualized” analog devices to explore the “connections between light and sound through installations and performances. So expect unique projection type visuals with equally unorthodox sound sources in synergistic fashion. The Playground Ensemble is one of Denver’s premier avant-garde so expect something unpredictable, creative and not short on elements of performance art. Kevin Sweet’s performance will incorporate generative sound and audio-reactive visuals. Paulus van Horne and FMSHAGGI will offer a performance exploring the concept called by visual and sound artist Brandon LaBelle calls “the lexicon of the mouth” utilizing drone, granular synthesis and computer voices and in this case coupled with the visual art sensibilities of the paired artists.

Saturday | 04.20
What: LOG. album release show w/Bolonium
When: 7
Where: The Mercury Cafe
Why: It might be misleading to say LOG. has been a musical institution for over two decades but the enigmatic band’s eclectic and experimental sounds and theatrical live shows have been part of the local scene since at least the 90s. Fans of the likes of Primus, Hamster Theater and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum will appreciate the weirdness and raw energy of LOG. Additionally the group has released its latest album Dumptruck Sayonara and is celebrating the release with this show sharing the bill with like-minded weirdos Bolonium. The record is brimming with undeniable pop hooks and angular post-punk rhythms that somehow hit as fluid and funky. Live you just don’t know what you’re in for because the band isn’t above injecting elements of industrial percussion and free jazz. And there’s not much like the band around which is recommendation enough.

Munly & The Lupercalians in 2013, photo by Tom Murphy

Sunday | 04.21
What: Munly & The Lupercalians w/Josephine Foster
When: 6
Where: Hi-DIve
Why: Munly & The Lupercalians is the experimental, Gothic Americana band of Jay Munly who is more often known these days as a member of Slim Cessna’s Auto Club. For this project the music is a little darker if drawing upon similar sound sources and its presentation is more like a pagan mystery cult. The songwriting builds upon where Munly has come from out of an underground folk scene and the Vaudeville Americana of Munly & Lee Lewis Harlots. Josephine Foster draws upon rustic music making methods and her albums sound spare and minimal with guitar and vocals but Foster’s songwriting weaves into her sounds aspects of environmental noises and textures one might expect from a live performance spent collecting field recordings.

Monday | 04.22
What: Sheer Mag w/Cleaner, Flora De La Luna and DJs Glimmer of Nope
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: When Sheer Mag emerged around 2014 it soon made a name for itself as a scrappy and commanding live act whose music completely knocked down barriers between punk spirit and raw power, power pop and classic hard rock. Singer Tina Halladay struck a uniquely commanding figure whose powerhouse voice and husky tunefulness brings to the music an immediate and accessible appeal. The group’s latest record Playing Favorites (2024) is a glorious fusion of garage punk and a youth having been subjected to classic rock like Thin Lizzy, Boston and Molly Hatchet and resenting it before finding in that music a valid foundation for songcraft and musicianship. And like many a Philly band, Sheer Mag has taken whatever its roots might be and made something utterly its own with one of the best live rock shows going.

Tuesday | 04.23
What: Bruce Hornsby and yMusic present BrhyM
When: 7
Where: Paramount Theatre
Why: yMusic is a chamber sextet from New York City that has released a handful of albums of original material but it has also toured with other artists and worked on collaborative music projects with the likes of Ben Folds. Bruce Hornsby is a respected, Grammy winning artist with decades of hits and musical accomplishment in his eclectic career including his 1980s run with Bruce Hornsby and The Range. But Hornsby has been a touring member of Grateful Dead, he’s written bluegrass music and jazz and now a collaborative art pop album with yMusic collectively known as BrhyM with the March 1, 2024 release of the album Deep Sea Vents. It’s a unique and ambitious set of songs that draw upon an architecture of classical music and musical ideas from a broad range of American music to craft strange and creative songs that seem like a story cycle you’d more expect to manifest as a cinematic work. Think something along the lines of Carla Bley working with They Might Be Giants and you have something of the vibe. This is a rare chance to see this set of musicians perform the music live on its current and who can say possibly only tour.

Thursday | 04.25
What: She Past Away w/Ultra Sunn and Hex Cassette
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: She Past Away is the great Turkish post-punk/darkwave band whose haunting vocals, electronic beats, icy synths and ethereal guitars are immediately reminiscent of The Cure and peers in modern post-punk, Molchat Doma. With lyrics in Turkish the duo has nevertheless garnered a cult following well outside of Turkey with music that resonates with a certain anxiety and weariness with a world that seems so precarious these days. Opening the show is Denver’s great, dark industrial dance phenomenon Hex Cassette whose theatrical menace is matched only by the raw exuberance and liberated spirit with which he performs and invites the audience to share in the joy of release. Also touring with She Past Away is the Belgian darkwave duo ULTRA SUNN who just released a new record called US. The group’s knack for percussive, electronic bass lines and haunted synth melodies are a perfect companion for its lyrics about personal struggles, disillusionment, integrity, resilience and love all manifest in dramatic and vivid form throughout the record’s nine songs. Fans of Nitzer Ebb and Covenant will definitely find a lot to appreciate with what ULTRA SUNN has to offer.

Friday | 04.26
What: LEAF: Mary Elias Letera, Moss Pig, Mr. Knobs
When: 9
Where: The End
Why: This second weekend of the live performances as part of the Lafayette Electronic Arts Festival includes sets from Mary Elias Letera, an intermedia artist, performer and software developer who utilizes light, sound and dance as part of her integrated creative works such as her 2023 piece “Eclipse.” Moss Pig is an all-hardware electronic live act comprised of SoLRkaT aka Coldfuture and Neptune Luau. Think of the music as a progression of the minimalist techno of the 2000s into more experimental territory evolving with each composition. Mr Knobs is an electro-acoustic trio that seems to produce a fusion of progressive pop, world music and New Age sensibilities.

Saturday | 04.27
What: Weep Wave, The Crooked Rugs, In Plain Air
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Seattle’s Weep Wave recently released its latest album Speck. The band’s music might be described as a complete synthesis of angular post-punk and psychedelic Krautrock style that fans of JOHN and Meatbodies will appreciate. Fort Collins psych band The Crooked Rugs opened for the latter recently and proved themselves prime purveyors of an arty, poetic and hypnotic atmospheric rock of its own.

Sunday | 04.28
What: Cindy Lee w/Freak Heat Waves and Pink Lady Monster
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Cindy Lee is the long-running project of Patrick Flegel, former singer and guitarist in cult experimental guitar band Women. Cindy Lee’s output has been decidedly more conceptual in approach to songwriting, sound palette and performance. Its latest album, the sprawling Diamond Jubilee, is purportedly the swan song for the band or at least this run of shows is billed as a farewell tour. The triple LP is a parallel universe psychedelic folk garage lo fi journey through life in the modern era and all its struggles, romance, idealism, disappointment, resilient dreaming and yearning for a fulfilling life not dominated by marketing to others and to ourselves as per the standard mode of existence under late capitalism. The album is available for download for free or for donation through a geocities link in the bio of the YouTube video for the entire album (see below). Freak Heat Waves is a band that has completely integrated post-punk melancholy and disregard for convention with downtempo techno for a sound that feels like pop music from a future that already arrived but we never got to experience except through art. Pink Lady Monster is Denver’s premiere No Wave jazz dream pop noise rock quintet.

A.M. Pleasure Assassins at FoCoMx 2023, photo courtesy the artists

Sunday | 04.28
What: A.M. Pleasure Assassins album release show w/Weep Wave
When: 7
Where: Surfside 7
Why: For over a decade A.M. Pleasure Assassins have helped keep Fort Collins weird with its ever evolving sound that has explored a variety of sounds and folded it into its eclectic aesthetic. Clearly the impact of 90s indie pop, lo-fi tape collage pop, post-punk, dub and psychedelia. For this show the group is releasing its latest offering, Cloudy, Black, Red and All Over which while offering a highly accessible sound still overflows with the group’s experimental sensibilities. And if you go and couldn’t make it to the Denver show to see Seattle psychedelic post-punk band Weep Wave, it’s on this bill as well.

Sunday | 04.28
What: The Pharcyde w/Souls of Mischief, Stay Tuned and Mike Wird
When: 7
Where: Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom
Why: The Pharcyde were an acclaimed hip-hop crew throughout the 90s with an ear for the more left field sounds and jazz sensibilities in their beats and production. Their 1995 album Labcabincalifornia may not have been a hit with critics but the group’s main collaborator for the record was J Dilla so the album definitely had a feel, mood and texture that is unconventional and looking forward to more innovative hip-hop of later years and resonant with peers like A Tribe Called Quest and Digable Planets. The single “Runnin’” became an enduring hit for the band. Though The Pharcyde hasn’t released new music in some 20 years there has been a touch of newer material hinting at a new full length the latter has yet to be released though you may hear some of that at this show which includes another legendary act of underground hip-hop in Souls of Mischief as well as Denver luminaries Stay Tuned.

Monday | 04.29
What: The Electric Nature (Athens, GA) w/Nightshark and Debaser
When: 7
Where: Squirm Gallery
Why: The Electric Nature is an experimental improv band from Athens, Georgia whose soundscapes combine elements of psychedelic drone, industrial noise, power electronics, field recordings and dark ambient. So it’s only fitting that Denver’s Nightshark will bring its own progressive, improv No Wave jazz and noise wildness for the evening alongside one-man percussion, guitar and electronics free form performance project Debaser comprised of Josh Taylor who some may know for his stints in Friends Forever and Foot Village as well as being one of the main people behind legendary DIY space Monkey Mania and his tenure with Los Angeles DIY venue staple The Smell.

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond June 2023

Yeah Yeah Yeahs perform at Red Rocks on 6/5/23, photo by Jason Al Taan

Thursday | 06.01
What: Kiltro w/Nina De Freitas
When: 7
Where: Mercury Café
Why: Kiltro started as the solo acoustic project of Chris Bowers Castillo who as a Chilean-American, had moved to the port city of Valparaíso where he worked as a walking tour guide. And that job not only afforded him the time to learn the city and take in its richly diverse cultural influences but also the opportunity to write a body of work as a songwriter. After returning to Denver Kiltro formally came to life in 2017 and Bowers Castillo developed his acoustic songs with loops, pedals and percussion elements. But in 2018 the project expanded into a trio with Will Parkhill on bass and drummer Michael Devincenzi and later with Fez Garcia on board as a percussionist for live shows.

Kiltro’s 2019 debut album Creatures of Habit had been recorded after the material had been performed live and getting feedback from audiences and friends before being committed to an easily transmitted and shareable form. But the group’s new album, 2023’s Underbelly, is the product of crafting music in quarantine and working in the studio, following whatever creative paths sparked the most inspiration in the moment resulting in a more experimental set of songs which incorporates aspects of shoegaze, ambient, South American folk, psychedelia and a literary yet spontaneous form of storytelling that feels like a deeply personal experience in the listening. The record is a hypnotic and transcendent work of surprising immediacy that one might compare with the likes of Devendra Banhart, Hermanos Guitérrez and more locally to the work of artists like Midwife American Grandma. It fuses the aesthetics of electronic music with the intimacy of mythical folk music around the campfire for a truly unique record refreshing in its originality.

Kiltro is following up the release with a tour throughout the USA in June and July with other live dates in support of the album in August and September with an appearance at VORTEX festival at The JunkYard at Meow Wolf on August 25. Listen to our interview with Bowers Castillo on Bandcamp linked below.

Thursday | 06.01
What: Reptoid w/Quits and Endless, Nameless
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Reptoid is a one man, industrial noise rock freakout from Oakland. His most recent album WORSHIP FALSE GODS (2020) is a borderline, or not so borderline, nihilistic set of songs like a series of trainwrecks about how we’re all pretty much screwed in face of likely developments in the history of our species and its impact on the environment. If you’ve been into Buck Gooter or Author and Punisher this is your thing. Quits is a crushing noise rock juggernaut of a four piece from Denver whose incisive songs and eruptive energy can be startlingly scathing and heavy at once. Endless, Nameless erases the line between progressive metal, post-rock, post-hardcore, black metal and shoegaze with a forceful elegance. Its 2023 album Living Without should end up on the more discerning year end best lists.

Thursday | 06.01
What: Sorted: Surgeon & John Templeton
When: 9
Where: Black Box
Why: Surgeon is a DJ and electronic music composer from England whose labels Counterbalance and Dynamic Tension has been issuing some fine techno records for over 20 years. John Templeton is based in Denver whose own techno music has made a bit of a splash in the Mile High City and his Great American Techno Festival brought some of the most innovative practioners of that style of music to town for several years.

Friday | 06.02
What: ACxDC w/No/Más and Berated
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: ACxDC is the infamous powerviolence/grindcore band from Los Angeles whose 2020 album Satan Is King is a seethingly uncompromising run of anarchistic political sentiment set to blast beats and oddly anthemic antiestablishment shout along songs.

Saturday | 06.03
What: M. Sage Paradise Crick release show w/Zander Raymond
When: 3 p.m.
Where: TBA in Boulder
Why: M. Sage has been a prolific and evolving songwriter and composer going back to at least far back as when he was based out of Fort Collins and doing early indiepop groups. But when he started writing and releasing music as M. Sage and often through his now defunct label Patient Sounds (2009-2019) it became obvious that Sage was thinking beyond standard songwriting even in the more experimental folk vein. His latest release, and first for RVNG Intl., is Paradise Crick, a collection of meditations on communing with nature as a route to a sustainable relationship with the world we all share. The pure fusion of acoustic and electronic aesthetics resonates with some of the more avant releases on the ECM label and its intuitive rhythms and informal structures ease the mind out of the standard pathways of being within one’s own mindset. This show is at unique venue and one must purchase a ticket at the link provided to get the address.

Saturday | 06.03
What: Danceportation – Justin Jay and others
When: 9:30
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station
Why: Danceportation is an immersive dance party pulsing through the worlds of Convergence Station. Be immersed in the full exhibition while stunning live performances on several stages with psychedelic projections and sentient universes welcome you. Danceportation on June 3rd will feature a takeover from Justin Jay’s Fantastic Voyage, the Los Angeles-based electronic dance music imprint now celebrating its seventh year of exisence.

This lineup features multiple sets from Justin Jay, along with performances from Ardalan, DJ Swisha, Juliet Mendoza, Todd Edwards, Adrian More, B Goody, Blake, Coldsweat, Danny Goliger, DJ Parqués, Don Jamal, Ed Hoffman, Gusted, Keefe, Lipgloss, Massii, Mick Jeets, Mizzmegan, The Other Jon, Planet Bloop, and Taylor Bratches.

Sunday | 06.04
What: Korine w/CD Ghost, Voight and DJ Niq V
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Philadelphia-based dream pop band Korine plays a headlining show in Denver for the first time in support of the release of its 2023 album Tear. The group’s sound is somewhere between 80s New Wave groups like, yes, Tears For Fears, late 90s emo’s earnest emotional release and punk attitude. Voight will bring the dark industrial intensity with its scorching shoegaze/techno concoctions CD Ghost from Los Angeles released a set of lush pop songs called Night Music in 2022 that sounds like a a more synth driven and more ethereal Black Marble.

Monday | 06.05
What: Yeah Yeah Yeahs w/Perfume Genius
When: 7
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Yeah Yeah Yeahs have been delivering scrappy, uplifting pop music with punk attitude since forming in 2000 and as first put into recorded form with its 2001 self-titled EP. But the band comprised of three art school kids from New York never rested on its laurels and immediately its creative ambitions drove the band to explore new sounds and expressions to match its emotional growth as well. Its spirited live shows turn even its more melancholic songs into epic anthems that sweep you up in its always deep mood. In 2022 the band released its first album in 9 years, Cool It Down, a record that showcases the group’s gift for richly evocative songwriting and ability to surprise with its willingness to explore new directions in sound and subverting the tropes of pop lyrics while offering new ways of thinking about and feeling timeless themes of human experience with a thrilling immediacy. You also get to see Perfume Genius whose own career in crafting meaningful and engrossing synth pop isn’t short on reinvention and re-envisioning core artistic impulses.

Clan of Xymox in 2018, photo by Tom Murphy

Monday | 06.05
What: Clan of Xymox w/Curse Mackey, A Cloud of Ravens and The Siren Project
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Clan of Xymox is the pioneering dutch darkwave band whose early post-punk songs has been foundational to the modern version of that music with its icily melodic synths and deep, mysterious yet emotionally resonant vocals from Ronny Moorings. Curse Mackey has been involved in a variety of electronic industrial bands of the past few decades including My Life With The Thrill Kill Cult and Pigface and the music under his own name has been more in the vein of synth pop end of darkwave. The Siren Project is a Denver band that has persisted since the old local Goth scene of the 1990s but has never been a fashion victim group in sound or appearance. Its downtempo music and dream pop guitar sound with Malgorzata Wacht’s soaring vocals and emotional power has set it apart from most bands in the Denver Goth scene so its music has aged well and its excellent and so far only official album Denouement should appeal to fans of Dead Can Dance and Faith & The Muse.

The Cure at Riot Fest in Denver, September 20, 2014, photo by Tom Murphy

Tuesday | 06.06
What: The Cure w/The Twilight Sad
When: 5:30
Where: Fiddler’s Green
Why: The Cure is of course the foundational post-punk band whose gloomy, darkly melodic songs has exerted a lasting influence not just on what one might presume in the realms of Goth and darkwave but also shoegaze, pop music and even certain corners of hip-hop. Singer Robert Smith’s sensitively and sharply observed lyrics embody poetically a sensibility that takes in the possibilities and harsh realities of the world and casts dreams for the best against the odds. Though the band’s music has a reputation for melancholy sounds and sad songs its rich body of work is quite varied and not short on expressions of joy, amusement, romance and hope. Its music conveys the broad human experience like few popular bands get to with the level of power and nuance The Cure has brought to bear across decades and as a live band there is an uplifting warmth and sense of human solidarity to the performances. Scottish post-punk band The Twilight Sad is cut from a similar artistic cloth with songs that are both vulnerable and ferocious.

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, photo by Jason Galea

Wednesday and Thursday | 06.07 and 06.08
What: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard w/Kamikaze Palm Tree
When: 6 p.m (06.07) and 12 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. (06.08)
Where: Red Rocks
Why: With a name like King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard you might imagine some acid head RPG nerds making psychedelic metal with lyrics based on an epic fantasy story arc. And other than maybe the RPG part and maybe the doing LSD bit you wouldn’t be wrong in essence. The group from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia has steadily built a large cult following with a prolific career (in both 2017 and 2022 King Gizz released five albums each year with other years yielding at least one if not two records) with sounds from psychedelic pop to prog, to synth pop and groove metal, thrash and psych power metal. With album titles like Flying Microtonal Banana, Nonagon Infinity, Butterfly 3000, Fishing for Fishes and the 2023 album so far PetroDragonic Apocalyp; or Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation you’d expect bizarre concept albums worthy of Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s Tarkus or Genesis’ The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway or at least unclassifiable songs like Pink Floyd’s “Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict.” And King Gizz delivers just that. The kinds of albums and songs and shows that take you on a mind-bending, genre-bursting musical journey worthy of Hawkwind or Gong at their self-indulgent best.

Thursday | 06.08
What: Alphabet Soup #61: Machu Linea, Dub FX, Savage Bass Goat, Yung Lurch, Furbie Cakes and Skyfloor
When: 9
Where: Black Box
Why: This monthly showcase of some of the most forward thinking/experimental producers in Denver includes some of the usual suspects like Furbie Cakes and Skyfloor and their brand of glitch and melodic ambient but this time out also Machu Linea whose avant-pop R&B/techno fusion has long crossed over into the realm of the indie scene.

Friday | 06.09
What: Endless, Nameless and Antibroth tour kickoff w/Rose Variety and Polly Urethane
When: 7
Where: D3 Arts
Why: Antibroth and Endless, Nameless are embarking on a tour to the East Coast and back through the Midwest after which Antibroth and its weirdo, experimental, angular form of post-punk and confrontational surrealism will effectively come to an end though during the tour the trio will release its final EP, Satan and the Dying Baby. This is the band’s final show so don’t miss it. Endless, Nameless is a multi-genre band crossing the boundaries of post-hardcore, death metal, math rock and shoegaze. Rose Variety from Boulder came out of a time in local music that had recovered from that wave of really cookie cutter psychedelic and garage rock but took that raw material and made a pop band out of it with some real punk kick. Polly Urethane always reinvents her show with every performance so maybe you’ll get a gorgeously classical vocal show with some vinyl sampling or backing track or raw noise and signal processing or a pure performance art piece or all of it. Always worth coming to check out.

The Sisters of Mercy, photo by Lara Aimee

Friday | 06.09
What: The Sisters of Mercy w/A Primitive Evolution
When: 7
Where: Fillmore Auditorium
Why: The Sisters of Mercy will probably fill the venue with a thick fog and you’ll get some colored murk in which to experience its foundational political post-punk but maybe this time the fog won’t be so thick and you’ll get to see Andrew Eldtrich and his band clearly delivering the kind anthemic, dark rock that launched a thousand Goth bands without directly being that music itself.

Elizabeth Colour Wheel, photo from Bandcamp

Saturday | 06.10
What: Jerome’s Dream and Elizabeth Colour Wheel and Only Echoes
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Jerome’s Dream is the influential screamo/powerviolence band from Sacramento that started out in the early heyday of that music in the late 90s and early 2000s and during its first run of 1997-2001 the trio made a major impact on the kind of music that would later be associated with modern hardcore and extreme metal and where those two fuse. The band has been reunited since 2018 and its latest album The Gray In Between is a fine example of the kind of cathartic extreme music that is has had a popular resurgence in the last handful of years. Elizabeth Colour Wheel is of similar sound but its fusion of noise rock and shoegaze but delivered like a hardcore band has made it a wonderful musical mutant of the past several years. Only Echoes is an instrumental post-metal band from Denver that has been honing its imaginative soundscapes on the road and around Denver whose 2022 album Sunsickness is both melancholic and fiery, reconciling both musical impulses.

Saturday | 06.10
What: Bayonne w/Mmeadows
When: 8
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Bayonne is the project of producer and composer Roger Sellers who started off releasing music under his given name but beginning with 2016’s Primitives he adopted his current moniker. The latest Bayonne record Temporary Time (2023) is an entrancing, orchestral electronic pop record of spacious melodies and melancholic yet summery moods. At another time some critic might have lumped Bayonne in with the “hypnogogic pop” of John Maus or even Dean Blunt but his style is more in the vein of downtempo ambient of Tycho but more grounded in texture and strong, organic rhythms.

Monday | 06.12
What: Drowse w/Agriculture, Sprain and Palehorse Palerider
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Kyle Bates is a composer and multi-instrumentalist whose work has most often been heard as his musical project Drowse. Founded in 2013 in Portland, Oregon, Drowse has released a few albums and numerous EPs and split releases. The music could be considered in part ambient, slowcore, shoegaze, drone, experimental folk and perhaps even transcendental black metal. But all categories aside, each Drowse recording is a journey into unique and nuanced emotional spaces exploring and living within a flow of emotions and thoughts that open the mind to new ideas and interpretations. And more so the moods, frequencies and textures on a Drowse recording, or really any of the releases in which Bates is involved, express a state of mind that one enters after having moved past a peak of anxiety or personal darkness and contain that tenderness and rawness one often needs to pull oneself out of a place of acute pain and psychological paralysis. The gentleness of the music is part of its power and appeal as Bates seems keenly aware of what it’s like to experience that period in life where you don’t feel like you can push or strive any further and you need an experience that is the opposite of that very modern and American internalized urge to keep at things to the extreme and prove yourself endlessly more and more. The core sound of Drowse is that of the musical equivalent of acceptance of one’s human limitations and of being open to what will nurture your well being and spark your imagination into nudging you toward fulfilling experiences.

Throughout his work as Drowse Bates has collaborated with Maya Stoner (Floating Room), Thom Wasluck (Planning for Burial), Madeline Johnston (Midwife), Taylor Malsey, Amulets, Daniel Schmidt and others. In 2023 Bates released an album as Kyle Bates and Lula Asplund called A Matinee that expands upon the format of his songwriting and production with two extended tracks that sound like an improv session one might have stumbled into in cutting room floor recordings of Alan Hankshaw and/or Brian Bennett had they been asked to provide music for a forgotten and mystical place. While it may sound like Bates’ work sets your mind into a different place than where it began upon listening to it, it does, but it is not escapist. Like the work of Grouper or Tim Hecker, Bates’ music has delicate immediacy that engages as it soothes and it stirs the emotions and the imagination.

And you’ll get to see the great Los Angeles black metal band Agriculture which will release its feral self-titled album on The Flenser on July 21, the Unwound-esque noise rock/post-punk group Sprain on its first time in Denver and the Mile High City’s own Palehorse/Palerider whose desert drone and cosmic shoegaze will add more than a touch of the epic and mysterious to the evening.

Tuesday | 06.13
What: Earth w/Burning Sister
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: It is indeed the foundational doom and post-rock doom legends Earth bringing their extended mystical blues to Globe Hall which mostly gets more indie and Americana fare most nights. Its languorous psychedelia somehow manages to be dreamlike and weighty at once for a contrast that allows for a wide-ranging dynamic driven by a sense of wonder and self-discovery.

Wednesday | 06.14
What: Joan w/Harriette
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Brooklyn based pop artist Harriette recently released her debut EP i heart the internet and a music video for the title track that features a bevy of older computer technology (including a flip phone of all things as well as old CRTs and is that an iMac in there?) as a celebration and send-up of internet culture for a song that takes a whimsical and self-aware approach to the phenomenon of people living perpetually online. The EP of upbeat and gentle melodies is a collection of songs as snapshots of modern life with free association of cultural signifiers and artifacts like mentioning listening to an “Folsom Prison Blues” on the appropriately titled “Johnny got it right.” Its genre-bending songwriting in the realm of indie pop and sharply and poetically observed descriptions of everyday life. Joan is a pop duo from Little Rock, Arkansas whose EPs over the past six years have established it as band that is gifted at crafting the heartfelt, expansive pop song as manifested most fully on its 2023 debut album superglue.

Thursday | 06.15
What: Garbage w/Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds and Metric
When: 5:30
Where: Levitt Pavilion
Why: Metric’s 2022 album Formentera has all the creative ambition, dream-like atmospherics and lush soulfulness that has has been the hallmark of the band from the beginning. But this time around Metric takes aim at some of the serious facing the human species as a collective and on the personal level. Also in 2022 the group headlined what it called the “Doomscroller Tour” after the song on the album about the habit of scrolling through social media and online taking in the news as a steady feed of the host of terrible things seeming to occurring every day and at a seemingly more rapid and dense pace than at any point in historical memory. And taking in this horror as a kind of act of soporific disassociation that Metric has sought to disrupt with its music and performance even if for just a little while and to get people to reconsider this habit and perhaps do something about these issues rather than be a passive actor in the human experiment. Metric is in good musical company with legendary alternative rock band Garbage whose own advocacy for social causes is obvious from its own social media presence and its way of discussing its work in the context of living as a human connected with the world. And Noel Gallagher is the former songwriter, singer and guitarist of Oasis and his new band High Flying Birds has been his musical outlet since 2010 following the 2009 final split of his old group. In 2023 the project released its latest album Council Skies perhaps as a reference to Gallagher’s having come up poor in Manchester and his own aspirational daydreaming as a youth, imbuing an album out in his mid-50s with some of that sense of wonder and looking forward.

Legs. The Band in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Thursday | 06.15
What: Legs. The Band EP release w/Hen & The Cocks, The Ephinjis and Gila Teen
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Legs. The Band is releasing its new EP. The group that combines rockabilly blues with proto-punk sounds has been one of the more charismatic rock bands out of the Denver scene of the past couple of years and really sounds like no one else with a commanding and raw stage presence. The Ephinjis are a Boulder-based punk band whose own sound seems to borrow liberally across decades and manages to make a kind of pop-punk that manages not to sound stale because the band’s songwriting is steeped in a diverse sound with eclectic roots. Gila Teen is the Goth emo band everyone should get to experience at least once in their lives because their music is heartfelt and mysterious at the same time informed by a playful and surreal sense of humor but not one that distracts from the poignant emotional moments that clearly inspired so much of the songwriting.

Atmosphere, photo by Chris Fiq Colclasure

Friday | 06.16
What: Dirty Heads & Atmosphere & Stick Figure w/DENM, The Grouch and Mike Love
When: 4:20
Where: Fiddler’s Green Amphitheater
Why: Atmosphere is a hip-hop duo from Minneapolis, Minnesota comprised of rapper Slug aka Sean Daley and DJ/producer Ant aka Anthony Davis. Slug and Ant have been influential well beyond their own remarkable work as artists as co-founders of the respected Rhymesayers Entertainment imprint which has long been one of the torchbearers of underground and alternative hip-hop going back to the mid-90s and releasing not just the work of Atmosphere but that of Aesop Rock, Brother Ali, Eyedea & Abilities, Dilated Peoples, Grayskul and others. Including its debut album Overcast! (1997), Atmosphere has released thirteen full albums and ten EPs up through the new record So Many Other Realities Exist Simultaneously (2023) making the project one of the more prolific acts in hip-hop. In its various lineups and incarnations Atmosphere has consistently paired sensitive and thought-provoking lyrics with a sonically rich and diverse production ranging from some more classic hip-hop sounds to the clearly experimental and avant-garde all to deliver powerfully evocative music that engages the imagination and the heart. In the live setting Atmosphere create an intimate and inviting energy that creates an environment of the shared experience as Daley’s lyrics aim to not just tell relatable stories with roots in his own direct experiences but with resonances for common experiences and emotional spaces we’ve all known. On the new record the songs take us through a journey through un rest and hope, the latter the primary feeling Daley hopes to convey to everyone that shows up to an Atmosphere show because it is hope that lingers and can carry you through trying times into those that are better.

Allison Lorenzen in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 06.16
What: Allison Lorenzen, Openly Weep and Bell Mine
When: 7:30
Where: Leon Gallery
Why: Allison Lorenzen has for several years made the kind of transcendent indie folk that seems to combine a mystical sensibility with ambient soundscapes and tender yet emotionally powerful songwriting and performances. Openly Weep is the debut musical project of Ryan Hall who is one of the founders of the Whited Sepulchre imprint which releases some of the most fascinating experimental music out of the underground on physical and digital formats. His own music is the kind of ambient music that combines beats and the sensibilities of house music. One might call it IDM but it bridges various electronic musical worlds for a sound that feels tribal, primal and completely modern. Listen to his 2021 EP Overpass here. Bell Mine is a Denver-based avant-electronic pop artist whose entrancing and darkly downtempo music is reminiscent of the work of Laurel Halo and Jenny Hval.

Dirty Few at 2013 original album release show for *Get Loose Have Fun*, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 06.16
What: Dirty Few 10 Year Anniversary of Get Loose, Have Fun w/White Lightning Co., The Sickly Hecks and host Matt Cobos
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Dirty Few were stars of the local garage punk scene in Denver in the early 2010s with a rightfully earned reputation for raucous shows that for better or for worse depending on your perspective and the show you caught embodied the so-called “Denver party rock” attitude. What was perhaps less obvious from the revelry is that Seth and Spencer Stone were talented songwriters whose music had real heart and undeniable hooks as perhaps best heard on the 2013 album Get Loose, Have Fun which the group is reuniting to celebrate with this show.

Friday | 06.16
What: Sour Magic album release of Forbidden Fruit w/The Crooked Rugs, Fly Amanita and Chaarm
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Sour Magic is a psychedelic rock and pop band from Denver that’s releasing its debut album Forbidden Fruit. At first listen maybe you’ll think you’re in for the kind of post-Tame Impala and Temples music but Sour Magic takes that sound into different directions with inventive tempo changes perfectly synced in with the way the melodies flow and unfold. The shimmery sound alongside that more gritty and the way the music allows all elements to shine immediately sets the band apart from much of the psych rock that came out of Denver in the 2010s. Fans of Beach Fossils’ shoegaze pop will appreciate the way Sour Magic often lets the rhythm section lead the music and how that lends the songwriting a weight even as its midnight hued atmospheric elements indulge in blissing out into the moonset. Also, not since Sunboy has a Denver psych band seemed to have such a strong command of the aesthetics of electronic music and rock fused as a unified whole.

Saturday | 06.17
What: The Blue Stones w/Compass & Cavern and JACK
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Canadian blues rock band The Blue Stones has turned its musical roots into an expansion of the sound especially on its 2022 album Pretty Monster. Even a cursory listen through the album reveals a band that takes solid melodic lines and strong rhythms and employs modern production methods that give a tried and true formula and gave it some expansive mood in a psychedelic sheen and modern pop accessibility. It’s a shift in direction for The Blue Stones but Tarek Jafar and Justin Tessler seem to realize that taking chances and not being defined completely by one’s artistic past is more key to longevity than getting stuck doing the exact same thing for an entire career.

Sunday | 06.18
What: Child of Night w/Dream of Industry, Teller and Kill You Club DJs
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Child of Night is a darkwave dance band from Columbus, Ohio whose ethereal duskiness is driven by strong rhythms and robust low end. Its 2021 album The Walls at Dawn has an alluring moodiness like the soundtrack to a near future, urban techno thriller that is the missing link between TR/ST and Actors.

Monday | 06.19
What: Temples w/Post Animal
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: UK psychedelic rock band Temples has been one of the leading lights of the modern manifestation of that music. And its own sound informed by the aesthetics of synth pop has given its music a different trajectory and greater longevity than some of the bandwagon artists of the 2010s. Its music flows with layers of luminous melody and hits with a dream-like resonance that sounds like a quick trip to a sun dappled vacation destination in a beautiful and exotic place. Thus the title of its 2023 album Exotico seems entirely appropriate as each of its sixteen songs is like an immersive sampling of a place you’d like to visit long enough to soak in its uniquely affecting environment. Post Animal are like the younger creative cousin to Temples and its 2022 album Love Gibberish is nine transporting meditations on the glories and foibles of love and a myriad of perspectives on a perennial theme of rock music with the band moving a bit beyond its more hard rock early era into what is often lush 1970s pop-flavored, hazy psychedelia.

Tuesday | 06.20
What: Oliver Tree w/UPSAHL, Tai Verdes and Little Ricky ZR3
When: 6
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Oliver Tree got his break in the music industry proper making presentations for the likes of Skrillex and Zeds Dead though he’d long been a musician and songwriter who has pursued a variety of styles before finding his greatest success making the kind of pop music that is eclectic and informed by the kind of irony that serves to express the sincerity of feeling that is the core content of his songwriting. The eccentric stage performance style and drily and absurdly humorous music videos might give the impression of his music being a put on but songs aren’t. UPSAHL is an up-and-coming pop artist whose spirited and eclectic sound borrows liberally from various genres of music and fuses them into music that is somehow both deeply witty and amusing and thought-provoking. At least if her 2021 album Lady Jesus is any indication not to mention her 2022 EP Sagittarius (Taylor Upsahl being a Sagittarian herself). In 2023 the singer/songwriter announced the release of THE PHX (Phoenix) TAPES which will pair two songs as (SIDE A/SIDE B) to showcase her evolving interests as an artist and producer and so far singles like “GOOD GIRL ERA” (SIDE A) and “CONDOMS” (SIDE B) as well as “WET WHITE TEE SHIRT” (SIDE A) have demonstrated Upsahl’s range as a vocalist and gift for genre-morphing into whatever style suits her always sharp and sassy yet sensitive observations.

Tuesday | 06.20
What: Moon Walker w/Annabel Lee
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Moon Walker is a duo from Denver comprised of Harry Springer and Sean McCarthy whose music is a mix of ’70s glam rock and power pop in a modern flavor. The project came out of the early pandemic when Springer’s and McCarthy’s band The Midnight Club couldn’t play out and Springer started writing music for song libraries until he wrote stuff he didn’t want to give away that way and the new band had its roots. It’s a little kitsch, it’s a lot boogie rock but at least the theatrical element is real and it’s not merely yet another couple of people re-re-re-re-discovering classic rock. Opening act Annabel Lee released her debut album Mother’s Hammer on March 8, 2023 and though housed in acoustic guitar, piano, minimal percussion and other traditionally more folk or pop elements, Lee’s vocals are commanding and intense in her expression and at times one is reminded of a peer like Grace Cummings or obvious touchstones like PJ Harvey in the orchestral arrangements and willingness to unmoor the emotional expression from the tethers of pop convention.

Wednesday | 06.21
What: Elf Power w/The Tammy Shine
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Elf Power was one of the early Athens, GA bands affiliated with the Elephant 6 collective and thus one of the bands that helped to chart the musical direction of modern indie rock. The prolific group has reliably put out thoughtful and inventive psychedelic pop up through its most recent record, 2022’s Artificial Countrysides and its dreamlike, fuzzy melodies and transporting electronic shimmer. Sharing the bill is The Tammy Shine, the charismatic and powerful lead singer of Denver indie pop legends Dressy Bessy doing her no less lively and heartfelt solo material.

Wednesday and Thursday | 06.21 and 06.22
What: Bestial Mouths w/WitchHands and eHpH on 06.21 and w/Church Fire and DJ Shannon Von Kelly on 06.22
When: 7 (06.21) 8 (06.22)
Where: Vulture’s (06.21) and Hi-Dive (06.22)
Why: Bestial Mouths began in 2009 as a band that early on might be considered post-punk but even its debut EP, 2009’s Stabile Vices, had elements of noise and industrial set to ritualistic rhythms with tribal percussion. All along, vocalist Lynette Cerezo who has a background in fashion and design brought to performances a striking visual presentation that drew upon the imagery of mythology and dreams in a creative interplay with the music. Cerezo’s lyrics have always explored issues of gender, identity and personal liberation and whether combined with the performance or not, certainly enhanced by the live experience, meant as a conduit for mutual inspiration and uplift by challenging arbitrary societal notions of “proper” social roles and behavior and aesthetics. A Bestial Mouths show and the music embodies aspects of the subconscious and what has traditionally been relegated to artistic darkness and the feminine, the intuitive and the supernatural. Cerezo through the practice of her art reclaims all of that as a source of power and dignity by demonstrating how it isn’t negative, that it is a part of a complete human life and that such things can be harnessed to the benefit of the self and all.

More recent Bestial Mouths records starting with the new arc of music since the project has been mainly headed by Cerezo since 2018 has reconciled the early post-punk and Goth sound and noise completely with the more mystical and non-Western experimental sonic ideas and rhythms that have been a feature if not the focus of the music since the beginning. But in 2020’s RESURRECTEDINBLACK, the first Bestial Mouths record crafted with Cerezo at the creative helm it’s all there for a listening experience not unlike the psycho-mystical depths of a Dead Can Dance album but darker and more harrowing and cathartic. The new album R.O.T.T. (inmyskin), with the acronym standing for Road of Thousand Tears drops on August 11, 2023 and continues the path of its predecessor but with the songs seemingly emerging from the murk that seemed entirely appropriate for a set of songs from a time of great uncertainty and treading new musical paths. Those appreciate Diamanda Galás’ elemental catharsis, psychic fearlessness and avant-garde sensibilities might find a great deal to appreciate about Bestial Mouths as will those with a taste for the political industrial punk of ADULT. and Jarboe’s deeply emotional and unfettered vocal performances but while in Swans and since. Listen to our interview with Bestial Mouths on Bandcamp linked below.

Saturday | 06.24
What: FACS w/Wave Decay and Replica City
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: FACS is a post-punk from Chicago that includes former 90 Day Men and Disappears singer/guitarist Brian Case. Its angular, menacing songs create a brooding soundscape of stark moods like the hollowed out facade of modern industrial culture. Its 2023 album Still Life In Decay is perhaps its most focused effort in articulating the telltale signs of a civilization in decay neglectful of itself and detrimental to all life within its sphere of influence.

Saturday and Sunday | 06.24 and 06.25
What: Graham Nash
When: 6:30 (06.24) and 6 (06.25)
Where: Chautauqua Auditorium (06.24) and Washington’s (6.25)
Why: Graham Nash is a singer/songwriter who established for himself a rich and influential legacy in music and culture as a member of The Hollies in the 1960s and later that decade going forward with Crosby, Stills & Nash (and for a time CSN&Y with Neil Young). The socially conscious and poetically resonant rock proved a touchstone for a generation with an iconic body of work that’s still worth exploring and finding some of the classic rock era’s finest material. On May 19, 2023, Nash released his latest solo record Now and at 81 he is still crafting exquisite melodies and imaginative stories that have something to say and the forward looking perspective that has always been the hallmark of his art. He’s playing two shows in Colorado in celebration of the record.

Saturday | 06.24
What: Godflesh w/Sumerlands, Stormkeep, Spectral Voice and Street Tombs
When: 5
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Maybe the extreme metal even of the summer with headliners Godflesh, the influential and always unforgettable industrial grindcore pioneers whose grinding, scorching menace always hits hard and not without a sense of mystique. And Denver, thorny grindcore legends Spectral Voice make a very rare appearance these days.

Sunday | 06.25
What: JK Flesh w/Terravault, Corpsewhale, CXCXCX, Vox Mnemonic
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: JK Flesh is the pseudonym of Justin K. Broadrick of Godflesh who fresh off performing at the Gothic the night before with the latter will treat an audience at the Hi-Dive to a set of some of his more experimental work in the realm of noise, power electronics, dub and industrial along with some local noise scene luminaries.

Tuesday | 06.27
What: Moon Pussy w/Porcelain, Quits and Messiahvore
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: This is probably the noise rock show of the month with Denver-based greats Moon Pussy whose borderline unhinged and visceral live show is always a cathartic experience informed by a surreal sense of humor. Porcelain visits from Austin with its own fusion of atmospheric rock and its noisy cousin. Quits reconciles dissonant art rock with post-hardcore intensity. Messiahvore might otherwise be considered a metal band but a little too weird and disregarding of clear tonal sight lines to be that.

The Head and the Heart, photo by Shervin Lainez

Thursday | 06.29
What: The Head and the Heart w/Rayland Baxter and Sera Cahoone
When: 6:30
Where: Red Rocks
Why: The Head and the Heart has since its 2009 inception become one of the most popular and creatively vital bands under the umbrella of indie folk. The group came together organically through the open mic nights at Conor Byrne pub in Seattle and not long after its 2011 debut album on Sub Pop became a bit of an instant classic of modern folk rock with “Rivers and Roads” becoming a major hit with fans as a typical concert closer. In 2019 “Honeybee” was a bit ubiquitous and may have given the impression that the band was being marketed beyond its ability to deliver but fortunately the group’s earnest performances and orchestral and ambitious songwriting made it obvious that even that song was not just hype. In 2023 The Head and the Heart announced its inaugural festival Down In The Valley to take place at Oxbow Riverstage in Napa, CA on September 2 and 3 to feature not just its own performances but those of Waxahatchee, Faye Webster, Rayland Baxter, Miya Folick, Dawes, Madison Cunningham, Mitch & The Coal Miners, Shaina Shepherd and Josiah Johnson.

Friday | 06.30
What: Remember Sports w/Goon and Dry Ice
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Remember Sports isn’t the typical pop punk band if it can truly be considered that at all. But it has that scrappy spirit and emotional openness that makes for the best of that genre. But the group uses a drum machine rather than a more traditional musician in the role. Its songs unabashedly incorporate left field sounds in the mix and its vocals sound like a childhood subjected to the likes of a now more obscure alternative pop artist like Jane Jensen and the much more famous Alanis Morissette by Gen X parents but the members of the band took a foundation like that and took it in a different direction. The band’s 2022 EP Leap Day is four tracks of lo-fi bedroom punk experiments of undeniable charm.

To Be Continued…

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond August 2022

The Wild Hearts Tour featuring Sharon Van Etten, Angel Olsen and Julien Baker at Sculpture Park August 7, 2022, photo by Alysse-Gafkjen

Horse Jumper of Love, photo from Bandcamp

Monday | 08.01
What: Horse Jumper of Love w/Cryogeyser, Cherished and Fainting Dreams
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Boston’s Horse Jumper of Love is that rare band that can somehow be simultaneously a post-punk band and a psychedelic Americana band. Its new album Natural Part has a haunted grittiness that is at times reminiscent of Big Star at its gloomiest and Built to Spill in an introspective mood. Cryogeyser might be considered a bit of a slowcore band even though plenty of its songs aren’t so slow and employ jangly guitar in the way Lush did in its more pop songwriting. Cherished used to be called Lowfaith and thus an intense deathrock band with knack for moody atmospherics. Fainting Dreams is a Denver-based slowcore duo whose introspective/melancholic songs shimmer and incandesce and bloom with lingering moods.

Psychedelic Furs in July 2016, photo by Tom Murphy

Tuesday | 08.02
What: The Psychedelic Furs w/X
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: The Psychedelic Furs and X probably need no introduction as bands who in the first case popularized post-punk for a mainstream audience and in the second made arty, literary punk that didn’t shy away from its own roots in country and rockabilly while embracing the ferocious energy of the scene in which it found itself. Both began in 1977. The Furs in London, X in Los Angeles. The former had songs on movie soundtracks most notably the title track, as it were, of the 1986 John Hughes film. The latter were stars of the first underground punk movie of long lasting influence and notoriety, 1981’s The Decline of Western Civilization. Both wrote some of the most memorable songs of their time and genre. Both had many years off between their heyday and their most recent albums but with the most recent albums being among their best. And both still put on a compelling and powerful live show that will sound good in a place like Mission Ballroom.

Friday | 08.05
What: Florist w/Marc Merza
When: 5 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Florist returns with a full band album with 2022’s self-titled album. Though the band is often dubbed with the indie folk label, fair enough, its gently atmospheric music sounds like it was written while contemplating deep feelings and thoughts while having the time to let the mind stretch out in a calm place and replicating that mood in the songwriting. The textural elements of the instrumentation, even when Emily Sprague has composed with her analog synths, are part of the appeal of the band’s music as it establishes a tactile as well as sonic intimacy that sets the band well apart from many other artists whose work is described as indie folk and on the new album there are parts that sound like musique concrète and field recordings used both in the mix and recreated with instruments. It makes for a different kind of listen than the usual pop arrangements that inform the music of most bands. Fans of Mega Bog will appreciate the unconventional style yet immediate accessibility of what Florist has to offer.

The Derelicts, photo by Christina Rogers from thederelicts.net

Friday | 08.05
What: The Derelicts w/Cyclo Sonic and Cease Fire
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: The Derelicts are a punk/garage rock band from Seattle that formed in 1986 around the same time as Mudhoney who had similar musical roots and sensibilities. Maybe they both listened to a lot of The Saints and Radio Birdman. Known for bombastic performances and frontman Duane Bodenheimer’s irreverent stage banter, The Derelicts have remained a bit of an underground legend known among connoisseurs of late 80s and early 90s punk. Chances are The Derelicts encountered The Fluid during that late 80s period when the Denver-based band toured to the Pacific Northwest and played shows with like-minded groups among bands that would go on to form the core of grunge because The Fluid too was a band influenced heavily by the Stooges, garage rock and the like and arguably the most influential punk/post-punk band out of Denver in the 80s and 90s whether other bands know it or not. Matt Bischoff was the bass player for The Fluid but he’d also been in an earlier punk great Frantix from Aurora, Colorado whose single “My Dad’s a Fuckin’ Alcoholic” definitely strikes an immediate chord. These days Bischoff plays guitar in Cyclo Sonic. Sure musically it’s not a big leap from his other bands but fortunately for us Bischoff and his bandmates including Arnie and AJ Beckman formerly of garage punk band The Choosey Mothers and Jif Jipers of punk legends Rok Tots have written a some vital slabs of incredibly catchy punk which can be heard on their 2020 album Candied Rats and the earlier EPs. Cease Fire is a street punk band from Denver that includes former members of The Purple Fluid including Richard Kulwicki, one of the sons of the late great Fluid guitarist the senior Richard “Ricky” Kulwicki.

Angel Olsen at Larimer Lounge 2014, photo by Tom Murphy

Sunday | 08.07
What: The Wild Hearts Tour: Sharon Van Etten, Julien Baker and Angel Olsen w/Quinn Christopherson
When: 5 p.m.
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: The Wild Hearts Tour is a showcase of three of the greatest songwriters to have emerged in the past fifteen years. Sharon Van Etten, Julien Baker and Angel Olsen are all artists who earned their reputations with strong songwriting and an inventive take on their specific musicianship styles establishing their own artistic voice early on in their respective careers. And each has gone on to push the boundaries of expectation for what they would do creatively with a body of work that is inventive and emotionally rich. As performers all three women have an openness and freshness of presentation that lends the show an air of the spontaneous that is consistently strikingly compelling. Van Etten’s 2022 album We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong is a bit of a departure from some of her earlier work with a sound that’s so spare it might throw off older fans but it also has an intimacy that has always been a part of her appeal as a songwriter but this one feels so very up close and direct. Julien Baker’s early releases proved she is a gifted songwriter able to take a very stripped down presentation of the music and letting her powerful and emotive voice speak for itself with wit and perceptive observations of self and of being a human navigating a life often fraught with challenges and discouragement. Her 2021 album Little Oblivions greatly expanded her sonic palette as a songwriter with extensive use of electronics and deep atmospheric elements and yet none of it hid and rather enhanced the expression of a startling and thrillingly raw lyrics that just hit so powerfully with an urgent and honest exploration of conflicted feelings and working through emotional trauma in a way that felt maybe a little too real for some listeners. Angel Olsen has been refining and reinventing her songwriting style and sound since her 2011 debut EP Strange Cacti and with her first full-band release 2014’s Burn Your Fire For No Witness her career seemed to take off. Her creatively expressive vocals lent itself well to stories drawn from her own life and observational songs about the impact of culture and one’s own history on the psyche. Her evocative and pastoral guitar work and voice have worked powerfully in tandem across her career as she freely incorporated aesthetics and musical ideas into her work but always somehow being able to speak to underlying emotions that often defy cogent expression but which Olsen has been able to bring forth across six albums including the classic country flavored 2022 album Big Time which does draw upon an older aesthetic but is fully modern in execution which is no mean feat. Won’t be a subpar moment of music on stage for this show.

Sunday | 08.07
What: Telekinetic Yeti w/White Hills and Hashtronaut
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: When one thinks of gloriously epic psychedelic metal Dubuque, Iowa is probably not where you’d expect a band like Telekinetic Yeti to come from though the state has long been home to many musical surprises over the years. The duo’s new album Primordial released July 8 on Tee Pee Records, home to some of the cooler heavy psychedelic and doom bands of recent years. “Stoner rock” started getting super stale around 18 years ago but fortunately some of those musicians evolved in to doom metal and then the weirder musicians recognized that Black Sabbath and Sleep both didn’t bother with splitting up heaviness and psychedelia and in fact saw how they could complement each other well in creating mind-altering music. Telekinetic Yeti is of that vintage. White Hills has long been one of the best heavy psychedelic bands going since forming in 2003. Also a duo, White Hills has fortunately been impossible to pigeonhole because yes there are elements of metal, krautrock, space rock, post-punk, ambient, noise and the avant-garde in the group’s music the entirety of its career and each record has been an attempt to do something different in terms of sonics, songwriting, structure, emotional colorings and the potential for performance that goes beyond simple songwriting. The forthcoming The Revenge Of Heads On Fire out September 16 on Cargo Records UK is definitely a stretch into the kind of space rock territory fans of Hawkwind will appreciate. Denver’s Hashtronaut are also fellow travelers of the tripped out, slow burn, heavy psychedelia.

Sunday | 08.07
What: Death Bells w/Pendant and Candy Apple
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Death Bells formed in Sydney, Australia in 2015 but moved to Los Angeles in 2018 in search of greater horizons of developing and sharing its unique brand of post-punk. The sophomore album New Signs of Life was a refreshingly spare and stark set of songs with hushed moods and strong melodies. Its new album Between Here & Everywhere seems to have incorporated even more synths and electronic drums for an album that has even further refined the band’s use of repetition as an emotional mnemonic element that has an effect like connecting with ripples of water in the mind all while one hears in the arrangements an element of haunted folk. But one thing is for certain, Death Bells is not really making music in line with the more trendy sounds of modern darkwave and post-punk.

Sunday | 08.07
What: Machine Gun Kelly w/Travis Barker and WILLOW
When: 6:30 p.m.
Where: Ball Arena
Why: Machine Gun Kelly is someone whose blend of hip hop and rock you either like or find odd but one thing he has done outside of providing fodder for tabloid news is champion up and coming artists of promise in the realm of pop by bringing them on to his recordings and/or on tour. This time that artist is WILLOW. The latter for sure had a leg up in the realm of entertainment as the daughter of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith. But not all children of famous, wealthy people end up doing anything of interest beyond casual curiosity. Fortunately Willow Smith isn’t just skating by on those connections even though they have certainly helped her out along the way. Her musical career thus far has been one of reinvention and exploration from early, teenage pop music to her 2021 album lately I feel EVERYTHING in which she debuted a knack for writing pop-punk songs that really do articulate the overloaded feelings of adolescence well and with lyrics that go beyond tropes of the genre. Look for WILLOW’s new album <COPINGMECHANISM> due out later in the summer, the early singles of which find the songwriter evolving further in her fusion of styles and incorporating them into her own sound.

Marissa Nadler at Lost Lake in 2016, photo by Tom Murphy

Monday | 08.08
What: Marissa Nadler w/Bluebook
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Marissa Nadler is one of the most distinctive voices in modern music. Her musical style that may default to comparisons to folk, Gothic Americana, dream pop and what might be described as pastoral metal has an emotional vibrant and intense yet expansive quality that has rendered her music probably too dark for even the psychedelic and freak folk scene and not hard rock enough for heavy music purists. And yet there’s something compellingly otherworldly about Nadler’s songwriting that has rendered all of her albums and collaborations unique and requiring the listener to enter the songwriter’s emotional universe, one which has direct resonance in a universal sense as Nadler’s mezzo-soprano vocals and intimacy with the roots of her own psychology translates well into a personal myth making and storytelling that is instantly captivating. Her latest album The Path of the Clouds may be her finest yet as she was forced to compose the songs during the depths of the first phase of the pandemic and its companion EP the The Wrath of the Clouds reveals a broad range of emotion and an attempt to move through the anxiety and anomy the ongoing crisis is visiting upon everyone with any level of sensitivity. Bluebook these days is very much in sync with the broodingly brilliant energy of Nadler’s own work especially in the band’s current arrangement like a darkwave-flavored chamber folk band.

Tuesday | 08.09
What: Church of the Cosmic Skull w/Lord Buffalo and Keefduster
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Church of the Cosmic Skull sounds like it listened to a lot of Ya Ho Wha 13 along the line of arriving at its unusual brand of psychedelic chamber pop. Lord Buffalo has a vibe like the guys in the band went out into the desert and tried to find signs of the Great Spirit in the dark and forgotten places of the landscape and returned a little haunted, a little mad and a little inspired to make expansive, psychedelic rock to reflect those kinds of journeys outside mundane pursuits.

Thursday | 08.11
What: Ian Sweet w/BNNY
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: When Ian Sweet released its album Show Me How You Disappear on March 5, 2021 it was right before an extended period of great uncertainty for live music and music careers in general and the industry surrounding all of that. Perhaps it’s a bit too ironic but also oddly good timing for that record to have come out as its psychedelic pop was an exploration of anxiety, the traumas that fuel it and working through the paralyzing guilt that crashes into your brain when you take on the responsibility for the trauma inflicted and overthinking what could have been and what could be in an endless spiral of self-reinforcing, internalized punishment and turmoil. The album’s songs feel like both a realistic depiction of the feelings of processing the aforementioned and a salve on the psychic turmoil that can feel like an inescapable trap. In 2022 Ian Sweet issued the Star Stuff EP which deals with similar emotional territory as Show Me How You Disappear but feels more at peace in its exquisite atmospherics even when it hits some deep melancholic notes. Chicago’s BNNY has been writing similarly emotionally tender material but its own music is more in the realm of slowcore and dream pop. Singer Jess Viscius sounds like she’s singing out of a book of private thoughts and writings drawn from extensive self-examination and deep observation. He group’s 2021 album Everything is reminiscent of both Mazzy Star and Galaxie 500 in its beautifully billowing tonal aesthetic.

Thursday | 08.11
What: Red Fang w/Bell Witch & Aerial Ruin: Stygian Bough and HELP https://www.bluebirdtheater.net/events/detail/436500
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Red Fang is the sludge/doom metal band based out of Portland, Oregon who have managed to carve out of a niche for themselves in a crowded field with imaginative music videos, a healthy sense of humor and songwriting that goes beyond simply making melodic heavy music paired with superior tone sculpting. Bell Witch and Aerial Ruin are playing a collaborative set with a performance of the 2020 album Stygian Bough Volume I. In typical fashion there is a lot of delicacy and nuance in the crushing and transporting heaviness of the music like a mini-metal orchestra but without the cheesiness of some of the more melodic death metal bands, just mystical, haunting soundscapes that feel like a heroic journey through dark places. Opener HELP is a noise rock band also from Portland whose songs seethe with a rage against the power structures that have been increasingly making life more challenging and unsustainable for most people and in the end all life on earth as well. Unabashedly political that sensibility can be heard in its clashing, twisting, angular assault of drums, guitar, bass and vocals with a triumphant spirit we don’t hear often enough and the 2022 album 2053 is worthy of Killing Joke at its most righteously caustic.

Friday | 08.12
What: Local Natives w/Jordana
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Local Natives have thus far made a pretty good career out of writing the modern equivalent of yacht rock but with undeniably great vocal harmonies that incorporate superbly executed falsetto which isn’t easy to pull off. Opening artist Jordana released her latest album Face The Wall. Jordana Nye played all the instruments and did much of the production for the record. It’s a deeply introspective, confessional set of songs that feel open and gently but strikingly honest. What is perhaps most striking about the songwriting is Jordana’s mastery of transitions and orchestrating the layers of atmosphere. A lot of pop music has solid production or it wouldn’t work but Jordana’s work on the album draws you in and while very real about issues of anxiety and uncomfortable truths makes it all seem like something you can survive even if you may or may not overcome your life’s struggles for good or in the ways you had anticipated.

Friday | 08.12
What: DUG, Moon Pussy, Quits and Almanac Man
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: DUG is comprised of former members of the great noise rock band Buildings from Minneapolis. Noise rock can be a generic term so in the case of DUG it sounded like they took some inspiration from Laughing Hyenas and The Jesus Lizard/Scratch Acid in equal measure. Moon Pussy from Denver has a catharsis embedded in its eruptive and sometimes caustic but also angularly mind-altering riffs. Quits somehow sounds colossal and on the verge of breakdown and breaking out at the same time making its own sonic barrage exciting and engrossing. Almanac Man somehow splices together an unhinged sludge rock with math-y posthardcore. Like if Clutch and Neurosis had a baby.

Saturday | 08.13
What: Lost 80s Live A Flock of Seagulls, Wang Chung, The English Beat, Naked Eyes, Missing Persons, Stacey Q, Animotion, Dramarama, Tommy Tutone and Musical Youth
When: 5:30 p.m.
Where: Fiddler’s Green
Why: Could be kind of a mess, this many bands on one bill but of course all the acts will get limited stage time to play their 80s hits. But it may also be one of the only opportunities you get to see the legendary and pioneering New Wave band Missing Persons who were always different from its peers and still a compelling live band. Also Flock of Seagulls wrote plenty of evocative, moody synth pop beyond its own hits but will they play songs like “Wishing (If I Had a Photograph of You)” or “The More You Live, the More You Love”? Wang Chung is most well known for hits like “Dance Hall Days” and “Everybody Have Fun Tonight” but its score for the 1985 film To Live and Die in L.A. proved that the group was capable of crafting enduring art pop of urgency and intensity. Hope if you see their set they’ll indulge a track or two from the soundtrack.

Sunday and Monday | 08.14 and 08.15
What: Hoveriii (with Moose and The Crooked Rugs on 08.14 and with Nolan Potter and Petite Amie on 08.15)
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge 08.14 and Vultures 08.15
Why: Los Angeles-based psychedelic rock band Hooveriii (pronounced “Hoover Three”) recently released its new record A Round of Applause. The record is only eleven tracks and all roughly the length of a radio friendly pop song but it feels like a sprawling yet progressive affair of kaleidoscopic tones and a strong streak of experimentation in what sounds and structures the group was willing to indulge as it took the time to explore what it could do in the studio in shaping and crafting a sound that was fairly different from the jam band stylings of its 2021 album Water For Frogs. Urgent yet playful, the new album finds Hooveriii operating with a focus and economy of style without skimping on imaginative sonic excursions outside the established songwriting lines.

Monday | 08.15
What: Bodega w/The Sickly Hecks and Flora de la Luna
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Bodega is a Brooklyn-based art punk/post-punk band whose offbeat sense of humor and fascinating fusion of New Wave rock and the kind of pop band Brian Eno might have started had he not attached himself to Talking Heads and U2 for several years. Its sharply observed lyrics cast modern life in sharp contrast to its historical roots and the legacy thereof at least on its 2022 album Broken Equipment—a title that is such a great metaphor for the tools we’re given to navigate and make sense of the world handed down to us and making do the best we can.

Tuesday | 08.16
What: Spaceface w/Petite Amie and Pleasure Prince
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: For the past decade Spaceface has been crafting otherworldly, psychedelic pop and its 2022 album Anemoia is a genre swapping, colorful sonic collage of sounds and ideas that seems to free associate styles from across decades. A core of fuzzy guitar and ethereal melodies evoke 70s R&B and funk while the songs often sound like summertime music for a place the band !!! might vacation after being woken from cryogenic slumber in 100 years after a generation as yet unborn has dismantled the foundations of our dysfunctional civilization in favor of something more nurturing and fun for everyone. But really its just gorgeous, retro-furturist psychedelic music that somehow sounds hedonistic without coming off corny. Petite Amie is a similarly-minded band from Mexico City whose own music has lush, downtempo funky vibes like they absorbed the entire ABBA catalog along with heapings of Broadcast, Daft Punk and taking in the films of Sofia Coppola. It has that dreamlike quality that exudes benevolence and mystery like few bands do. It’s the kind of music those of us who remember going to roller skating rinks in the 1970s and 1980s wish we could have been listening to instead of the too often tepid pop hits of the day. The band’s 2021 self-titled album is grand showcase of transporting sounds and soothing soundscapes.

…And You Will Knows By the Trail of Dead, photo courtesy the artists

Tuesday | 08.16
What: …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead w/New Candys https://www.eventbrite.com/e/and-you-will-know-us-by-the-trail-of-dead-with-new-candys-tickets-356700158777?aff=odwdwdspacecraft
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Forming in Austin, Texas in 1994, …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead has been one of the more interesting guitar rock bands out of the underground that somehow both exerted an influence on modern indie rock while remaining a bit of a cult band. Its 2002 album Source Tags & Codes defied easy classification with its eclectic and inventive range of sounds, a pattern the band maintains up to and including its 2020 album X: The Godless Void and Other Stories. Known for its incendiary live shows contrasted with thoughtful and often high concept lyrics, Trail of Dead may be underrated but always surprisingly vital. New Candys from Venice, Italy released Vyvyd in 2021 and it proved to be one of the best psychedelic rock albums of the year with its hybrid of krautrock and shoegaze.

Wednesday | 08.17
What: The Teaches of Peaches Anniversary Tour
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Canadian electroclash pioneer and producer Peaches is touring for the anniversary of the release of her genre landmark album The Teaches of Peaches (2000). The album broke Peaches aka Merrill Nisker to a more mainstream audience despite its playfully profane and unabashedly sexual lyrics. Perhaps its biggest hit “Fuck the Pain Away” is a classic of modern electronic music and Peaches’ confrontational and genre bending live show blurs the boundaries between hip-hop, electronic dance music and punk in a way that both challenges preconceptions and welcomes listeners and those who are there for the show to open up to new ways of thinking about subjects you thought you already knew your thinking about.

Thursday | 08.18
What: The Weeknd
When: 6:30 p.m.
Where: Empower Field at Mile High
Why: Abel Tesfaye aka The Weeknd has spent the last decade and a half building a career as one of the most compelling songwriters and producers in popular music. Whether he lends his imaginative soundscaping to R&B, hip-hop, pop or his unique and powerful interpretation of synth pop or lending his skills to the works of other artists, Tesfaye seems to bring a creative sensibility that finds and brings forth the hidden potential in the music and helps that to highlight and enhance the work overall. His new album Dawn FM (2022) bridges all his musical worlds while also being one of the great darkwave records of the past decade. Expect a spectacle for this show especially given the of necessity large format venue as the songwriter seems the type to want to give people something extra for the trouble of showing up and following his music in general.

Thursday | 08.18
What: The KVB w/M!R!M
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: UK duo The KVB caught the attention of shoegaze and post-punk heads with its early releases starting a decade ago and garnering a bit of a cult following for its highly stylized multimedia aesthetics and seamless synthesis of electronic music and the aforementioned styles. Its 2021 album Unity is a further exploration of the techno production that has informed the band’s music since its early days as fused to downtempo pop in hazy melodies shot through with a forceful energy. M!R!M is the solo project of Jack Milwaukee whose 2022 album Time Traitor recalls a strange blend of early TR/ST and mid-80s synth pop and thus darkwave style but with some R&B sensibility in the beat making.

Friday – Sunday | 08.19 – 08.21
What: Down In Denver Fest
When: 6 p.m. – 1 a.m. on Friday, 12 p.m. – 1 a.m. on Saturday, 12 p.m. – 12 a.m. on Sunday
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: In the decay of local culture curation born of a robust local media covering music and the arts in a systematic and interested rather than neglectful manner local music coverage and festivals seemingly lack an awareness of the history of the community of the arts and the context in which new artists emerge. This festival was conceived of when in 2021 the UMS, which had been an actively communitarian endeavor in years prior, seemed to have lost its mooring and sense of mission and musicians representing a swath of local music cut out of that sprawling event realized they could put something together that was very much about the local scene and the people who make it up. Assembled in about a month to six weeks the 2021 edition of Down in Denver was a well orchestrated showcase of some of the best local music at any festival all year. This year the event is slightly bigger but in the same format of two stages and now the first day is a free pre-party featuring some prime local talent as well. No skimping. Look for our extended coverage with interviews throughout this week with some of the artists performing and photographic shares on the Queen City Sounds IG account throughout the weekend. To purchase tickets and for the detailed and most up to date lineup and schedule check the link above or here.

Saturday | 08.20
What: Barstool Messiah album release show for Whiskey Baptismal featuring Erica Brown w/Cyclo Sonic and Dust Beneath Dirt
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Herman’s Hideaway
Why: Barstool Messiah is celebrating the release of its thunderous and soulful new album Whiskey Baptismal with a performance including legendary soul, blues and R&B singer Erica Brown whose vocals in her own music are reason enough to go see the show but whose talents have graced numerous records including the aforementioned and artists one might think well outside her realm of musical expertise. Also on the bill is the exceptional garage punk band Cyclo Sonic comprised of former members of the Fluid, Frantix, Rok Tots and Choosey Mothers.

Saturday | 08.20
What: Punk in Drublic Craft Beer & Music Festival Feat. NOFX w/Pennywise, Circle Jerks, The Suicide Machines, Adolescents, T.S.O.L., Dwarves, The Bridge City Sinners, Bad Cop/Bad Cop, PKEW PKEW PKEW, Cheap Perfume and All Waffle Trick https://www.fiddlersgreenamp.com/events/detail/429519
When: 11 a.m.
Where: Fiddler’s Green
Why: Until this tour one would have said that the Jawbreaker tour was the punk tour of 2022. But there’s no need for competition in punk or music and this event happening at Fiddler’s Green includes some of punk’s most important bands of both the pop-punk and hardcore era. And also the great Colorado Springs, feminist punk band Cheap Perfume whose powerful and irreverent songs dismantling patriarchal behavior and human cruelty in general are always worth a gander. It would be facile to list off why every band on the bill matters but Circle Jerks, this might be the last time you get to see them on some kind of national tour. The group began after singer Keith Morris departed Black Flag and his combination of deep contempt for vested authority and surreal and pointed sense of humor found a vital outlet in a new band Circle Jerks which produced a body of work so potent and creative beyond simply being foundational to hardcore that its early records still sound fresh and telling it like it is. 2022 marks the 40th anniversary of the release of the group’s Wild in the Streets album and thus the setlist might lean a little heavy in that direction. The tour earlier in the year proved the Jerks still have the fire so maybe, just maybe, they’ll tour in 2023 for the 40 year anniversary of its 1983 classic Golden Shower of Hits.

Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, photo by Danny Clinch

Tuesday and Wednesday | 08.23 and 08.24
What: Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats w/Caroline Rose
When: 6:30
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Nathaniel Rateliff first made waves in Denver with his alternative rock band Born in the Flood. The atmospheric, heartfelt music that came out of that project garnered the songwriter and his bandmates fans far and wide and was poised for at least indie fame when it was invited to be on a live music program Matt Pinfield was helming, recording one of the pilot episodes. The show never aired. Rateliff went on to do some solo music as The Wheel which became a band with local musical luminaries and long time collaborators and friends and it too seemed poised for success in the kind of indie success most bands never quite achieve and that didn’t happen either. Nevermind the quality of the material, the music world is fickle and people just as worthy out of Denver have been overlooked for decades. But then Rateliff got together some friends for a band called Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats. The name probably came along after the music, as these things go, but the 2015 self-titled debut album yielded a left field and unfortunately locally ubiquitous hit in “S.O.B..” But even if you got sick of hearing it in Denver it finally propelled Rateliff into mainstream success and he took some friends along for that ride that one can tell from interviews he knows can end at any time so now the band is simply enjoying that success while it lasts and is now touring in support of its “COVID” album The Future which is the blues, Americana rock blend that has kept the band in the musical mainstream but there is an interesting spaciousness and stark production at points that point to an acute awareness of the fragility and tentative nature of life and what we take for granted when we allow ourselves to get too comfortable. It’s also the band’s best record of its three thus far.

Wednesday| 08.24
What: Mizmor w/Heretical Sect, Spiritual Poison, Cronos Compulsion
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Mizmor’s 2022 album Wit’s End is a meditation on the caustic effect of superstition gone wrong and the extolling of destructive irrationality above compassion and intelligence. In the language of colossal, atmospheric blackened doom it seeks a path through a time of civilizational darkness. Heretical Sect is a blackened death metal outfit from Santa Fe whose spooky atmospherics are driving and not really cartoonishly menacing and the content of shows 2020 album Rapturous Flesh Consumed shares some thematic sentiments as the new Mizmor record. Spiritual Poison you won’t get to see too often and it’s one of Ethan McCarthy’s always interesting noise projects, this one more ambient and enigmatic than even Many Blessings.

Extra Kool and Time of Calm. August 2016, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 08.26
What: Extra Kool album release w/DJ Jon Blaze and Calm.
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Englewood Tavern
Why: Extra Kool almost never performs live anymore but Danny Vincennie aka Extra Kool has been writing some of the most heartbreaking, hilarious, thought-provoking and creative raps of the past two decades and more. This night he’s releasing his latest album Not A Ghost…But Dead Inside and it’s proof that if you do something with integrity for your entire career everything you put out will have artistic merit and this album is on par with his entire catalog. Also playing this night is the political and also intensely creative hip-hop duo Calm. with their own literary raps and some of the most colorful, moving and beautiful beats in the Colorado rap game and beyond.

Saturday | 08.27
What: Madeline Peyroux and Joan Osborne
When: 7:30 p.m.
Where: Arvada Center For the Arts and Humanities
Why: Joan Osborne burst onto the national music scene with her hit album 1996 Relish and the single “One of Us.” One might be excused to not being into the single so much and perhaps misjudging Osborne’s other music based on the ubiquity of the single in the year or three after its release. But anyone that got to see Osborne around that time whether on one of her own tours or her appearances on the Lilith Tour in 1997 and 1998 witnessed a passionate performer with a raw, authentic style that couldn’t fail to leave a strong impression of the singer/songwriter as a performer and human capable of projecting her feelings and connecting with the audience in a seemingly direct way. For this show, Osborne will performs Relish in its entirety. Madeline released her own noteworthy debut album Dreamland in 1996 as well. The record garnered her a bit of a following but her 2004 follow-up albums Careless Love marked the beginning of her prolific subsequent career as one of the most popular jazz singers of the past couple of decades.

Monday | 08.29
What: Marissa Nadler w/Seance
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Vultures
Why: See above on 08.08 for Marissa Nadler.

Tuesday | 08.30
What: Cults w/Reptaliens and DJ Boyhollow
When: 7 p.m.
Where: HQ
Why: Reptaliens from Portland, Oregon may at initial contact seem like a cool, fairly downtempo, psychedelic indie pop band with earworm vocal melodies. But the more you delve into its lyrics and the subject matter of its albums something far stranger emerges with songs inspired by left field science fiction, bizarre pop culture artifacts and esoteric knowledge. After all who names an album VALIS after the 1981 science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick based on true events with possibly metaphysical experiences with an alien intelligence. Headliners Cults enjoyed real indie buzz in the early 2010s when its self-titled debut was released on Columbia. Fortunately the hype wasn’t overblown and Cults’ dream pop offerings had some vitality as evidenced by its often spirited live shows.

Tuesday | 08.30
What: Black Flak and the Nightmare Fighters w/Totem Pocket, Innerspace, Abandons and Brother Saturn
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: This is an all post-rock/post-metal show featuring Salt Lake City’s Black Flak and the Nightmare Fighters who might more rightly be considered a shoegaze band with Kate Hoffmeister’s dusky vocals. Abandons is the kind of band who maybe came out of an early interest in progressive metal and art rock that evolved into a skillful crafting of soundscapes and textures in broad, dynamic strokes without writing music aimed at fitting in with a genre or subgenre which is why it’s difficult to make comparisons except to describe the music except partially as sculpted waves of mood. Brother Saturn is Drew Miller’s post-rock project which means some blissed out guitar tonal compositions and electronics that are the more visceral side of his other projects in ambient music.

Wednesday | 08.31
What: Elder w/Belzebong and Dreadnought
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: ELDOVAR – A Story of Darkness & Light (2021) pretty much established former Massachusetts-based progressive metal band Elder and German psychedelic band Kadavar as purveyors of a heavy art rock that is as creatively ambitious as it is compelling beyond any ability to appreciate the technical skill going into it or the theory. It’s cinematic in the way that mid-70s Genesis was and the delicate touches in the composition give context to heavier passages and the album doesn’t get stuck in the tropes of any genre. Yes, we’ve heard epic, science fiction flavored hard psychedelic rock before but this album feels like something different and worthy of a listen to anyone with an interest in psychedelic rock and where doom can go when it’s not stuck in its familiar habits. Dreadnought is a band whose tribal, heavy pagan psychedelia is a good fit for a bill like this where there isn’t a tired formula guiding anyone’s music.

Wednesday | 08.31
What: Hiatus Kaiyote
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Boulder Theater
Why: Melbourne, Australia’s Hiatus Kaiyote is refreshingly difficult to pin down without sounding like they’re trying too many things. Their unique style of soul and R&B is so idiosyncratic it sounds like the kind of band J. Dilla would have wanted to have started or at least produced because the avant-garde jazz flourishes in the songwriting almost sound like well-produced samples. Its 2021 album Mood Valient is the group’s most coherent offering to date and its organic and evolving rhythms so fresh and unusual it sounds like an improv session developed until the rhythms are tight but never stale.

Best Shows in Denver 12/05/19 – 12/09/19

ShePastAway_Jonas Fransson_3 — **She Past Away performs at Marquis Theater on December 6, photo by Jonas Fransson**

Thursday | December 5

OceanBlue_DarinBack1 — The Ocean Blue, photo courtesy Darin Back

What: The Ocean Blue
When: Thursday, 12.5, 7 p.m.
Where: Soiled Dove Underground
Why: Dream pop band and precursors of modern indie pop, The Ocean Blue, makes a stop in Denver in support of its new album Kings and Queens / Knaves and Thieves. Read our interview with singer/guitarist David Schelzel here.

What: Dog Basketball and Dry Ice album release
When: Thursday, 12.5, 7 p.m.
Where: Old Main Chapel CU 1600 Pleasant St. Boulder 80302
Why: Dual album release show from experimental pop band Dog Basketball and “psychedelic dream punk” band Dry Ice from Denver. A rarity to see any show at Old Main much less something this underground and experimental.

What: Morbid Angel w/Watain and Incantation
When: Thursday, 12.5, 7 p.m.
Where: Oriental Theater

Friday | December 6

Altas_Jun8_2019_TomMurphy — Altas circa 2019, photo by Tom Murphy

What: She Past Away w/Radio Scarlet and WitchHands
When: Friday, 12.6, 7 p.m.
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: She Past Away is the Turkish post-punk band from Bursa that began in 2006 and making them early adopters of the current darkwave movement. Its synth and bass-driven songs have a different quality than its Western European and American counterparts while sharing that dark, introspective quality that is clearly descended from the likes of D.A.F., Depeche Mode and Clan of Xymox with an aesthetic that isn’t so far removed from its punk roots. The group’s third and latest album 2019 Disko Anksiyete saw a dual release on Fabrika Records and Metropolis Record and with a US tour currently under way it’s proof that its music transcends barriers of language.

What: Altas with Tiffany Christopher
When: Friday, 12.6, 8 p.m.
Where: Denver Open Media
Why: Instrumental rock band Altas performs at Denver Open Media for a free show with Tiffany Christopher. Altas released the powerfully cinematic All I Ever Wanted Was in June 2019.

What: Josh Miller (MI), New Standards Men, Dean Berlinerblau and 50 Miles of Elbow Room
When: Friday, 12.6, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Glitter City

What: Elektric Animals w/The Hollow, Star Garbage, False Report
When: Friday, 12.6, 8 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake

Saturday | December 7

MayErlewine_MichaelPoehlman — May Erlewine, photo by Michael Poehlman

What: May Erlewine w/Dango Rose
When: Saturday, 12.7, 7 p.m.
Where: Tuft Theatre (Swallow Hill)
Why: May Erlewine is a prolific blues folk artist from Big Rapids, Michigan with fifteen albums under her belt since 2003 including 2019’s In the Night. Erlewine cut her teeth as a live performer, according to a piece on MTV.com, while hitch hiking across North America and performing on the streets. For In the Night Erlewine picked herself up from the state of despair that hit many people in the wake of the Trump presidency and use her music as way to address 45’s ignorant and hateful and destructive remarks and behaviors with thoughtful commentary and observations on life and the American culture she and many of us know to be much more authentic than the spewage from a pampered, narcissistic child of privilege. But expect that music to be delivered with Erlewine’s usual warmth, nuance and strength with her dynamic and elegant voice.

Lettuce_CaseyFlanigan — Lettuce, photo Courtesy Casey Flanigan

What: Lettuce w/Antibalas and Chris Karns
When: Saturday, 12.7, 7 p.m.
Where: Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Lettuce is an experimental funk band that has crossed over into the realm of jam bands and EDM even though its music has ranged far afield of that for years including its 2019 album Elevate. The group freely borrows from styles and sounds to craft its signature synthesis of funk, Afrobeat, jazz and electronic pop.

What: Vio-Lence, Havok and Axeslasher
When: Saturday, 12.7, 7 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater

What: American Grandma presents SUPERDOG w/Midwife and Entrancer
When: Saturday, 12.7, 8 p.m.
Where: Rhinoceropolis

What: Saturnalia: Church Fire, Chess at Breakfast, Punk Rock Burlesque, Katalysk, Plasma Canvas
When: Saturday, 12.7, 6 p.m.
Where: Marquis Theater

What: Don Chicharron, Wolf van Elfmand, Dylan Earl, Tiger Saw and DJ Wax Dattie
When: Saturday, 12.7, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive

What: Cattle Decapitation w/Atheist, Primitive Man and Vitriol
When: Saturday, 12.7, 5:30 p.m.
Where: Oriental Theater

What: M I N O R w/Quiet Warlock and Phil Beard
When: Saturday, 12.7, 8 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake

What: Sharone album release w/Something For Tomorrow, Asylum 9 and 21 Taras
When: Saturday, 12.7, 8 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall

What: The Slacks, The Crooked Rugs and Sliver
When: Saturday, 12.7, 8 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café

Sunday | December 8

Anamanaguchi-LeiaJospe2 — Anamanaguchi, photo by Leia Jospe

What: Anamanaguchi w/Default Genders and Nullsleep
When: Sunday, 12.8, 7 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Mix an anthemic J-pop band with an 8-bit glitchcore project and a progressive rock/jazz fusion band and task it to make dynamic and engrossing video game music with an uncommon sense of space, composition and emotional impact and you have Anamanaguchi. Particularly on its 2019 album [USA]. Seems gimmicky at first but the New York-based band doesn’t get stuck in the hyperactive songwriting that plagues a lot of “Nintendocore” acts or the dull focus on displays of technical prowess and knowledge of theory that is behind a lot of prog. Just well crafted, expansive pop songs that feel like endless possibilities and the positive ghosts of childhood reverie manifested in sound.

What: Surrender Signal, No Comma, Downward Sun and We Are Not a Glum Lot
When: Sunday, 12.8, 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall

Monday | December 9

AlexCameron_ChrisRhodes1 — Alex Cameron, photo by Chris Rhodes

What: Alex Cameron w/Jackladder and Emily Panic
When: Monday, 12.9, 7 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Alex Cameron’s 2019 album Miami Memory is like a set of vignettes about people in crisis. But the take is one of compassion and understanding without trying to underplay or make light of the struggles. At a time when a lot of synth pop is generic, Cameron’s eccentric and psychologically insightful take on songwriting is strikingly different with a knack for changing up the vibe, texture and tone of his songs throughout an album. Just watch the video for “Far From Born Again” for a bit about Cameron’s keen understanding of the human condition.