The Picture Tour – Queen City Sounds and Art

The Picture Tour Debuts Video For Shoegaze Noir Single “Nobody Cruises Anymore”

The Picture Tour is releasing its new album Blood. Machine. Gasoline. in late October 2025. Fronted by guitarist Billy Armijo The Picture Tour’s gritty psychedelia fuses dark melodies with an urgency in the rhythms that propel the songs through those moments in your mind when a melancholic mood can cause your heart to drift into lost places. The lead single from the album “Nobody Cruises Anymore” is a prime example of the way in which the group’s dynamic as a trio pushes is completely unified in driving the song beginning to end with a percussive forcefulness. Fans of A Place To Bury Strangers will appreciate how the atmospheric guitar breaks ever so slightly into controlled fuzz harnessed to maximum effect while the almost motorik rhythms pulse with in a headlong pace.

The accompanying music video shows the band playing just out of frame interspersed with scenes from night driving in the city. As the song’s title suggests there was a time in Denver and many other cities when night driving had a certain mystique and attraction to the imagination of a sense of adventure and getting out into unexplored stretches of urban landscapes and the hinterlands. It also represented a certain sense of freedom that existed before private equity firms and other corporations bought up and out all the urban decay, lower rent housing and small businesses and turned them into the blight that robs cities of much of their character and appeal. It’s a song that feels like it’s headed straight into the future but indulging a nostalgia and sense of romanticism for something lost that was, in a word, cool and which helped to shape your identity and sense of place. The video and the song together resonate with the aesthetic of a Nicolas Winding Refn film and that director’s gift for creating modern noir. The video was edited and directed by John Bishop with cinematography by Sara Armijo and Keturah Bishop who also did the color for the video which was produced by Josh and Keturah Bishop.

Watch the video for “Nobody Cruises Anymore” on YouTube and follow The Picture Tour at the links below. The band performs at Mutiny Information Cafe with Owosso on Saturday, September 13, 2025 at 3pm with an album release show for Blood. Machine. Gasoline. TBA.

The Picture Tour on Facebook

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The Picture Tour on Bandcamp

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond September 2025

**múm performs at Meow Wolf Perplexiplex on Tuesday, September 30 , photo by Ben Raymer**

Young Widows at Hi-Dive for Ghost Canyon Fest in 2024, photo by Tom Murphy

Wednesday | 09.03
What: Young Widows w/Moon Pussy and Almanac Man
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Young Widows is a noise rock/post-hardcore trio from Louisville, Kentucky that emerged from the the remains of influential mathcore group Breather Resist. The new band was more overtly melodic but retained the energy and intensity of the earlier group. In March 2025 Young Widows released its new album Power Sucker, its first record in 11 years. It dives headlong into existential crises and meeting the challenge of finding meaning when so many things in modern life seem to undermine finding a secure footing in a rapidly changing social and economic landscape. Almanac Man is the angular noise rock threesome from Denver that includes Ghost Canyon Fest founders Brian Dooley and Sean Dove. Though clearly influenced by DC post-hardcore its core sound is rooted in the heavier end of noise rock. Moon Pussy is almost less a band than a glorious and awe-inducing sonic science experiment gone off the rails but so right and always an entertaining and riveting live act.

Thursday | 09.04
What: An Evening with Lydia Lunch (film, spoken word, Q&A) w/Redwing Blackbird and DJ Christina Graves
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Lydia Lunch is the legendary and foundational artist that first came to wider circles of awareness via her connection with the No Wave scene of New York City with her bands Teenage Jesus and the Jerks and 8 Eyed Spy. But throughout the 80s and 90s she made major waves as a spoken word performer, actress, writer and maker of avant-garde music. Since the 90s Lunch has built on her reputation for challenging social commentary delivered with her creative and confrontational style. For this show Lunch will screen her film with Jasmine Hurst called Artists, Depression, Anxiety & Rage.

Thursday | 09.04
What: Slow Pulp w/She’s Green
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Madison, Wisconsin’s Slow Pulp headlines this show with its charming blend of pastoral Americana and shoegaze. Its 2020 album Moveys (which got a major re-issue this year with live tracks) is brimming with hazy melodies and introspective lyrics that pair with a sound that might also be described as psychedelic slowcore. She’s Green from Minneapolis is a fitting opener for this show with its tranquil dream pop and slowly-unfurling dynamics. Its own soundscape is more gossamer in tone and texture with sparkling streams of tone that take on a vibrant warmth through a touch of fuzz tone. The band’s new EP Chrysalis sounds like a missing link between Slowdive and Letting Up Despite Great Faults.

Friday and Saturday | 09.05-09.06
What: Colorado Goth Fest
When: 6 pm
Where: The Pearl
Why: In its tenth iteration Colorado Goth Fest is split between two nights at The Pearl fka The Mercury Cafe. The first night kicks off with sets from dance-industrial revolutionaries Church Fire, electro-industrial project Clockwork Echo, synth pop band Cruel Mourning, darkwave/prog adjacent group Future Club from Albuquerque and synthwave outfit Tetrakroma Saturday night is headlined by influential U.K. post-punk/death rockers Ausgang after performances from premier deathrock/post-punk/New Wave hometown heroes Plague Garden, horror punkers America’s Most Haunted, Seattle-based Goth rock band Eve’s Black Heart and Xmal Deutschland-esque, dark post-punk band Funeral Process hailing from Albuquerque.

Plague Garden in 2023, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 09.06
What: Japanese Breakfast w/Ginger Root
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: The fourth Japanese Breakfast album For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women) was, according to a piece in Stereogum, inspired in part by Michelle Zauner’s reading of a John Cheever short story collection and thus the title and its almost archaic literary pretensions, tongue firmly in cheek. The sounds are a little softer in some of the vocal inflections but the songwriting is just as finely crafted with the sounds balancing the organic, the atmospheric and the textural perfectly with the usual expansion of the sound palette. Elegant piano figures grace the songs like something out of a late 80s Talk Talk record and on songs like “Honey Water” you can hear Zauner stretching as an artist into ambitious sonic territory with the instrumentation soaring as high as it did on Soft Sounds From Another Planet (2017). And yet this set of songs seems very grounded and personal as well.

Saturday | 09.06
What: Slow Teeth w/The Milk Blossoms and Nina de Freitas
When: 7
Where: Better Barnum Animal Center
Why: Slow Teeth is a shoegaze-adjacent indie folk band from Durham, North Carolina whose 2025 album I simmers with soaring vocals and cinematic soundscapes in a post-rock mode. Nina de Freitas’ husky and soulful vocals lend her delicate guitar work and psychologically insightful lyrics an emotional power that hits you unexpectedly as her songs progress. In her music you hear a touch of blues, jazz and R&B but all channeled through a more sonically expansive creative lens. The Milk Blossoms have been crafting their most heart-searing and experimental music thus far with its new songs not yet on a record. The stories speak to the exploration of the ghosts that haunt our waking memories from which we can’t escape into a flight of imagination except to use our creativity to alleviate some of the worst emotional pain of our lives. The music is masterfully arranged and orchestrated to really express that shadow work in real time making the songs both unforgettable and deeply affecting.

W-Th | 09.10–09.11
What: Ani DiFranco w/Tune-Yards
When: 6
Where: Chautauqua Auditorium
Why: Ani DiFranco is the popular and influential alternative folk artist whose early DIY ethic was rooted in the same values as punk and her spirited performances garnered her a cult following long before any labels came sniffing around. Selling albums out of the trunk of her car after shows and the like. DiFranco’s own Righteous Babe Records imprint she launched in 1989 at age 19, showing more initiative than a lot of young artists. 20 albums and thirty-some years later DiFranco is still playing high energy, charismatic shows with wit and thoughtfulness. Opening the show is art pop duo Tune-Yards. The latter first made waves for its innovative use of loops and transforming the use of vocals and ukulele into almost a samples-based songwriting approach so that a Tune-Yards song with Merrill Garbus’ soulful and layered vocals lending an R&B flavor with a touch of psychedelia. In 2025 Tune-Yards released its first record in four years with Better Dreaming. The record is an attempt to dive into deep focus in an age of distractions in the face of fascism and to deliver uniqueness and joy when a lot of what is being fostered is perilous conformity and destruction. The unconventional rhythms and melodies going into the album and its emotional honesty make a solid case for an effort in at least turning the internal tides against despair which is where it needs to start.

Bellhoss at Sarahfest 2024, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 09.13
What: Sarah Fest: Sunstoney, Machetè Mouth, Soy Celesté, Bellhoss, Fair Elle, DJ sets by Mis/s Flowers and clexstial 10
When: 10AM into the evening
Where: Manos Sagrados
Why: The femme-forward DIY music festival Sarah Fest is taking place for its second year but moving operations to Manos Sagrados in downtown Aurora. The lineup is no less noteworthy. The whole affair begins with workshops during the day and food trucks, vendors, tattoos, yoga, tarot and a size-inclusive clothing swap will be part of the event. Sunstoney’s bedroom/dream pop sound is soul-inflected and like the kind of music that would be perfect for modern, late night, roller skating. Machetè Mouth doesn’t fit into a genre box but Elise’s powerful and emotionally rich vocals imbue its hybrid of dream pop, blues, synth pop and R&B with a commanding energy that is vulnerable, vibrant and inviting. Soy Celesté is a punk artist whose lyrics are filled with a spirit of personal liberation that speak powerfully to the oppression of culture and toxic relationships of all varieties. Bellhoss writes the kind of indie rock that sounds like it came out of a youth spent listening to pop punk songs about heartbreak and the more poetic, Americana-tinged indie music like Rilo Kiley that sketches out the granular details of lingering melancholia but delivered with a defiant exuberance. Fair Elle is a singer-songwriter whose luminous R&B songs sound like anthems to overcoming soul searing heartsickness by discovering some forgotten lightness within oneself.

The Picture Tour in 2024, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 09.13
What: Owosso and The Picture Tour
When: 3
Where: Mutiny Information Cafe
Why: Owosso includes former O’er the Ramparts and Magic Mice member Aaron Betcher who is curating some of these afternoon shows at Mutiny Information Cafe since March pairing bands that might not be much alike but should be playing together. Owosso is like a combination of Guided By Voices-inflected noise rock and DC post-punk. The Picture Tour is the project fronted by former Emerald Siam guitarist and The Bedsit Infamy songwriter/producer/multi-instrumentalist Billy Armijo. For this band he is able to unfurl the shoegaze and moody-post-punk fusion that has been at the root of his more rock-oriented sound but informed by his gift for hooks and pop songcraft.

Saturday | 09.13
What: Circling Girl album release w/Genevieve Libien and Look at Fiona
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Denver-based dream pop group Circling Girl is celebrating the release of its latest album this night. Its intertwining, melodious guitar work and ethereal tones are reminiscent of an unlikely fusion of Throwing Muses, Lush and The Sundays but with songwriting and structures more in line with more modern indie rock blending of aesthetics and the songs sound like they were worked out on acoustic instruments to lock in naturally complementary dynamics. Look at Fiona is one of the few Denver bands in the shoegaze realm that seems to have studied how classic bands like Slowdive and Pale Saints sculpted soundscapes into the shapes of songs to get lost within and swept away by and then injected it with their own idiosyncratic sensibilities.

Saturday | 09.13
What: Indie 102.3’s Indieverse OK Go w/Dehd, Bartees Strange, Dead Pioneers, Pink Fuzz
When: 4
Where: Levitt Pavilion
Why: Denver’s indie music radio station Indie 102.3 is having this sort of capstone event at Levitt Pavilion to close out the summer. Headlining is the renowned, Chicago (now based out of L.A.) rock band OK Go. The group endeared itself to fans of early 2000s indie rock with its earnest and fresh melding of Kinks-esque Mod pop and high energy power pop. Its eccentric and elaborate music videos helped to popularize the band in an organic way that predated “going viral” in the way of social media marketing since the early 2010s. OK Go seems to embrace its eccentricity and its presentation and live shows invite the audience to do the same and have fun along with them. In April 2025 the group released its first album in eleven years with And the Adjacent Possible. Also on the bill is post-punk band Dehd (also from Chicago), soul-inflected, experimental indie pop genius Bartees Strange, politically-charged punk ragers Dead Pioneers and psychedelic stoner rock trio Pink Fuzz.

Saturday | 09.13
What: The Milk Blossoms w/Holy Garden District and Babelshack
When: 8:30
Where: The Broadway Roxy (free and all ages)
Why: Holy Garden District is an instrumental rock band including producer and musician Ben Clary based out of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Think something like a post-rock late 70s Genesis but imbued with pastoral aesthetics and an undeniably haunted quality that courses though its often gentle, glimmering and moody compositions. Babelshack sounds like they listened to a lot of 90s grunge, the better stuff like Mudhoney and the more post-punk and garage rock end of that like Gas Huffer and Love Battery. The Milk Blossoms close out the night with its deeply affecting songs with vivid storytelling and memorable melodies that convey a rare emotional complexity that upon repeated listens opens up depths of feeling and poetic expression of the nuances of human experience that may not have been immediately obvious the first time or three hearing the music and experiencing it live.

Saturday | 09.13
What: Deftones w/IDLES and The Barbarians of California
When: 5:30
Where: Ball Arena
Why: Deftones are one of the most popular bands in modern heavy music. But the group switched gears in a major way with its 2000 classic album White Pony when the music took on a more soundscape-y feel and was more like a heavy shoegaze sound before that fully became a thing a decade or so later. On subsequent albums the band continued experimenting and couldn’t safely be pigeonholed in terms of genre, a good place to be if you’re a band that doesn’t want to get bored as the years go on. One of the opening acts IDLES is indisputably the most popular post-punk band of the current wave of that thing out of the UK. The group’s songs are informed by a compassionate and working class ethos but the live show is a barn burner with Joe Talbot relating heartbreaking and life-affirming stories in the songs that hit with a vulnerable immediacy that has endeared the band to increasingly larger audience since the group began touring small clubs pre-pandemic. Embracing a critique of white privilege, the cruelty of traditional masculinity and an examination of class and support for immigrant communities, IDLES minces no words and does so with a spirited delivery.

Fred Frith and Janet Feder, photo courtesy the artists

Tuesday | 09.16
What: Janet Feder and Fred Frith
When: 6
Where: Bug Theater
Why: Janet Feder is considered one of the world’s most inventive and innovative guitarists and she has been a fixture of Denver’s local avant-garde/experimental music scene for decades as a musician, songwriter and educator. Her prepared guitar technique has yielded a sound like a miniature orchestra of sounds, textures and rhythms. Feder grew up playing music in a more traditional style as a guitarist including folk and rock styles but discovered a new world of technique and creative outlet upon witnessing a Thinking Plague show and seeing Mike Johnson and the band going beyond mere progressive rock to something that challenged even what that could sound like. From there Feder became part of the Denver avant-garde as a respected artist in her own right. The guitarist has several albums to her name going back to the mid-90s including collaborative albums with the likes of Mighty Fine Productions head and sound engineer/multi-instrumentalist Colin Bricker, composer Paul Fowler and the legendary Fred Frith. The latter was a founding member of Henry Cow, one of the leading lights of the “Rock in opposition” movement turning convention on its head. His list of collaborations are lengthy and include working with and/or contributing to the works of The Residents, Jad Fair, John Zorn, Brian Eno, Bill Laswell, Robert Wyatt and Mike Patton. In 2006 Feder and Frith released an album called Ironic universe that showcased their chemistry as high level practitioners of improvisation and imaginative musicianship.

In 2017 Frith and Feder performed at show at the studio space for Mighty Fine Productions and recreated the magic of that collaborative album while hinting at further refinements in their technique developed during the intervening years. On September 16, 2025 the two guitarists perform live again at The Bug Theater in Denver for another display of left field musical creativity and practice courtesy Creative Music Works.

Listen to our interview with Janet Feder on Bandcamp.

Wednesday | 09.17
What: Sextile w/Automatic and Mick Jeets
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station Perplexiplex
Why: Early on, Los Angeles-based band Sextile had more of a shoegaze-adjacent post-punk sound that swung more moody and dark by the end of the 2010s. But by the time of its 2023 album Push the influences on the group’s sound were clearly 90s Big Beat, 2000s deep house and dance-infused ambient music of the 2010s and 2020s. The 2025 album yes, please delves further into the kinds of aesthetic that would have been entirely welcome in underground raves of the past decade and a half as well with expertly crafted, kinetic beats like a more psychedelic form of gabber.

Thursday | 09.18
What: The Rapture
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: The Rapture were one of the early groups out of what was called then and retrospectively as the post-punk revival. But The Rapture’s core sound was something more experimental and while undeniably creating infectious dance grooves indulged in a gloriously disorienting noisiness. Like they took inspiration from the more wild edges of what The Gang of Four was doing on its first four records. Live the band also had an unhinged energy that delivered at what the records merely hinted at, securing The Rapture as one of the great live acts of the 2000s. Its singles like “House of Jealous Lovers” and the title track to the 2003 album Echoes are bonafide classics of post-punk. Not so long ago it was assumed The Rapture was completely defunct but in 2025 singer and guitarist Luke Jenner announced The Rapture would be doing a series of live dates even without longtime members Vito Roccoforte and Gabriel Andruzzi and this is your chance to see the new incarnation.

Friday | 09.19
What: Everclear Sparkle and Fade 30th Anniversary Tour w/Local H and Sponge
When: 6:30
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Everclear’s second album Sparkle and Fade (1995) broke the band to the mainstream with the single “Santa Monica.” At a time when the alternative rock wave was breaking and fading into relative irrelevance, the spirited performances on the album, its undeniable hooks and lyrics that were passionate yet vulnerable meant the band would survive the then burgeoning backlash in mainstream culture to “alternative rock.” Singer and songwriter Art Alexakis during interviews came across as such a genuine and thoughtful person it added a dimension to the music the revealed that source of the pain, perseverance and sensitivity in the songwriting transcended obvious commercial appeal. As with tours in recent years Everclear is bringing along other noteworthy bands of the 90s and this time out peers like Local H and Sponge who came up around the same time as Everclear and who probably toured the same circuits in the early days and well into the 90s so the spirit of camaraderie will probably permeate the show.

Friday and Saturday | 09.19 and 09.20
What: The Federal Theater Grand Opening
When: 7 Friday 6 Saturday
Where: The Federal Theater
Why: The Federal Theater re-opens with two free shows (with registration) this weekend with local heavy hitters in psychedelic rock and punk both Friday and Saturday. Izcalli and Los Mocochetes grace the stage on Friday night with hard rock and Chica-inflected psychedelia. Cobranoid’s hardcore and thrash infusion alongside the punk of Clusterfux, The Pitch Invasion and Vitrify bring the fire on Saturday.

Saturday | 09.20
What: Hooper and Dulled Arrows
When: 3
Where: Mutiny Information Cafe
Why: Hooper is the kind of band that formed over a decade ago before the emo and melodic hardcore fusion came back into vogue and so its sound is not fully grounded in either and has touches of Americana in the mix. Some nice shimmer in the rhythmic guitar leads like its own taste in emo was more in the realm of Hum and Sunny Day Real Estate. Dulled Arrows come out of a similar realm of local post-hardcore with a lineup that includes former Ghost Buffalo and Jagtown musician Tom Ventura.

Saturday | 09.20
What: B.E.E.F. LLC, Emmanuel Looney, Modern Devotion and Staggered Hook
When: 7
Where: Pablo’s (East Colfax location)
Why: All forward thinking, richly conceived experimental electronic projects in the realms of industrial techno and gabber.

Saturday | 09.20
What: Dildox (Los Angeles), Deth Rali, Plague Garden and As In Heaven As in Hell
When: 7
Where: The Crypt
Why: Dildox is an industrial post-punk act from Los Angeles whose immersive darkwave dance sound is reminiscent of early, electroclash Ladytron and early ADULT. Deth Rali is a psychedelic, glam rock post-punk band from Denver with a flair for the performance art-adjacent on stage presence with costumes. Plague Garden is probably Denver’s best deathrock band with rich New Wave and industrial synth soundscapes and commanding vocals. As In Heaven As In Hell is the project of John Bueno who used to be in punk bands and was one of the great local comics artists but with this he straddles the line between noise, industrial post-punk and dark synthwave.

Saturday | 09.20
What: Hibou w/Corsicana
When: 7
Where: Better Barnum Animal Center
Why: Hibou used to be based out of Seattle but now hails from the South of France and his new album It Seems To Me (2025) sounds like a complete fusion of his early bedroom pop material, chillwave and some kind of immersive ambient dream pop of the moment now. Corsicana is on the more delicate end of shoegaze with some roots in more indie folk sounds and sensibilities and chamber pop aesthetics.

Sunday | 09.21
What: Jillith Fair
When: 6
Where: Elaine Wolf Theater 350 S. Dahlia
Why: This showcase benefit Jill Sobule’s It Was a Good Life Foundation put together by Doug Gertner and Tim Campbell, hosted by Ron Bostwick from 105.5 The Colorado Sound, performances from Hal Aqua, Liz Barnez, Rabbit Joe Black, Mollie O’Brien & Rich Moore, Carla Sciaky and Tony Trischka possible Harry Tuft health permitting. Sobule was the beloved singer-songwriter whose heyday was adjacent to that of the alternative rock era and her social commentary, thoughtful lyrics and unique songwriting garnered her a much-deserved cult following. Sobule passed away on May 1, 2025.

Monday | 09.22
What: Pulp
When: 7
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Pulp was a post-punk band from Sheffield influenced by that city’s experimental rock and pop scene of the 70s and 80s and outside of some perhaps local notoriety didn’t make many waves until its spectacular 1994 album His ‘n’ Hers and its great leap forward in songwriting and storytelling although the 1992 album Separations was plenty promising on its own. But from then on Pulp became a bit of a phenomenon in the Britpop world and its tales of working class British life struck a resonant chord beyond the band’s home country. 1995’s Different Class rendered Pulp legends of the time with heartbreaking portraits of class and love and yearning and striving for living a life with some meaning and inherent dignity and showing a way to have some of that for yourself against the odds. Then in 2002 and 2 later albums Pulp went on indefinite hiatus until 2025 with the release of its new album More. which hearkens back to the themes of its 90s records but updated for more adult, mature sensibilities but everyone that isn’t dead inside probably feels some of the same romantic yearnings, has the capacity to find a vital strand in their soul to cling onto when the world seems to horrible at times and Pulp’s music is now and always has been a bit about these eternal truths of the human spirit of wanting to feel the vitality of life and all the good things that come with that.

Wednesday | 09.24
What: Oracle Sisters w/Sabrina McCalla and Casey Jane
When: 7
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Oracle Sisters is a band based in Paris, France but its members are from elsewhere in Europe (Denmark, Northern Ireland and Finland) and its sound seems to tap into a sort of 1970s, hazy folk pop aesthetic with a dreamlike aspect to the backdrop of its expansive melodies. The songs on its new album Divinations are both introspective and outward looking. The music videos for the album are reminiscent of late 60s Godard films but more whimsical and as playful as the music. There is something inherently hopeful to the band’s songs that even when they wax melancholic it’s implied that the low times are as impermanent as anything else in life can be.

Thursday | 09.25
What: Sunday Mourners, Tassles, Critter and Sonic Chick
When: 7
Where: Squirm Gallery
Why: Sunday Mourners from Los Angeles bridge the gap between upbeat power pop and moody post-punk with a sound like they could have come out of the late 60s but would have seemed like aliens from another era. Tassles is a bedroom synth pop/lo-fi shoegaze artist from Denver whose 2025 album net worth is one of the most refreshingly unvarnished pieces of psychedelia-adjacent indie rock to have come out since chillwave first burst onto the scene eighteen years ago.

Thursday | 09.25
What: The Haunt w/Magic Whatever
When: 7
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Florida’s The Haunt recently released its new album New Addiction. The sounds somehow successfully blend glitchcore and grungy-punk so that it sounds simultaneously like an alt-pop band and something more in the realm of what might be called industrial garage rock. That the group is difficult to pin down to something we’ve heard done so often before is part of its appeal. Its ability to project vulnerability and ferocity simultaneously with lyrics about struggling with interpersonal adversity is a formula that has garnered the group a bit of a cult following.

Friday | 09.26
What: Cherry Spit, Replica City and Scorplings
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: If one were to make a short list of Denver’s best post-hardcore/post-punk/noise rock bands every one of these acts would be on it. Cherry Spit is a little more wild in its guitar gyrations and feverish energy and confrontation. Replica City a little more angular, a little more DC 90s, a little more Pacific Northwest 90s underground too. Scorplings dip into that mid-west, math-y, jangle-jagged guitar noise that waxes into left field psychedelia around the edges.

They Might Be Giants, photo by Jon Uleis

Friday and Saturday | 09.26 and 09.27
What: They Might Be Giants
When: 7
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: They Might Be Giants from Brooklyn, New York is one of the few acts to pre-date the alternative rock era of the early 90s and made it through the end of the decade and maintained some critical and commercial success through to the present. Its clever, catchy, eccentric and endlessly creative songwriting and approaches to songcraft have evolved over time and thus while there is a musical essence at the core of the band that comes from a spirit of playfulness and a capacity to write sensitively about difficult subjects and with an absurdist fervor when the occasion calls for it, you can expepct that every album will be an exploration of ideas that invite you along for the ride. And the live shows are a reflection of all of that and extravaganza of sights and sounds that is endearingly idiosyncratic.

Saturday | 09.27
What: Almanac Man and Burning Sister
When: 3
Where: Mutiny Information Cafe
Why: Almanac Man is the Denver band whose angular take on post-hardcore noise rock is reminiscent of both Bay Area and DC post-punk. Burning Sister sounds like it listens to a whole lot of White Hills, Bardo Pond and Sleep. Its “Lethe//Oblivion” single was mastered by Tad Doyle of Tad which says a whole lot for the roots of the band. Also a little like if you slowed down a fast Butthole Surfers song in moments for a bit of the group’s output.

Saturday | 09.27
What: Swans w/Little Annie & Paul Wallfisch
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Swans is the legendary New York City band that influenced generations of not just noise rock, post-punk, industrial and any band doing left field music that defies easy categorization and which challenges musical orthodoxy. Its early records were abrasive, punishing and inspired in their evocation of human spiritual agony and expression of resistance to the oppressive cultural environment of the 1980s. Later in the decade when the lineup had changed some and included former singer and multi-instrumentalist Jarboe. The latter brought an elegance of vocal expressiveness and a new realm of melodic transcendence that helped to broaden the appeal of the band’s instincts for experimenting in musical form and style. The band’s first run ended by the late 90s following the tour for its ambient/industrial masterpiece Soundtracks For the Blind (1996). But in 2010 Swans reconvened without Jarboe and has since released seven ambitious albums that expanded its avant-folk palette and rhythmic layers while maintaining lyrics of literary sophistication that have delved into mortality, spiritual struggles and commentary on the nature of human society and civilization. By the time of Leaving Meaning. (2019), Gira had changed the nature of the band with various members being part of future albums not unlike the members of a jazz band but for experimental rock. The latest record Birthing (2025) seems to take on themes of personal mythology in a simultaneously symbolic and vividly concrete and human terms. This is supposedly the group’s final full tour and along for this jaunt the opener if Little Annie & Paul Wallfisch. Little Annie is the musician that in the late 70s and early 80s was part of the NYC post-punk underground who has worked with the likes of Current 93, Coil and Nurse With Wound.

Saturday | 09.27
What: Slow Crush w/Faetooth and NVM
When: 6
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: On August 29, 2025 Belgian, heavy shoegaze band Slow Crush released its new album Thirst. Even more than its excellent previous releases the material for the new album showcases how the band perfectly balances dense atmospheres with engulfing melodies and weighty yet dynamic rhythms. Live the band’s sound is oceanic and uplifting with melodies that move through your body that only the type of shoegaze with a keen ear for low end can accomplish. Faetooth from Los Angeles also engages in the use of heaviness in its own “fairy doom” style that blurs lines between dream pop and gritty doom metal. Its album Labyrinthine (2025) is a record that seems to explore themes of beginnings, endings and the mysteries of transcending the usual experiences of mortal existence. Definitely for fans of SubRosa.

Saturday | 09.27
What: Big Wild w/Shallou
When: 8
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Big Wild is the stage name of Jackson Stell who cut his teeth making hip-hop beats as J Beatz in his early teens. But by the time he graduated from college and moved to Los Angeles he had cultivated an interest in electronic music, which of course these days is a natural progression from hip-hop beats in the modern era and a transition that seems to have suited his eclectic style. In August 2025 the new Big Wild album Wild Child dropped and revealed even more of the artist’s gift for updating a fusion of downtempo and the kind of dance music people like Fatboy Slim and Moby were bringing to wide audiences in the late 90s and early 2000s. But Wild Child adds a kind of smooth psychedelic mood to the music that gives it unique twist.

Saturday | 09.27
What: Samia w/Renny Conti
When: 7
Where: The Gothic Theatre
Why: Samia’s new album Bloodless (2025) has the hallmarks of her previous records with the exquisitely crafted guitar shimmer and texture and her warm melodic vocals delivering emotionally vivid lyrics and creative storytelling. But if you see any of the music videos and artwork you come to appreciate that the artist is going for something darker like she’s leaning into the edges of personal darkness and how that can haunt you like an “elevated horror” film. But the music doesn’t sound like that sort of thing and the contrast is what lends the new material a creative dimension that perhaps Samia hasn’t explored as a songwriter as much in the past.

Bonnie “Prince” Billy, photo by David Kasnic

Saturday and Sunday | 09.27 and 09.28
What: Bonnie “Prince” Billy w/Tim O’Brien and Jan Fabricius
When: 7
Where: Swallow Hill
Why: Will Oldham is one of America’s most acclaimed songwriters and performers whose musical curiosity spans decades and styles though he is perhaps most best known for his work in the realms of folk and country whether with his old project Palace (and its various monikers) or under his adopted name Bonnie “Prince” Billy. His catalog is prolific and you could start anywhere and find something worthwhile and fascinating. But his latest, The Purple Bird, though expressed in the language of bluegrass and a kind of left field Americana has some of the most poignant and pointed social commentary to be put on a record in 2025 or in recent years and that alone in the form of immediately accessible music is no mean feat.

Sunday | 09.28
What: Rico Nasty w/SadBoi
When: 7
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Rico Nasty was shifting away from her signature sugar trap sound with her 2022 album Las Ruinas with forays into post-punk and industrial in the mix. Her new album Lethal (2025) consolidates her creative impulses as an artist while incorporating noisier glitch pop sounds so that her trap beats don’t sound stuck in the late 2010s and early 2020s when that music was sounding stale. Rico Nasty and her producers have instead crafted an entrancing set of soundscapes perfectly suiting the rapper’s swagger-laden stories of self-affirmation and catharsis.

Monday | 09.29
What: CJ Boyd, Church Fire, Luke Leavitt and Quinn Boudeleaux
When: 8
Where: Glob
Why: Composer, bassist and ambient artist CJ Boyd spent roughly a decade on what he called the “InfiniTour” from 2008 playing DIY spaces, art galleries and other DIY situations with his experimental soundscapes and pastoral avant-folk songs as well as deep forays into non-Western music and abstract jazz. He is now on tour again (but not on a permanent basis) with a stop in Denver with old friends the industrial dance trio Church Fire, avant-garde funk/ambient composer Luke Leavitt and multi-media electronic soundtrack artist Quinn Boudeleaux.

Tuesday | 09.30
What: múm w/Mr. Silla
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf
Why: Icelandic dream pop experimentalists múm released its first album in 12 years, History of Silence on September 19, 2025. The album has a minimalist yet orchestrated feel like something that might be offered by an avant-garde chamber pop band. But the songs feel like the snapshots of dream-like meditations on love, yearning and affection. Its organic elements are perfectly melded with the more transcendently electronic harmonics that have been one of the band’s charms since its early days as well as unconventional sound sources and a sense of being welcome into emotionally intimate and tender psychological spaces. The live show is sure to reflect this and the group hasn’t been to the Denver area since playing the Gothic Theatre in 2007 so here’s your chance if you’re in town.

Mannequin Pussy, photo by Millicent Hailes

Tuesday | 09.30
What: Turnstile w/Mannequin Pussy, SPEED and Jane Remover
When: 6
Where: Denver Coliseum
Why: Turnstile is the Baltimore-based melodic hardcore band whose style has evolved so much from its early days that is new album Never Enough is practically a punk infused shoegaze albums with moments of ethereal dream pop. In that way it has been on a similar arc as bands like Nothing and Ceremony but with more extensive and obvious use of synth melodies to lend the music a touch of psychedelia. Mannequin Pussy from Philadelphia started the same year as Turnstile (2010) and more than likely crossed paths in the endless tracks of the underground American touring circuit. Its own raging punk rock and willingness to indulge atmospheric melodies inside indisputably cathartic songs against the trespasses of sexism, religious trauma and other forms of abuse one can be subjected to as a young woman. The group’s 2024 album I Got Heaven is a revelation of some of the most righteous invective recorded by a band of recent years paired with memorable hooks and melodies.

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond April 2025

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

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

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

The Bug Club, photo courtesy the artists

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

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

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

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

A Strange Happening, photo by Tom Murphy

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

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

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

Dead Boys circa 2017, photo by Jeff Fasano

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

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

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

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

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

Salads and Sunbeams, photo courtesy the band

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dead Pioneers, photo courtesy the artists

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

The Backseat Lovers, photo by Allyson Lowry

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

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

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

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

The Velveteers, photo by Jason Thomas Geerin

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

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

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

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

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

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

Godspeed You! Black Emperor, photo by Tom Murphy

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

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

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

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond July 2024

Monday | 07.01
What: Blushing w/Wave Decay and Cherished
When: 7
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Austin-based shoegaze band Blushing recently released its latest album Sugarcoat with its blast of melodiously gritty and ethereal pop. Its flares of tone and anchored rhythms lend the group a dynamic that has an undeniable power on its recordings but even more so in the live setting where the band seems to have a an expansively friendly energy. Opening the show are krautrock/shoegaze band Wave Decay from Denver and the emotionally charged dream pop of Cherished also from the Mile High City.

Tuesday | 07.02
What: The Church and The Afghan Whigs w/Ed Harcourt
When: 6
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Both The Church and The Afghan Whigs could headline a tour of their own. The Church made its initial splash in the 80s with records that infused post-punk with psychedelic guitar rock color and thoughtful lyrics anticipating in its songcraft dream pop and shoegaze. Fortunately The Church continued to evolve as artists with records going into its later era that are among its most creatively fascinating including the twin albums The Hypnogogue (2023) and Eros Zeta and the Perfumed Guitars (2024), concept albums about a future not so far in which the struggle to find meaning persists in human society and the psyche despite developments in technology and the evolution of human culture in an age of techno-globalism. The Afghan Whigs seamlessly melded R&B and post-punk for a hybrid sound that predated and helped to define alternative rock in the 90s but with a sound and songwriting style that has aged better than a lot of music of the era. Greg Dulli has seemed able to write songs about love and relationships and his own inner turmoil with passion and poetic insight since the band’s early days. Live both bands seem very capable of bringing you into a heightened emotional space shakes off the regular world for the duration. Listen to our interview with The Church’s Ian Haug here.

Winnetka Bowling League, photo by Paige Sara

Tuesday | 07.02
What: Winnetka Bowling League w/Emi Grace
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf
Why: Winnetka Bowling League recently released its debut full-length Sha La La. Nevermind that for some listeners will be reminded immediately of The War on Drugs’ sweeping Americana psychedelia and the warm low end and ethereal melodies of first wave chillwave it’s a set of songs that has some poignant commentary on life in America with vivid set pieces in the lyrics that will be familiar to anyone that has lived through America since the 2010s and paid attention either because you were growing up in that time or observant and aware of the psychological climate of the time. It’s sonically rich indiepop for the time we’re in and its nostalgia-tinged lyrics honor both a flickering yet irrepressible sense of hope for the future and the wry acknowledgment that we could all be doomed given the political, ecological and cultural climate of the world.

Thursday | 07.04
What: King Rat 30 Year Anniversary w/Black Dots, These Kids Today, Anti-Formula and Terror Attack
When: 5
Where: EastFax Tap
Why: King Rat has had a bit of a storied existence across its three decades as a band and its melodic punk and dabbling with roots rock has remained consistently worthwhile with well crafted lyrics and a compelling live show. They play at 10 so all the “adults” in attendance can make it to the show after family obligations and home early enough in case they have to work one of those jobs that don’t give adults the day after a national holiday falling on a Thursday, Friday off.

Thursday | 07.04
What: TV Star, Angel Band, Cherry Spit and DJ Ryan Wong
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: TV Star is a jangle psych pop band from Seattle that sounds like it is tapping into 70s power pop and late 80s college rock like the later period of Paisley Underground acts like Game Theory, Let’s Active and Opal. Angel Band is coming from a similar sonic cauldron and indie pop. Cherry Spit, though, is a gouge the lightning from the skies noise rock outfit that includes former members of Quits and Endless, Nameless.

Friday | 07.05
What: Glass Spells w/Hex Cassette
When: 8
Where: HQ
Why: Glass Spells is a darkwave synthpop band from San Diego that has been making music with a clear leg in 80s New Wave and post-punk but more the modern approach bringing together influences, direct or indirect, from electroclash and Nu Disco/Italo disco as well as touches of Latin music rhythms. Opening is the synthwave deathcult performance art act Hex Cassette whose high energy shows make you part of the proceedings with some friendly but intense cajoling. And it all wouldn’t matter too much if his songs weren’t also worthwhile on their own separate from the stagecraft.

Saturday | 07.06
What: The Picture Tour, CELICA, Up Yours People
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: The Denver Goth scene hasn’t embraced The Picture Tour yet but it should because Billy Armijo and his bandmates have crafted the perfect fusion of shoegaze and moody post-punk. It has too much grit to be the kind of sadcore dad rock you might expect from Denver music scene veterans including Armijo who is the former lead guitarist of Emerald Siam. The guitar tones are searing and soaring yet imbued with enough melancholic melody and atmosphere to sound like a soundtrack to autumn. Up Yours People includes former members of Boss 302 and it is a mutant version of garage punk but noisier and more grimy and aggressive than one might expect even from past projects of the members of the band.

Sarah Shook & The Disarmers, photo by Harvey Robinson

Wednesday | 07.10
What: Sarah Shook & The Disarmers w/Alana Mars and DJ Jake Luna
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Sarah Shook & The Disarmers have been one of the more acclaimed bands in the broad realm of Americana of the past several years. On March 29, 2024 the group released its latest album Revelations on Thirty Tigers. The record isn’t short on the charm and warmth that has made the band’s previous releases so accessible and inviting and this time there seems to be a defiant spirit to the lyrics rejecting being defined by others and engaging in active self-discovery while finding some meaning in establishing healthy boundaries.

Diles Que No Me Maten, photo from Bandcamp

Friday | 07.12
What: Diles Que No Me Maten w/Wave Decay and Pink Lady Monster
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Presumably named after Juan Rulfo’s 1951 story of the same name Diles Que No Me Maten (which means “Tell Them Not to Kill Me”), this Mexico City-based band on the surface is a psychedelic folk group but he further one delves into its body of work you hear elements of dub and art rock with an ear for ambient soundscapes. More akin to the like of The Legendary Pink Dots than a modern psych rock band. Its most recent album Obrigaggi (2023) is a hushed and entrancing listening journey. Wave Decay is the Denver-based shoegaze/psychedelic rock band with far better than average tonal richness. Pink Lady Monster might be described as a No Wave-esque art rock and performance art band and a can’t miss act from Denver for the discerning music fan.

Saturday | 07.13
What: Pallbearer w/Inter Arma and The Keening
When: 7
Where: The Gothic Theatre
Why: Pallbearer’s 2024 album Mind Burns Alive has been a long time coming and its first since 2020’s Forgotten Days. The doom metal band from Little Rock, Arkansas has always been a cut above and more interesting than many of its peers because its music has had complex melodic arrangements and particularly on the new record a widely dynamic vocal harmonies. The new album apparently represented the group being together in the same city after a prolonged time apart. The heaviness of the album taps into concept that the themes and emotional content are what makes for the heaviest of moods and its sometimes psychedelic guitar excursions resonate with what peers like Amenra have been up to of late. Opening the show is former SubRosa guitarist/vocalist Rebecca Vernon and her The Keening project and her own flavor of transcendent, ambient doom.

Saturday | 07.13
What: Kontravoid w/French Kettle Station, Modern Devotion and Kill You Club DJs
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: For over a decade Cameron Findlay has been writing and release music as Kontravoid. With heavy, pulsating, industrial beats and dense and murky synths the project with Findlay performing in a white mask in theater style Kontravoid has offered a kind of dance music that draws upon the likes of classic EBM, the creative production style of Meat Beat Manifesto and techno. The latest album Detachment includes vocal contributions from Nuovo Testamento singer Chelsey Crowley. Opening the show are Denver acts French Kettle Station and his own fusion of glitch, electronic dance pop and performance art and Modern Devotion’s minimal techno.

Thursday | 07.18
What: Quasi w/Jeffrey Lewis
When: 7
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: Quasi is the rock duo comprised of Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss. The former some may know from his time in Heatmiser with Elliott Smith. The latter was the long time drummer of Sleater-Kinney and Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks and one of the truly great live drummers of the current era. After years of being inactive Quasi released Breaking the Balls of History in 2023 on Sub Pop and a set of songs that showcase the band’s gift for fusing punk and bombastic art rock. Jeffrey Lewis is the eccentric punk musician and visual artist whose songs are punk in spirit but not in the predictable way musically—just a disregard for convention of genre and expectation of subject matter like a one man They Might Be Giants.

Th and S | 07.18 and 07.20
What: AJR w/mxmtoon and Dean Lewis
When: 6
Where: Ball Arena
Why: AJR is the trio from NYC comprised of Adam Met, Jack Met and Ryan Met (thus the name, the last name truncated from Metzger) who are all vocalists and multi-instrumentalists and all are involved in the songwriting that’s a hybrid of hip-hop, indie pop and some elements of hyper pop and Americana. Opening the show is multi-media artist and folk bedroom pop artist mxmtoon who propelled herself into the public eye with her use of social media from a young age sharing her visual art and early songwriting with ukulele on a YouTube channel she started at age 13. Her soulful vocals help to set her music apart from what some may assume to be her natural peers and her songwriting demonstrates a poetically thoughtful perspective that takes on the usual subjects of the struggles of youth and looming adulthood with creativity. Add her imaginative production and free association of musical styles into a coherent one of her own and mxmtoon is easily one of the most interesting pop artists now more than flirting with mainstream success.

A Strange Happening in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 07.19
What: A Strange Happening, Plague Pitted Moon, Penny Auction
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Plague Pitted Moon is a psychedelic doom band from Rapid City that recently released its 2024 self-titled EP. Its dark, distorted drones are like a grittier, more metal-inspired shoegaze band. Penny Auction from Casper, Wyoming is similarly minded but generally more noisy and menacing like if someone that listened to a lot of Sonic Youth, Big Black and My Dad Is Dead decided to start a band that was more lo-fi than even all of that. A Strange Happening is basically an indie rock band if its members were all nerds for old radio serial programming and psychedelic garage rock but skipped on the 2010s version of that sort of thing and essentially a weird band that writes accessible music.

Saturday | 07.20
What: The Roots w/Digable Planets
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: The Roots are a band that early on adopted using live jazz instrumentation into its brand of hip-hop setting it apart from most of its peers especially when it launched in 1987. Stylistically Digable Planets shared eclectic and jazz and R&B rooted sensibilities when it too formed in 1987. Both projects have roots in Philadelphia though Digable Planets first came to prominence when it was based in Brooklyn. Both outfits released their respective debut albums in 1993 on major record labels with a follow up in 1995. Digable Planets split for a decade after the release of that album, the deep mood jazz psychedelia-infused Blowout Comb, while The Roots continued to build its cult following into relative mainstream success even before it became the official house band for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon in 2009. Big ups for the 2011 Michele Bachman incident. Although it hasn’t released a new album in nearly 30 years Digable Planets began its latest run as a live band in 2015 and The Roots for its own part hasn’t offered a new record since 2014 but both have proven themselves as vital live bands whose sounds and ideas have helped to shape the aesthetics of much of the modern hip-hop that dares to break the mold of standard and well worn ideas with imagination and a willingness to think of their own music beyond tradition and established style.

Saturday and Sunday | 07.20 and 07.21
What: Daikaiju and TripLip w/Pink Lady Monster (07.20) and Big Canned Ham (07.21)
When: 7pm both nights
Where: The Matchbox (07.20) and The Squire Lounge (07.21)
Why: Daikaiju is the legendary psychedelic surf rock band with truly exciting live shows with fire and breaking the audience and performer wall by making an entire venue a potential stage. TripLip could be described as a progressive surf rock punk band but really art rock in the more playful 90s vein and truly not easily put into any genre box though a perfect band to play with Daikaiju. Pink Lady Monster is the charismatic and enigmatic No Wave post-punk/art rock band from Denver. Big Canned Ham is sort of a psychedelic art rock funk band that apparently didn’t see some reason not to fuse Pink Floyd, Primus and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum.

Tuesday | 07.23
What: The Decemberists w/Ratboys
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: The Decemberists have long been one of the quintessential indie rock bands of the 2000s and beyond with its penchant for eclectic instrumentation, folkloric, literary lyrics and a sound that dips into Americana and chamber pop. Plenty of shade has been thrown the band’s way for being pretentious in its theatrical presentation, its often somewhat nerdy subject matter and the baroque aesthetic of its cover art yet it’s refreshing to see a band put that much effort into the small details of its music from its performances to the way its music greets the world separate from the live context. Not to mention the creative ambition to pull it all off and to establish a body of work with layers of meaning and nuance. The band’s latest album As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again (2024) sounds like a descendant of jangle rock and 80s indiepop as embodied by groups out of the Paisley Underground and the southeastern part of the USA like The Windbreakers, Let’s Active and The db’s.

Tuesday | 07.23
What: Facet, Moon Pussy, Abandons and Wingwalker
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Facet is the Oakland-based, noisy post-hardcore band whose self-titled 2023 album is half Amphetamine-Reptile-artist-esque atonal madness and DC post-punk. Fitting Denver’s own noise rock weirdo geniuses Moon Pussy are sharing the bill along with instrumental art doom trio Abandons and heavy, angular post-punk trio Wingwalker.

Tuesday | 07.23
What: Ben Howard w/John Francis Flynn
When: 7
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: You don’t need any kind of background on the artist or the making of the album to get something out of Ben Howard’s 2023 album Is It? The singer-songwriter whose career stretches back to the late 2000s suffered two mini-strokes in 2022 which initiated some lifestyle changes and the subsequent album which in some ways charts his creative coming to terms with and working through his life changes isn’t just introspective in expected ways the music is richly detailed and flows with a seemingly organic flow of electronic and not so electronic elements that is instantly engaging and is resonant with recent offerings from Mount Kimbie. The songs are illuminating and tender, emotionally vivid and Howard’s vocals, processed or otherwise, shine with a gentle warmth. The record is the artists magnum opus.

Wednesday | 07.24
What: Easy Honey w/Sex Wacks and Welcome Back
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Charleston, South Carolina-based Easy Honey originally started in Sewanee, Tennessee and have cultivated a sound one more often associates with the mood and energy of a psychedelic pop band from the opposite side of the country. But in its songwriting one hears threads of influence beyond obvious touchstones. There is a power pop sensibility crossed with the storytelling mode of The Kinks and the way the latter ties its captivating choruses with big, melodic hooks. There is an easygoing aspect of the music even though its wit and exuberance inform the songwriting and the performances. On July 19, 2024 the band released its new album Cupidity Unlimited and is currently on a wide touring leg in Colorado alone that began on July 7 in Buena Vista and continues through July 27 in Colorado Springs.

Friday and Saturday | 07.26 and 07.27
What: Mark Farina
When: 8
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station
Why: Mark Farina is the legendary DJ who fused house, jazz and downtempo with elements of other styles in an almost free association of beats and sounds to produce his trademark sound “mushroom jazz.” The latter hit like acid jazz mutated by left field hip-hop beats. Farina explored the inner and outer edges of that aesthetic across several releases in the Mushroom Jazz series. Farina’s eclectic, mellow but vivid production has influenced at least one generation of house and electronic dance music creatives Farina performs sets Friday and Saturday at Meow Wolf’s Convergence Station where the room’s spacious and spare accommodations seem like the right place to experience music provided by one of modern house music’s most significant artists/mixologists.

Tuesday | 07.30
What: Street Fever w/MDX View, Palace Guard, Dream Compartment
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Street Fever is the performance artist and industrial techno/EBM darkwave artist from Boise, Idaho who has a bit of an underground cult following dating back around a decade when he was a completely mysterious figure whose sets were in the realm of gritty darkwave before that became more of a thing within a few years. But more recent Street Fever shows have been more intense, seemingly more focused and heavier, harder beats perhaps heard in the most realized form on the 2024 album Absolution. The record whose themes seem to explore working through religious trauma and life under late capitalism is refreshingly not stylistically monolithic and start and has moments of sublime, melodic beauty and emotionally vibrant vocals. Live, Street Fever often brings the stage into the audience and involves those who show up in his personal catharsis.

To Be Continued…

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond December 2023

The Keening performs at Decibel Metal & Beer Fest at The Summit Music Hall on Saturday, December 2, 2023, photo by Jared Gold and Angela Brown

Friday | 12.01
What: Cherished w/Pill Joy, Replica City and Flesh Tape
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Cherished headlines this show with its emotionally vibrant shoegaze. Pill Joy has the kind of sound that seems to be rooted in emo but more in line with an atmospheric lo-fi slowcore band. Replica City is a shoegaze-y post-punk band in that slowcore lane as well. Flesh Tape from Fort Collins is supposedly an emo band but its favoring of noisy atmospheres places it in a realm of music adjacent to that of all the bands on this finely assembled bill.

Friday | 12.01
What: Decibel Metal & Beer Fest w/Khemmis, Cephalic Carnage, Red Chord, KEN Mode, Morbikon and Phobocosm 2-day passes available
When: 5
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: The first night of this festival featuring some of the great extreme metal bands of today includes performances from Denver legends like doom band Khemmis and internationally renowned death metal outfit Cephalic Carnage playing a rare local show. KEN Mode from Canada brings its harrowing noise rock for its second time through Denver in 2023. In September the quartet issued its latest set of caustic, haunting and cathartic songs as the album VOID. A companion to the 2022 album NULL, the new record is all downbeats but delivered with a spirited resistance to life’s inevitable misfortunes.

Hiss Golden Messenger, photo by Graham Tolbert

Saturday | 12.02
What: Hiss Golden Messenger w/Adeem the Artist
When: 8
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Hiss Golden Messenger is a prolific and critically acclaimed indie folk band from Durham, North Carolina. Don’t worry about the genre description so much because the group’s music is ambitious in its songwriting and sonics particularly on its new album Jump For Joy (2023). In its sounds you hear as much the influence or impact of the likes of Peter Gabriel as Palace Brothers. The group is able to navigate both crafting an intimate quality to the songwriting and orchestral arrangements. Not chamber pop so much as bringing rich arrangements to bare bones songwriting so that each composition teems with life without distracting from the emotional range of the music and its pastoral yet thoughtful storytelling.

The Keening, photo by Jared Gold and Angela Brown

Saturday | 12.02
What: Decibel Metal & Beer Fest w/Agalloch, Midnight, Primitive Man, Krypts, The Keening and Mother of Graves
When: 4
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: The second night of the festival brings to you The Keening, the latest project from Rebecca Vernon who was once the lead singer of legendary cosmic/tribal doom band SubRosa from Salt Lake City. The Keening brings forward Vernon’s gift for weaving together Gothic Americana sensibilities with a detailed tapestry of atmospheric sweep and orchestral arrangements like something out of a hidden, mythical west. The new album Little Bird is a gorgeously doom-laden set of songs that would be a great soundtrack for a future film from John Adams, Zelda Adams and Toby Poser whose films Hellbender and Where the Devil Roams are right in line with the moods Vernon excels at evoking in her music. Agalloch reunited for some shows in 2023 and this is one of them. The Portland, Oregon-based band and its transcendental, folky black metal has exerted a strong influence on most of the better bands mining that sonic territory since the group’s origins in the 90s. Primitive Man will likely be the heaviest band of the whole festival with the trio’s mastery of crushing dynamics and orchestrated emotional release through colossal noise.

Rosegarden Funeral Party, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 12.02
What: Rosegarden Funeral Party w/Faces Under the Mirror and WitchHands
When: 8
Where: The Crypt
Why: Rosegarden Funeral Party from Dallas puts on one of the most impassioned performances in the realm of modern Goth and post-punk. Leah Lane isn’t just a front person with the commanding voice, her guitar work is a refreshing departure from the thin and minimalistic sound that has been plaguing much of darkwave and post-punk lately. Faces Under the Mirror is the long-running EBM project of Jayke Haven and one of the few projects in that particle style that seems to continue to innovate with emotionally vibrant songwriting. WitchHands is the excellent deathrock band from Colorado Springs.

Tuesday | 12.05
What: Blood Club w/Dustbowl Champion and Floats
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Blood Club is a darkwave band from Chicago whose lo-fi production is fairly standard for a certain stripe of post-punk these days. But its ethereal guitar work is more diverse and creative than a lot of what’s going on in various corners of current post-punk. Frontman Jess Flores was once a member of French Police who have attained a bit of a cult status these days and Blood Club is not so far removed from that sound with icy synths and spindly guitar tone but more minimal and spacious. Dustbowl Champion from Fresno, California is cut from similar cloth but as a solo project with echoing guitar, vocals and synth with a spare drum machine beat like something recorded to a cassette and transferred to an iPhone for mixing. Floats is a lo-fi punk pop band from Texas that sound like its members got into some of that 2010s garage punk and indiepop and wanted do something with the same spirit but a different sound.

Thursday | 12.07
What: Soy Celesté, Pretty. Loud, To Be Astronauts
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: It would be a mistake to genre pigeonhole Soy Celesté but based on the debut Break Out EP there’s a bit of fuzzy lo-fi pop and the kind of socially aware and confessional indie rock that one hasn’t heard much of since the 2000s. Pretty Loud appears to be the kind of pop band that is inspired by music from theater and the vaudeville chamber pop sort of thing but live seem to be fairly animated and driven by piano/keyboard melodies and vocals. To Be Astronauts has a sound reminiscent of 1990s grunge period alternative rock bands with some blues in the mix.

Saturday | 12.09
What: SORROWS, Dragon Drop and Bell Mine w/DJ set by Shhadows
When: 8
Where: Glob
Why: This is a show featuring some of the more inventive experimental pop songwriters from Denver. SORROWS is a duo comprised of vocalist Glynnis Braan and percussionist Lawrence Snell both of whom contribute electronic production to songs that are an evolution of downtempo with soaring, melancholic vocals and deep mood. Dragon Drop centers around the hyperpop and darkwave songwriting of former EVP singer/guitarist and current member of Princess Dewclaw Amanda Baker. Bell Mine is an ethereal darkwave solo project whose music seems resonant with the sound and style of artists like Laurel Halo and The Knife.

Saturday | 12.09
What: Messiahvore w/Church Fire and Moon Pussy
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Messiahvore’s eclectic heavy sound came out of its members’ collective experience with making sludge metal, doom and hard rock in the past couple of decades and more. But Messiahvore hits as more experimental, more psychedelic and with lyrics that dabble more in social commentary. And really one of the more entertaining and commanding bands in Denver’s heavy music underground. So it’s different to get to see very political, industrial darkwave dance band Church Fire on the bill with its own sense of play while delivering vital and insightful lyrics about the state of things without waxing too topical. Not to mention Moon Pussy whose irreverent humor tends to happen between songs when Crissy Cuellar gets on the mic with her self-aware dad joke routine that isn’t truly a routine because it’s always off the cuff. But the songs are some of the most cathartic, abrasive and inspiring blasts of noise rock happening anywhere right now.

Sunday | 12.10
What: The Playground Ensemble Presents: Tatsuya Nakatani
When: 6
Where: Leon Gallery
Why: Tatsuya Nakatani is a renowned avant-garde composer and percussionist originally from Japan who now makes Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico his home. This set will be one of the musician’s solo sets and an improvisation piece done in collaboration with Denver’s Playground Ensemble director and Conrad Kehn who is a bit of a figure in the local music scene in his own right with modern classical and the avant-garde in recent years and with industrial and Gothic rock in the 90s through the turn of the century.

Sunday | 12.10
What: Jarhead Fertilizer w/Phobophilic, Crownovhornz and Death Possession
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Jarhead Fertilizer is the influential grindcore band from Ocean City, Maryland and currently touring in support of the December 8, 2023 release of its latest album Carceral Warfare. Phobophilic is a deathgrind band from Fargo, North Dakota. Crownovhornz from Pennsylvania released an unusual hip-hop album called Appalachian Aesthetic in August 2023 that is a tale of life in impoverished America and about life in bars and jail. Definitely within the realm of alternative hip-hop. But who knows? Maybe they’ll be playing some death metal too since that’s a tag on the Bandcamp page for the record.

They Are Gutting a Body of Water, photo from Bandcamp

Tuesday | 12.12
What: They Are Gutting a Body of Water w/Full Body 2, The Red Scare and Empty4400
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: They Are Gutting a Body of Water brings its brand of lo-fi bedroom shoegaze jangle from Philly to Denver this night. And by shoegaze do not take that to mean conventionally pretty guitar work and maybe some melancholic vibe. It’s more the noisy, disorienting, genuinely psychedelic sound but threaded together with the kind of weirdo twee indiepop of the 90s and 2000s. Also from Philadelphia is Full Body 2 whose own shoegaze flavor is steeped in ambient breakcore soundscaping. The Red Scare from Fort Collins will provide plenty of its own hazy, distortion-sculpting post-punk. Some might call it shoegaze but those people might also think Daydream Nation is a shoegaze album. The Red Scare if it can be called post-punk is more that vein of deep, gritty, disorienting atmospheric noise with some actual song structure. Empty4400 is more on the grittier, punk/emo-rooted end of the shoegaze spectrum for this night.

Limbwrecker in 2023, photo by Tom Murphy

Thursday | 12.14
What: Limbwrecker, Grief Ritual, Holographic American and ZEPHR
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: It’s good to know that mixed bills can happen and with this you get one of the great hardcore/extreme metal bands from Denver in Limbwrecker whose caustic yet playfully delivered sounds and cathartic and primal vocals is definitely for people into powerviolence. Grief Ritual’s own style of hardcore has plenty of math-y progressions that make the more cutting, atmospheric sounds and gruff and impassioned vocals hit a little harder with the realization that the songs are often a melancholic exploration of tragedy and a critique of an abusive economic and political reality experienced by all of us daily. Holographic American includes Caleb Tardio who plays keyboards in noteworthy Denver melodic death metal band NightWraith. But HoloAm has more in common with one of his older bands, the mathrock/progressive alternative rock band I Sank Molly Brown. But more noise rock, more in the vein of post-rock of the vintage one found in the American midwest in the 90s. ZEPHR is a trio also from Denver whose music has brought together elements of pop-punk but the kind that borders on emo, risking that noisy and not perfectly melodic yet compelling imperfection, and performed with a raw and heartfelt energy.

Friday | 12.15
What: Cathedral Bells, Juli a n St. Nightmare and Hex Cassette
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Cathedral Bells is a dream pop/shoegaze from Orlando, Florida whose 2023 album Everything at Once was released in May through eclectic Philadelphia-based Born Losers Records. Its sound is the kind of melodious, ethereal soundscape-y guitar pop that seems to draw on 80s synth pop and jangle-y indie rock of the 80s vintage as well circa C86 and Sarah Records. Also on this bill is one-human death/blood cult Hex Cassette and his energized, industrial/EBM dance music. Sometime during his set you will be asked to offer a blood sacrifice and he will come out into the audience and mix it up with the people that show up. But all in good fun. And this will be one of the final live shows you’ll get to see from Denver darkwave/post-punk band Julian St. Nightmare. In its short tenure as a live band, although it formed and started writing music in 2018, the quintet has developed its fusion of spidery post-punk, garage rock, surf and dark synthpop into an emotionally rich and powerful body of work and intense and electrifying live show. Listen to our interview with members of the group on the Queen City Sounds Podcast.

Friday | 12.15
What: Alexandra Kay w/Haley Mae Campbell
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Independent country artist Alexandra Kay released her debut album All I’ve Ever Known on October 26, 2023. Kay has garnered a large fanbase online with millions of followers on TikTok and hundreds of thousand followers on Instagram and nearly as many subscribers on YouTube. But none of those numbers would mean much if Kay didn’t have the talent to warrant attention. Fortunately, her new album is a showcase for Kay’s diverse songwriting style with songs that seem to have poignant personal insight and lack the posi bravado that is too common in popular music. Kay’s songs shimmer with an inner light provided in part by lap steel and the perfect blend of acoustic and electric guitar working to craft the backdrop to Kay’s vibrant vocals to cinematic effect. Her music may be rooted in country but its of the kind that has inherent appeal beyond genre and crosses well over into the realm of pop and in moments even dream pop.

Saturday | 12.16
What: Mindforce w/Destiny Bond, Moral Law and guest
When: 7
Where: D3
Why: Mindforce is the thrashcore band from Poughkeepsie, New York touring in support of its 2022 album New Lords. Destiny Bond’s particular style of hardcore seems more steeped in anarcho punk and a more experimental, noisy yet melodic sound like some DC hardcore and early emo with a touch of the kinds of punk that would have influenced or channeled into Christian Death like Adolescents. But all with a political edge and socially critical lyrics. Moral Law is a vegan, straight edge band and its own music like a very focused yet seething hardcore at times that sounds in the realm of grind.

Wednesday | 12.20
What: The Gamits w/Bandaid Brigade and despAIR Jordan
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: The Gamits are Denver pop punk legends and influential in the local punk scene at least certainly among punk acts with roots going back before the 2010s and with vocalist and guitarist Chris Fogal living abroad these days this is a rare live performance. Bandaid Brigade is a band from San Diego who seem to have combined elements of pop punk, yacht rock and adult contemporary without it imploding into an ungodly mixture. The members of despAIR Jordan were and in some cases are members of formerly or current prominent bands in the Denver punk scene like SleeperHorse, Sugar Skulls and Marigolds and Pinhead Circus and currently releasing some finely crafted songs of its own in a more atmospheric post-hardcore vein.

Commerce City Rollers, photo from Bandcamp

Thursday | 12.21
What: Up Yours People, The Picture Tour and Commerce City Rollers
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Up Yours People is the latest band from Rich Groskopf. The Picture Tour will bring the rainy day shoegaze/dream pop sound to the proceedings and thus more than a touch of musical elegance to the evening. And yes Commerce City Rollers is the band that used to play the dive bars at punk shows in the late 90s with its melodic garage punk fronted by Maranda “MJ” Gaylord that had basically split for years until reuniting a bit before the pandemic and releasing a 2019 album Backstories.

Friday and Saturday | 12.22 and 12.23
What: DeVotchKa performing How it Ends (with Claire Heywood on 12.23)
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Across two nights, the legendary “gypsy punk” band DeVotchKa performs its 2004, and arguably finest, album How It Ends in its entirety including its heartbreaking title track. It was the last album the group released before garnering greater success and fame with its music featuring in the 2006 film Little Miss Sunshine. Its orchestral arrangements and depth of feeling and stirring melodies was a big leap forward for the band that some of us got to see play shows in dive bars like 15th St. Tavern and unglamorous opening slots. But something clicked somewhere and the ambition of the songwriting expanded greatly and now while the band isn’t necessarily even indie famous it can command a sizable audience in and well beyond Denver with shows that while somewhat choreographed still pack that emotional punch that has made it worth witnessing in person.

Saturday | 12.23
What: Church Fire, The Milk Blossoms, Curta and debthedemo
When: 8:30
Where: The Roxy on Broadway
Why: This show will put you through some moods that’ll be good for you this holiday season. Church Fire will bring the energized industrial dance synth pop and all the feels. The Milk Blossoms will perform its heart-rending, gossamer tender pop songs this time in a slightly different configuration since drummer Tyler Lindgren won’t be able to perform replaced by bassist David Samuelson behind the kit. Curta’s weirdo alternative hip-hop returns to Denver for a rare engagement from Chicago and Boulder’s debthedemo will inject some beautifully crafted ambient rap house with performance art strangeness. In most ways the local show of the week for the discerning listener.

Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 12.30
What: Slim Cessna’s Auto Club w/Moon Pussy and Weathered Statues
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Slim Cessna’s Auto Club headlines two nights at the Hi-Dive for the New Years Eve weekend with its energetic and brilliantly executed Vaudevillian Americana post-punk. For this first night you also get to see Moon Pussy, the arch practitioners of dangerous noise rock delivered with an irreverent humor and incredibly intensity and Weathered Statues whose particular style of post-punk is more akin to the more death rock and spidery punk sound of Xmal Deutschland and Christian Death than the synth-driven style of groups more in line with darkwave.

Sunday | 12.31
What: Slim Cessna’s Auto Club w/Palehorse/Palerider and Snakes
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: This second night of the SCAC headline run for the holiday features opening acts Palehorse/Palerider whose psychedelic, deserty post-punk doom truly creates a deep sense of space and enigmatic moods and twangy garage rock Americana of Snakes. All killer, no filler.

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond October 2023

**Blonde Redhead performs at The Gothic Theatre on October 24, 23**

The Brook & The Bluffs, photo by Noah Tidmore

Sunday | 10.01
What: The Brook & The Bluff w/Bendigo Fletcher
When: 7
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: The members of The Brook & The Bluff grew up in the same neighborhood in Birmingham, Alabama and after forming in 2016 built their songwriting on a foundation of folk rock’s observational lyrics and delicate melodies. But the band relocated to Nashville in 2018 and self-released its self-titled debut album that same year. Since then the group has garnered a wide national audience and in 2023 the band independently released its latest album, Bluebeard. If 2021’s Yard Sale was inspired by capturing the feel of 1970s Laurel Canyon folk rock the new record even more closely embraces modern production and sounds with touches of R&B and hip-hop in the mix including vocal processing akin to an unexpected influence on the group in Frank Ocean. So if you’re expecting a show of the indie folk sound that launched the band you will get to experience plenty of that but also an evolution of that aesthetic.

Nothing But Thieves, photo by Beatriz Oliveira

Sunday | 10.01
What: Nothing But Thieves w/Kid Kapichi
When: 6:30 doors/7:15 show
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: English alternative rock band Nothing But Thieves released its fourth album Dead Club City in June 2023. Like its 2020 predecessor Moral Panic the album is step away from its hard rock sound of the early period of the band’s career. But this has only meant a broader emotional palette and songwriting range. Still intact is the group’s knack for anthemic epics and the thoughtful lyrics that have been there from the beginning and more than a bit of that early grit in the live shows.

Monday | 10.02
What: Igorrr w/Melt Banana and Otto Von Schirach
When: 6
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Igorrr is the stage name of Gautier Serre who combines classical music, black metal, breakcore structure and production and trip hop into strange yet compelling combination of all of those in a way that might appeal to fans of Mr. Bungle and Secret Chiefs 3 who genre splice plenty on their own. Since 2017 Igorrr has been a full band and its most recent album Spirituality and Distortion (2020) ruthlessly and rapidly jump cuts styles and rhythms so that at times it is reminiscent of Aphex Twin and at others like Naked City mashed up with 8-bit music. So opening this tour in addition to breakcore/industrial weirdo Otto Von Schirach you get to witness the genre smashing, Japanese experimental band Melt Banana who themselves fuse grindcore, industrial, breakcore, noise rock, pop and dance music into a furious and coherent whole that evolves over the course of a song. Sometimes the band has so much sonic momentum it can be genuinely and thrillingly overwhelming. Consistently one of the greatest live bands you’ll see all year.

Tuesday | 10.03
What: Avskum w/Resistant Culture and Poison Tribe
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Avskum formed in Sweden in 1982 and has been one of the foundational bands of international D-beat and hardcore. Currently touring in support of its latest album En Annan Värld Är Möjlig. Opening are two of Denver’s own fine practitioners of the raw hardcore arts Resistant Culture and Poison Tribe.

Tuesday | 10.03
What: Tool w/Emily Wolfe https://www.treventscomplex.com/events/detail/tool
When: 6:30 doors/8 show
Where: Budweiser Events Center
Why: Tool occupies a unique place in rock music history as having emerged in Los Angeles at a time when glam metal was king and art rock bands like Tool were an anomaly that would come to benefit from the cultural tsunami that was alternative music. But Tool didn’t quite fit into that milieu either other than being different and having lyrics that were about subjects and from perspectives that were at an angle decided out of step with the mainstream. But its elaborate and ambitious songwriting and creative vision weathered the backlash against alternative music in the mid-90s precisely because it offered something unusual and forward thinking and wasn’t directly connected with a musical trend that was washing out and being replaced, for the most part, with a less vital version. The band has always operated on its own time and on its own terms supported by a cult following and it has used its status to help shine a light on other interesting artists of its time including bands that were a direct influence like King Crimson. In 2019 Tool released its first album in 13 years, Fear Inoculum. The sprawling release was vintage Tool with its intricate yet hypnotic song structures and themes of aging and reflecting on one’s experiences and whether or not one’s accumulated knowledge constitutes wisdom. Opening this tour is talented, hard blues rock guitarist/songwriter Emily Wolfe whose new album the political and gloriously brash The Blowback releases on October 20, 2023.

Wednesday | 10.04
What: Chris Farren
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Chris Farren, gotta give it to him, to call his 2023 album Doom Singer (Polyvinyl Records) because look at the world. And partly because his often surreal and irreverent humor and sense of irony informs not just his lyrics but music videos like that for “Cosmic Leash” and his presentation of the music generally. But in that humor Farren isn’t hiding the heartfelt emotions and his songs are often emotionally vibrant epics that have a vulnerability built into the bluster which sets him very much apart from many artists. One might call it emo and it has that sing along vibe but tempered with a self-awareness one might expect of a musician who came out of the DIY underground.

Roselit Bone, photo from roselitbone.com

Thursday | 10.05
What: Roselit Bone w/Snakes and King Ropes
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Roselit Bone released its new album Ofrenda in August 2023. The title refers to an offering placed in a home alter during the Mexican Dia de Los Muertos. The album itself is a blend of Americana, folk and rock and roll in the spirited and vulnerable style that has made the band one of the most interesting and creative groups in the larger realm of Americana of the past decade. Sure you can hear some of those rockabilly roots but more in the vein of how X and Gun Club did it than less colorful trad genre practitioners. Bozeman, Montana’s King Ropes offer a different flavor of Americana and one more steeped in glam rock and Lou Reed with some nods to more experimental soundscaping. Snakes from Denver is sort of a super group of Mile High City luminaries of folk, Americana and indie rock meaning its own music is decided not cookie cutter and the songwriting more informed by an actual vibe and individual aesthetic and thoughtful lyricism.

Thursday | 10.05
What: Jesse Jo Stark w/Rachel Bobbitt and Rachel Lynn
When: 6:30
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station
Why: Canadian singer-songwriter Rachel Bobbitt released her latest EP in August, The Half We Still Have, produced and mixed by Jorge Elbrecht who spends a good deal of time in Denver these days and who has worked with the likes of Sky Ferreira and Japanese Breakfast. Bobbitt’s tender and bright vocals and orchestral songwriting lends an uplift even to songs that are all too real in their melancholic content. “Two Bit”is a song about how overwhelming feelings, positive or what we think of as positive or not so much, in our youth can get us to bypass our instincts and the guilt and shame that can come over you in looking back at that time of life. And the rest of the EP offers similarly insightful, nuanced and layered songs of both emotional and sonic depth. Headlining the show is pop singer and fashion designer Jesse Jo Stark who is touring in support of her 2022 album DOOMED.

Friday | 10.06
What: Autumn Light: Victoria Lundy, Mark Mosher, Monoscenes
When: 8-10pm
Where: Lumonics Light & Sound Gallery (800 East 73rd Avenue Unit #11, Denver, CO 80229)
Why: Three of the great local electronic artists immersed in the world of synthesizing visuals and music are gathering at Lumonics Light & Sound Gallery for a special event in a space that is an immersive light and sculpture gallery currently showcasing the work of Dorothy and Mel Tanner. Lundy and Mosher can also be seen performing in Carbon Dioxide Ensemble with Thomas Lundy crafting inspired pieces of musique concrète.

Friday | 10.06
What: Slowdive w/Drab Majesty
When: 7
Where: Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom
Why: Influential shoegaze band Slowdive is touring in support of its latest record Everything Is Alive. The group has long term proven itself to be one of the more experimental of the first wave of shoegaze artists by incorporating deep elements of ambient and electronic dance music into its sound beginning with its 1993 and second album Souvlaki and much more dramatically with its 1995 masterpiece Pygmalion. When the band reconvened in 2014 it demonstrated its live power as a group with performances that were as immersive and as lush as they were sonically commanding on par with any of its peers. When its 2017 self-titled album was released there might have been doubts that the band would repeat past glory but instead the record represented a new and worthy creative chapter for the band. Opening is modern darkwave phenom Drab Majesty which started as a solo project but has been a duo for several years now. Its music has been like a modern take on a blend of Red Lorry Yellow Lorry and Cocteau Twins but really with its own flavor that embraced electronic music early on with superb guitar work and evocative vocals. It too has a 2023 release An Object In Motion to which Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell contributed vocals.

Friday | 10.06
What: Calamity album release w/Allison Lorenzen and Soy Celesté
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: CALAMITY began as the solo project of Kate Hannington whose journey to her current musical endeavors has been unorthodox, circuitous and in the end seemingly inevitable as a culmination of a life in creative work in various ends of that world. Hannington grew up in the Cleveland are and was involved in performing classical music as an oboe player who initially went to college to be in the sciences but found that deeply unsatisfying despite having a gift for engineering and she went on to New York City and ultimately earned a degree in music and got involved in the avant-garde music community in the city. But Hannington found herself at a life crossroads again and landed a job in Denver working on repairing musical instruments and then working in an engineering capacity for a major defense contractor near the Mile High City and discovered the local underground music world. Falling in with a circle of friends including Chris Adolf, Joe Sampson and Adam Baumeister Hannington found a group of people with whom to casually perform and exchange ideas in weekly get-togethers. Out of that milieu she started writing the songs that would form the core of the music for the early CALAMITY which she performed at the open mic at Syntax Physic Opera just in time for the COVID-19 pandemic to hit. It was around that time that Hannington had been working on her latest live film score in collaboration with a friend. The extended time off from even having performing live as an option allowed Hannington the time to refocus on her decision to make music a priority as it was the only thing over the course of a successful regular work life that felt like where she wanted to be. When shows started happening again, CALAMITY became an active project and most often during 2022. The musical style would be difficult to narrow down to something definitive except to say that it has elements of shoegaze, left field punk, Americana and all united by strong songwriting and Hannington’s powerful and expressive voice and strong stage presence. All of this can be heard strikingly on the debut CALAMITY full-length Chiromancy. From the gorgeously symbolic cover art to the vividly captured and produced recordings there is a unified intentionality that seems obvious in every detail. Hannington’s stories hit as deeply personal but also as a widely relatable set of narratives of letting go of relationships, the beliefs, the habits and associations that hold us back from a fulfilling and rewarding life and moving on toward it. Listen to our interview with Hannington on the Queen City Sounds Podcast.

Friday | 10.06
What: Mac Sabbath at The Oriental w/Cybertronic Spree and Playboy Manbaby
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Mac Sabbath is the enigmatic Black Sabbath parody tribute band from Los Angeles that dresses up in costume as the characters from the McDonald’s franchise. The cover songs have name changes like “Sweet Beef” for “Sweet Leaf” and “Frying Pan” for “Iron Man.” Led by Ronald Osbourne and managed by Mike Odd, lead singer of hard rock outfit Rosemary’s Billygoat, who handles interviews and does other promotional activity to keep the group’s outlandish mythology in the public eye. It could be mere gimmick and kitsch, which it is, but with solid musicianship and a commitment to the bit that is rare in an entertainment milieu that so often rewards individual ego.

Saturday | 10.07
What: Cavalera: The Morbid Devastation Tour w/Exhumed, Incite and No Future
When: 6
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Cavalera is a heavy metal band that consists of brothers Max and Igor Cavalera who founded influential thrash and death metal band Sepultura in 1984. The brothers had a falling out and Max left Sepultura in 1996 followed by Igor in 2006. Within a year the brothers reconciled and formed a new project that would undergo various name changes including Cavalera Conspiracy. But now Cavalera is releasing re-recording versions of Sepultura classics. 2023 saw the release of new versionf of Bestial Devastation (1985) and Morbid Visions (1986) and thus the name of the tour with a full band that by watching some of the leaked live footage seems to point to the vitality of the source material and the Cavalera brothers’ reinvention of themselves.

Saturday | 10.07
What: Yeule w/SASAMI
When: 7
Where: The Marquis Theater

Saturday | 10.07
What: DROELOE w/NASAYA and Demotapes
When: 8
Where: Ogden Theatre

Saturday | 10.07
What: Meet the Giant w/The Picture Tour and …And The Black Feathers
When: 7
Where: Enigma Bazaar
Why: Meet the Giant recently released its new album We Are Revolting and didn’t exactly get a chance to do an album release show or other such typical rituals of celebration. But at this show you’ll get to hear a good deal of that material from a band that is steeped both in highly emotional hard rock and electronic production and sensibilities without fitting neatly into some already established and discredited hybrid like industrial rock though fans of that might appreciate MTG’s more atmospheric and vulnerable manifestation of similar creative impulses. …And The Black Feathers somehow makes blues rock, punk and glam rock work in a cohesive style with commanding performances. The Picture Show could devolve into The Cure worship but Billy Armijo’s knack for pop songcraft and bordeom with a rote, paint by numbers version of gloomy post-punk and shoegaze has ensured that former Emerald Siam lead guitarist continues to make deeply evocative and inventive guitar rock with his new bandmates.

Sunday | 10.08
What: Slow Pulp w/Babehoven
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Slow Pulp from Madison, Wisconsin just released its sophomore album Yard on September 29, 2023. The band’s gift for fusing earnest bedroom pop and fuzzy 90s-esque indie rock in a way that gives off shoegaze adjacent vibes but channeled into succinct statements of modern malaise and yearning for more meaningful and life affirming connections and experiences rather than the drab and second-rate fair we’re expected to think is adequate and deserved. Fans of Bully and Liz Fair will appreciate what Slow Pulp has to offer.

Sunday | 10.08
What: Djunah w/Quits and Almanac Man
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Djunah’s 2023 album Femina Furens is a ferocious and intense display of what might be called art noise rock. Hailing from Chicago the duo live hits like what a blues rock and jazz band with chops might sound like if they challenged themselves to do something radically different with their skill set. Emotionally distorted vocals and dynamics that from tense and quiet to unfurled rage and despair transformed into bursts of reclaiming one’s power make the new set of songs a riveting listen. Denver’s noise rock kings Quits are releasing their new album Feeling It for this show. Yes, these guys have been in the local scene for years and worth checking out for that etc. But if the raw power of the songs and the performance thereof wasn’t there the band would be like any other rock group today that was inspired by Amphetamine Reptile and Touch and Go and the like. Quits deliver surreal yet poetically observational lyrics that comment on the conflicted and challenging world and times we all navigate. Quits turns those frustrations into a fractured and seething catharsis on the album and definitely on stage where there’s no barrier between you and the pure expression thereof. Almanac Man is also one of Denver’s handful of fine noise rock bands who probably grew up listening to and seeing Gravity Records bands and catching the punk-adjacent but too weird bands of the 90s and 2000s while absorbing that inspiration for their own brand of sonically disruptive excitement.

Sunday | 10.08
What: The Chats and Cosmic Psychos
When: 7
Where: The Summit Music Hall
Why: The Chats from Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia make no bones about their irreverence with album titles like High Risk Behavior (2020) and Get Fucked (2022). But it’s not just the thrill of using swear words in the adolescent way that is the appeal of the band’s music because they take aim at collective anxieties and “racism in surf culture.” Musically imagine an even more nervous energy-driven Stiff Little Fingers and its punk sound a perfect splicing together of protopunk, anarcho punk and honest to goodness pop hooks. Like if Wire was really going for broke toward the most abrupt start and stop dynamics of Pink Flag. Opening this show are Aussie punk legends Cosmic Psychos who have been giving us a wonderful unvarnished noisy punk that at times is reminiscent of a more punk Motorhead and even more raw The Gordons with shout along choruses and a surprising bit of melodicism that tempers that edge just a little without blunting it.

Monday | 10.09
What: Lebanon Hanover w/Hex Cassette and DJ Katastrophy
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Lebanon Hanover is a darkwave/post-punk band from Germany whose deeply atmospheric music doesn’t fit neatly into the aforementioned categories as elements of ambient and world music are in the mix. Particularly on its 2020 album Sci-Fi Sky. Guitar lopes along in a song or two in chord progressions one hears more often in music from the Arabic world and all drifting on the foundation of EBM beats and brooding vocals. Hex Cassette brings his blood cult and bombastic live stage presence to the show opening with his unique brand of industrial darkwave and rock theater.

Monday | 10.09
What: Boris and Melvins
When: 7pm doors, 7:30 pm show
Where: The Summit Music Hall
Why: Two titans of sludge rock on one bill with Japan’s Boris and The Melvins from the USA. Chances are Melvins were an influence on Boris in some capacity along the way as the trio originally from Washington State has been for a huge swath of alternative rock and heavier music. Boris may play a weird blend of heavy metal, psychedelia, noise and art rock but its own stage antics are unusual and theatrical like there’s a ritual component to it that is impossible to define but which is always striking. Melvins somehow keep playing one of the greatest shows you’ll see all year with its own mix of playfulness, precise power in the performance and an effusive spirit and energy.

Tuesday | 10.10
What: Dope Lemon w/Franklin Jonas
When: 7
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Angus Stone has come a long way since performing at open mics with his sister Julia in their hometown of Sydney, Australia in 2005. Since 2016 he has performed under the moniker Dope Lemon and his idiosyncratic pop songs have dipped liberally into the realms of folk, psychedelia and soul. There is a left field sense of humor informing the presentation of his songs in music videos and a playful, even impish, spirit to his visual style as a live performer. But the music itself is a sensitive, thoughtful, gentle, acutely observational meditation on everyday human existence and with a keen ear for evolving melodies and the physicality of the rhythms. His new album Kimosabé dropped on September 29, 2023 and the videos so far a mix of Simon Hanselmann-esque animation and Zack Galifianakis gone 1980s spoiled rock star gangster vibe are truly some of the most entertaining offerings from any artist in the last few years.

Tuesday | 10.10
What: The Darkness w/The Comancheros
When: 6:30
Where: The Summit Music Hall
Why: The Darkness survived the hype many predicted would collapse in on the band when it garnered a good deal of it when its 2003 debut album Permission to Land basically presaged the unabashed classic rock and glam metal revival that would happen in full the following decade. Singer Justin Hawkins’ soaring vocals, the specific style of driving rhythms and the effusive guitar solos were basically banished to an earlier decade and yet The Darkness rocketed to stardom because even if you rolled your eyes at the throwback style, at least the band delivered a commanding live show with conviction. Most bands eager to do more than just settling for playing to friends and local fans have to believe in their own importance and even exult in it. The Darkness just had the songwriting and chops and stage presence to be more than a gimmick. But the pressure to sustain that momentum caught up with the band and it split in 2006 after seeming to have run out of some steam and person issues within its membership. But in 2011 the original group reconvened and over the next few years Rufus Taylor, son of Roger Taylor of Queen joined on drums. The Darkness’ most recent album Motorheart (2021) revealed more than just a hint of the influence of thrash around the edges so the version of the band you’ll get to see won’t skimp on the hearty, melodic hard rock that earned it the popularity it has enjoyed but it might have a little more edge in the guitar work.

Thursday | 10.12
What: Kneecap w/Time/Calm. and An Hobbes
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Kneecap is an alternative hip hop trio from Belfast, Northern Ireland whose known for rapping in Irish and political activism for human rights at home and abroad. Fifteen years ago there was pretty much no rap in the Irish language and Kneecap has garnered a bit of notoriety for writing a song that was banned from Irish language radio for “drug references and cursing” which the group said was a satire of life for young people in Belfast. But Kneecap’s body of work has challenged conventional notions of masculinity and political power structures with beats that could come right out of a punk band if that band used samples. One of the opening acts Time (really Calm., the duo of Time and AwareNess) is no stranger to nuanced and sharp takes on politics and culture with creative beats that free associate musical ideas from experimental music and classic hip-hop sensibilities. Time aka Chris Steele is an internationally recognized author and activist whose writing on class and human rights include well received interviews with Noam Chomsky and mutual aid efforts.

Friday | 10.13
What: emme w/Astral Tomb, Polly Urethane, Coldglare, Hyasynth, Trenchfoot and Combat Sport
When: 8
Where: Glob
Why: emme might be described as a performance artist whose accompanying music fits within a loose realm of industrial noise with elements of pop accessibility like a deconstruction of dance music and a subversion of noisenik expectation of format for presentation and generally accepted aesthetics and methods. So of course Polly Urethane from Denver is an appropriate artist to share the bill whose shows can range from almost pure performance art to industrial pop and deconstructed scene nü metal to industrial noise, classical music sampling and operatic vocals and pop songcraft. The first half of the show will be live music and the second half running into the late night will be more DJ sets.

Friday | 10.13
What: Church Fire tour kickoff w/Voight, Weathered Statues and Bell Mine
When: 9 doors 9:30 show
Where: The Broadway Roxy
Why: Church Fire are set to go out for three weeks taking its playfully confrontational yet emotionally vulnerable and harrowing industrial dance music to places far and wide. A reformed Voight will treat you to industrialized shoegaze post-punk and maybe a bad joke or two. Weathered Statues is the most pure death rock/post-punk band out of Denver aside from maybe Plague Garden and definitely for fans of Xmal Deutschland and Siouxsie and the Banshees. Bell Mine is an electro-acoustic ambient synth pop band with lushly elegant production.

Friday | 10.13
What: Corsicana album release w/Joseph Lamar and Gazes
When: 7
Where: The Mercury Café
Why: Corsicana is celebrating the release of its new album Kept with this show sharing the stage with experimental R&B and psychedelic pop artist Joseph Lamar and avant-indie rock trio supergroup Gazes which includes former members of Tyto Alba and Male Blonding. Kept is another collection of keenly observed indie rock in that more soft tone shoegaze vein. The album is being released on digital and limited edition vinyl.

Saturday | 10.14
What: JOHN w/Tunic and Supreme Joy
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: JOHN (TIMESTWO) is an acclaimed punk duo from London, UK that recently released its fourth album A Life Diagrammatic. With just guitar from Johnny Healey and John Newton on drums and vocals, the group’s driving and intense yet emotionally nuanced songs hit with the force of the conviction of the lyrics that often examine the pitfalls of modern life and the corrosive effects of capitalism as it has been crushing down on most of us all our lives. Within the band’s music you can hear warps and bends in the rhythm and tones to amplify a sense of liberated thrill and sense of freedom in the music as an act of resistance. Touring with JOHN this time out is Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada’s noise rock trio Tunic. In April Tunic released its own new record Wrong Dream which sounds like new territory for the group and some of its most emotionally devastating material to date. It has a similarly disciplined structure and rhythm one might expect from earlier releases but with great splashes of spiky noise and fragmented emotion reflecting not only personal turmoil but a deeply human reaction to the seemingly myriad barrage of challenges floating around the world like a caustic, psychic pollution.Opening is Denver’s Supreme Joy, a band that is an outlet for the more lo-fi garage-y post-punk songwriting of Ryan Wong who some may know for his membership in psychedelic pop rock band Easy Ease, having been in psych garage band Cool Ghouls and more recently for his fine country songcraft.

The Mountain Goats, photo by Jackie Lee Young

Friday and Saturday | 10.13 and 10.14
What: The Mountain Goats w/Mikaela Davis
When: 7
Where: Fox Theatre (10.13) and Gothic Theatre (10.14)
Why: The Mountain Goats are one of the most beloved indie rock bands going. Led by frontman, guitarist and primary songwriter John Darnielle since its foundation in 1991, The Mountain Goats have somehow managed to have some great consistency of style and sound without seeming to ever stuck in a rut. The earnest and scrappy energy of the songs and Darnielle’s literary yet not pretentious lyrics seem to tap into some element of the zeitgeist at the time of writing that brings a freshness of spirit to inform the performances and sound. Its 2023 album Jenny From Thebes sounds like it had to have been written by a newer band maybe two or three years into its career speaking to Darnielle’s ability to reinvent yet dip into the well of his legacy in creative ways.

Saturday | 10.14
What: The Happy Fits w/Windser and Hot Freaks
When: 7
Where: Fox Theatre
Why: The Happy Fits’ sound seems like it was influenced a bit by late 2000s indie rock when bands were trying to figure out how to be joyous and embrace their quirky sense of humor without having to lean too hard into being self-aware. Its own unabashedly upbeat songs have thus been able to be able to have some fun with what it’s like to be an imperfect human dealing with the multiple excessive demands of modern life but having fun with it in a way that is unmistakable but not dire. It’s a nice balancing trick and to do so with a free-spirited energy in the form of catchy pop songs is no mean feat. Windser released his debut EP Where The Redwoods Meet the Sea in 2022 with its handful of songs that aimed to capture his memories of earlier in life resulting in a dreamlike and nostalgic that felt like a reconciliation of the past with the present. His newer singles “Get Lost” and “Friends I Barely Know” take the concepts of the EP and expands upon them for an effect like a dream pop version of The War on Drugs.

Sunday | 10.15
What: Ulrika Spacek w/Holy Wave and Wave Decay
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Ulrika Spacek from London, UK sounds like it absorbed a great deal of krautrock and 60s and 70s avant-garde music on its 2023 album Compact Trauma but channeled it into a kind of synthesis of art-y post-punk, math rock and psychedelia. Definitely for fans of FACs. Holy Wave from Austin, TX brings to this show its spectral, drifty, synth-driven psychedelic pop and currently supporting its new record Five of Cups. Wave Decay fuses motorik beats with heavy shoegaze guitar wizardry.

Monday | 10.16
What: Better Lovers w/Suicide Cages and Muscle Beach
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Better Lovers started in 2023 bringing together Stephen Micciche, Clayton Holyoak and Jordan Buckley formerly of prominent metalcore band Everytime I Die with Will Putney of Fit For An Autopsy and Greg Pusciato who some may know as the frontman for influential metalcore group Dillinger Escape Plan, darkwave outfit The Black Queen and alt metal supergroup Killer Be Killed. The lead single from the band “30 Under 13” and the debut EP God Made Me an Animal are a bit of what you might expect which is to say the fusion of hardcore and extreme metal done right and with a furious energy that has translated well to its live shows thus far. Opening this Denver show are two heavy hitters from that world of where extreme metal and hardcore collide with Suicide Cages and Muscle Beach. If what Better Lovers is doing is your thing definitely catch the locals for this gig.

Madison Cunningham on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in January 2023, photo by Todd Owyoung/NBC

Tuesday and Wednesday | 10.17 and 10.18
What: Hozier w/Madison Cunningham
When: 7
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Hozier is artist from Ireland whose blend of folk, blues and blue-eyed soul hit the big time with his 2013 single “Take Me To Church” and seemed to have come out of nowhere at age 23. But Andrew Hozier-Byrne was a member of choral group Anúna from 2007 to 2012. The song to those that didn’t delve deeper might have seemed like some call to go back to one’s roots in traditional culture but the song addressed homophobia and the bare bones music video went viral through Reddit. Since then Hozier has built upon his early boost for a career of earnest and impassioned songwriting and on point activism. Opening these shows is Madison Cunningham whose third album, 2022’s Revealer, won a Grammy for “Best Folk Album.” Often those awards don’t mean much and Cunningham’s record features unorthodox instrumentation for a folk album including electric guitar and keyboards but her spirited vocals and inventive musicianship is right out of the folk tradition and channeled into a pop format with guitar work that shifts effortlessly between the intricate and the spare to perfectly suit the mood of the moment. Fans of Neko Case and Jenny Lewis’ own more folk-oriented songs will appreciate what Cunningham has to offer.

Wednesday | 10.18
What: Holy Fawn w/Carcara and lowheaven
When: 6:30
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station
Why: Cosmic black metal band Holy Fawn returns to Denver with a show at Meow Wolf to demonstrate its arresting and moving fusion of black metal, ambient music and at times emo. Philadelphia-based post-hardcore group Caracara will offer the kind of music that sounds like punk kids that got into shoegaze through rediscovering the more atmospheric end of stuff like Mineral and Sunny Day Real Estate and injected tender and raw emotions into driving yet ethereal melodies. Toronto’s lowheaven is somehow screamo, dark post-punk and space rock in a way that might remind some of when Coalesce got a little weird.

Wednesday | 10.18
What: Laufey w/Adam Melchor
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Laufey is an Icelandic singer-songwriter who describes her particular musical style as “modern jazz.” What that means when you listen is the kind of sensibility like something out of a jazz club in the 1960s maybe in a more Southern European or South American country with a touch of pop Bossa Nova. Laufey grew up around classical music with a grandfather who was a violin teacher in China at the Central Conservatory of Music and in her teens she was a cello solist with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra and later graduated from Berklee. Her debut EP Typical of Me garnered her critical acclaim and won a fan in Billie Eilish. In 2023 Laufey released her second full length Bewitched which has the kind of sonic touches and sophistication of composition one would expect from a Rodgers and Hammerstein production but applied to the relative short scale of lush and emotionally delicate jazz pop songs. Also on this bill is Adam Melchor who began making a name for himself writing lullabies. But he’s greatly expanded upon what he learned from operating in that modest format. Yet there is a hushed, delicate aspect to his songwriting paired with warm, earnest, thoughtful observations that at times might be considered lullabies for adults. His latest EP Fruitlands has a quality like short snapshots reflecting slices of life yearning for something more meaningful and reflecting on the small joys in life cast in vivid and instantly relatable details and hazy melodies.

Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin circa 2018, photo courtesy the artists

Wednesday | 10.18
What: Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin Live Screening of Dario Argento’s and Lamberto Bava’s Demons Goblin
When: 7
Where: Paramount Theatre
Why: Claudio Simonetti was one of the founding members of Italian progressive rock band Goblin who are perhaps best known for their soundtracks for some of the great horror films of the 1970s and 1980s including Dario Argento’s Profondo Rosso aka Deep Red (1975) and Suspiria (1977) as well as Argento’s cut of George Romer’s Dawn of the Dead (1978). But the group basically dissolved in 1982 and its members went on to other projects including Simonetti scoring Argento’s 1985 film with another horror legend Lamberto Bava and Demons. This is of course a live screening of the film with Claudio Simonetti’s version of Goblin.

Thursday | 10.19
What: Darlingside
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Boston’s Darlingside released its latest album Everything Is Alive in 2023 and it sounds like something written to reflect a day of deep reflection and small journeys visiting friends and being reminded of the memories that anchor your psyche after a long period of feeling adrift without realizing it. Its orchestrated arrangements preserve an intimate feel with instrumental performances that sound like you are there playing the music yourself and joining in on not just the music but the psychological journey undertaken to reconnect with oneself. If this is indie folk it’s more in the vein of more existential artists like Iron & Wine and anyone else with a foot in psychedelic folk of the 70s and one in modern production methods that help to render the sonic details of the songwriting in vivid contrasts.

Friday | 10.20
What: Sextile and N8NOFACE
When: 8
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Sextile is a post-punk band from Los Angeles that has been releasing music for several years that focuses on lush and hazy soundscapes and ethereal melodies. Particularly on its 2023 album Push. The effect is more like a shoegaze band and one steeped in electronic soundscaping. The new record feels like a 90s downtempo band with a different sound palette and an ear for tonal melancholia. N8NOFACE is an electro punk artist whose aggressive and distorted electronic beats is reminiscent of something like Realicide with similarly pointed lyrical content.

Acid Mothers Temple, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 10.21
What: Acid Mothers Temple w/The Stargazer Lilies and Night Fishing
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Acid Mothers Temple has been together since 1995 under the leadership of guitarist Kawabata Makoto and its alchemical fusion of krautrock, Japanese folk, noise, space rock and cosmic glam has kept its sound fresh over the course of various incarnations and lineups with live shows that are as mind-altering and as intense as the name of the band suggests. The Stargazer Lilies sound like a thoroughly entrancing mix of some trippy 60s hip lounge film and futuristic, epic journey through a star rich sector of outer space. It has a transcendent, luminous quality and a sense of mystery that one would have to peel back decades of jaded and conditioned music listening to remember how it felt to first hear Slowdive’s album Pygmalion to recapture but you can just go ahead and see the band touring with its 2022 album Cosmic Tidal Wave living up to its name as well.

The Stargazer Lilies, photo courtesy the artists

Saturday | 10.21
What: Botch w/Primitive Man
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Botch is the legendary and influential metalcore/mathcore band from Tacoma, Washington that formed in 1993 and for nearly a decade helped to define a sound and an attitude of a movement throughout that time that was not in line with the prevailing threads of alternative rock, metal or hardcore. But its abrasive and driving sound didn’t lack for mood and atmospherics and one could easily imagine the band sharing bills with the likes of Unwound and Heroin. The group reformed in 2022 and this is its first wide national tour. Opening is Primitive Man whose own brutally heavy version of metal has some roots in noise rock and hardcore as well with its own internationally respected gift for sculpting sounds and moods that feel like an indisputable truth of human existence given sonic form.

Saturday | 10.21
What: Midwife w/Fainting Dreams and Kelly Garlick
When: 7
Where: The Mercury Café
Why: Midwife brings her heartbreaking ambient folk heaviness to the Mercury for a night with dream pop legends in the making Fainting Dreams and avant-ambient and musique concrète producer Kelly Garlick whose own emotionally rich compositions hit heavily in the feels as well.

Sunday | 10.22
What: Deeper w/World’s Worst and Gazes
When: 8/8:30
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Deeper from Chicago has long been a band for connoisseurs of post-punk with its live show hitting like an angular version of The Cure with its rich synth tones and the physicality of its rhythms. Its 2023 album Careful! doesn’t feel like as much of an exorcism of anguished emotions as its 2020 album Auto-Pain but the math-y changes are evocative and pull you into the momentum of the music and its unconventional melodies with vocals seeming to strike a certain tenor and the synths at a complimentary counter resonance. The songs have great forward momentum but the emotional range is wide and the soundscapes easy to get lost following. Gazes is a dream pop/post-punk band consisting of former members of the great dream pop group Tyto Alba and local post-punk greats Male Blonding. World’s Worst is an emo-informed post-punk band with shoegaze leanings from Salt Lake City.

Brian Jonestown Massacre circa 2012, photo by Tom Murphy

Monday | 10.23
What: The Brian Jonestown Massacre w/Asteroid No. 4
When: 7
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: The Brian Jonestown Massacre is the long-running and influential psychedelic rock band originally from the Bay Area now based in Berlin where leader, lyricist, songwriter, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Anton Newcombe lives and has his studio. The BJM’s latest album The Future Is Your Past (2023) has garnered great critical acclaim with some writers saying how it’s the group’s best record in years. And sure it has that signature finely crafted fusion of folk psychedelia and other musical styles infused so deeply into the songcraft it feels like Newcombe is operating on a conceptual as much as broadly emotional level as a songwriter with an ear for fine details. Sure you’ll hear classic BJM elements but within this new set of songs you’ll hear Newcombe’s gift for reinvention without the need to scrap what he’s done before unless it serves the art in moving forward and you’ll hear plenty of musical experimentation and for the discerning listener his latest passions in experimenting with musicianship and production. At the show you’ll likely see one of the classic lineups playing some of your favorite songs from the band’s back catalog but maybe even some of the excellent new material.

Tuesday | 10.24
What: Blonde Redhead w/Angelica Garcia
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Blonde Redhead proved itself worthy of interest and its own creative evolution throughout the 90s and 2000s with going from a more noisy, No Wave-esque art-y post-punk of its early days to a shift toward more lush sounds and introspective dream pop around the turn of the century. All along the group’s songwriting ambition was clear if not overtly stated and the arc of albums from 2000’s Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons, 2004’s Misery Is a Butterfly and 23 from 2007 firmly established the group as a powerful live presence with thoughtful and thought-provoking albums that reached wider audiences. After 2014’s Barragán, Blonde Redhead didn’t release much new material though vocalist/keyboardist/guitarist Kazu Makino released her first solo album Adult Baby in 2019 with guest performances from Ryuichi Sakamoto, Ian Chang (Son Lux), Greg Saunier (Deerhoof) and Mauro Refosco. In 2023 Blonde Redhead dropped its new album Sit Down for Dinner, a record of what might be described as tranquil, pastoral soundscape pop sprinkled with field recordings and arranged like a minimalist, experimental jazz record but still brimming with the vibrant emotional nuance that has made its best material so entrancing.

Tuesday | 10.24
What: Fearing w/Sacred Skin
When: 7
Where: The Crypt
Why: Fearing made a name for itself in the heady days of 2010s darkwave and the then post-punk revival with its moody take on a death rock sound that would become de rigeur in certain circles of post-punk. That is to say somewhat lo-fi but using that aesthetic to create a tinge of mystery rather than simply chasing a style. What sets it apart from some cookie cutter post-punk is the elegantly gorgeous guitar work and ear for atmospherics over driving and present low end. The group is currently touring in support of its latest record Destroyer.

Wolves in the Throne Room, photo from Bandcamp

Tuesday | 10.24
What: Wolves in the Throne Room w/Blackbraid, Garea and Hoaxed
When: 6
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Wolves in the Throne Room released its new EP Crypt of Ancestral Knowledge on September 29, 2023 via Relapse Records. Across its long career WITTR have explored various expressions of its roots in black metal, folk and ambient music including an entire album of synthesizer music Celestite (2014) as a companion record to its 2011 album Celestial Lineage. Around the time of that album the group announced it would reduce its touring cycle of old and for a time seeing the band live wasn’t as common an occurrence and even now a chance to see its majestic and pastoral, deeply atmospheric, transcendental black metal is a rare treat. Not a band for black metal purists, the new EP sounds like a blend of all its creative impulses for a set of songs that are expansive, immersive and hypnotic.

Wednesday | 10.25
What: Addison Grace w/Madilyn Mei and Brye
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Non-binary singer-songwriter Addison Grace released their debut album Diving Lessons on September 29, 2023. Grace got a hold of a ukulele from their brother at 13 and seeing YouTubers use the instrument as a vehicle for songwriting and started making songs of their own and performed them at coffee shops while working various retail jobs. The early songs found an outlet on YouTube in 2017 and comprised bedroom cover songs that Grace took also to Instagram and TikTok. One of these performances in which Grace was wearing a Cavetown sweatshirt caught the attention of that band’s management. Through that connection Grace was signed to Warner’s Level Music and Grace got on a tour with popular indie pop artist Chloe Moriondo whose own bedroom compositions found a wide audience. The acoustic demo of “I Wanna Be a Boy” released in late 2020 went viral on YouTube. And yes TikTok has also been good for Grace’s career and reach as an artist. What makes Grace interesting and compelling, though, is none of these factoids but rather the songwriting itself. Yes, the vulnerable exploration of various aspects of identity that seem especially sensitive and thoughtful though rendered in vivid personal details that resonate beyond specific context. His new single “SLIME!” has a layered emotional impact with a joyous spirit but with a tinge of melancholic melody. Grace’s vocals are nuanced and expressive across a wide and complex spectrum of emotion which is the hallmark of any pop artist worth one’s attention.

Thursday | 10/26
What: Stuck w/Forty Feet Tall and Dry Ice
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Stuck released its latest record Freak Frequency in May 2023 and treated the world to a set of eccentric, wiry and frantic art punk. The title says it all, really, and it captures an anxious desperation of the current era. The vocals border on hysteria while wandering among noisy, atonal sounds that warp and modulate and pulse with a sense of menace at times and in others the melodic calm of that time of life when you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop on a dire situation and there’s something thrilling about these emotional territories Stuck seems to traverse. For fans of Protomartyr, IDLES and Parquet Courts.

Friday | 10.27
What: Bison Bone album release w/The Patti Fiasco
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Bison Bone recently released its new EP 40 Grit. As the name suggests the stories across the EP’s five tracks are tales of everyday endurance and honing the rough edges of life to where it more suits your existence in the moment and to get through more trying patches. Its warm melodies and Courtney Whitehead’s introspective yet direct vocal style engages thetpo listener and the elegantly orchestrated music pulls you into an intimate and vividly observed moments the highlight moments that aren’t the stuff of striving and grinding and performative positivity of a lot of pop and rock music. But they are the stuff of real life that anchor your memories and stay with you for a lifetime. Whitehead seems skilled in putting together his own experiences in contexts that can resonate with people who recognize the psychological and emotional truth in a well crafted narrative enmeshed in music. Bison Bone formed in the mid-2010s after Whitehead moved to Denver from Oklahoma via Texas and found a community in which he could share his songwriting and find collaborators who got his creative vision and style of working class stories that didn’t glorify the lifestyle so much as highlight the inherent dignity of experiences most of us have and which translate well to the style of music Bison Bone offers which is to say Americana and at times a touch of psychedelia and country but informed by the humanistic psychological insights and poetry of Bruce Springsteen and Uncle Tupelo.

Julian St. Nightmare, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 10.27
What: Julian St. Nightmare, Hex Cassette, Team Nonexistent and Sell Farm
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Julian St. Nightmare is a post-punk band from Denver that has never been penned in by adherence to expected genre style. Rather its fusion of darkwave, surf rock, art rock and post-punk is a vehicle for its impassioned and emotionally immersive songwriting and richly imagined songwriting. Hex Cassette brings his industrial dance death cult act to this show to challenge the audience to let loose and have some fun because life is a shadow of itself if you’re not having fun at least some of the time and not taking absurd artistic expressions too seriously. Team Nonexistent is a band that seems to be drawing some inspiration from original grunge and modern punk and infusing it with a raw energy and earnest emotions. Sell Farm is a solo act informed by electronic industrial music and big beat and dub sound sculpting.

Friday | 10.27
What: Sorcha Richardson w/PAPA
When: 6
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Sorcha Richardson is a Dublin-Ireland-based singer-songwriter whose soft and thoughtful pop songs blur the line between synth and indie pop with gently expressed introspective lyrics and a clear command of atmosphere and mood. In 2022 she released her latest album Smiling Like an Idiot and one has to applaud that level of self-deprecating awareness of one’s own shortcomings and charms. PAPA is Darren Weiss who took an extended break from the project after 2016 and spent some time as a session and touring drummer for people like Lana Del Rey, Albert Hammond Jr., Perfume Genius and Sky Ferreira. But he relaunched the band and released the new album Dig Yourself Or Dig A Hole on October 13, 2023. Recording with Devendra Banhart keyboard player Tyler Cash and violinist Daphne Chen, Weiss offers an album of pop music in a retro style and one that hints at the influence of people like Scott Walker and Bruce Springsteen or maybe more modern songwriters like Britt Daniels and Dan Boeckner. It’s an album that sounds like the current season when fall trickles toward winter and examining one’s regrets and sitting in one’s emotions and sorting them out with flares of the melodramatic in your heart.

Bambara at TV Eye in 2021, photo courtesy Bambara

Saturday | 10.28
What: Gilla Band w/Bambara
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Bambara has been slowly, because organically, building its reputation as one of the most original and compelling of post-punk bands in the current wave of that music. But the band began in 2001 in Athens, Georgia and released its earlier albums under the name 23jinx. At some point the group comprised of twin brothers Reid Bateh (lead vocals, guitar) and Blaze Bateh (drums) and William Brookshire (bass) changed their name to Bambara after a character in the animated series Æon Flux which many may remember from its broadcast on the Liquid Television segment of MTV. In 2018 Bambara got a big boost from Joe Talbot of IDLES declaring Shadow on Everything his favorite album of 2018 and the group was invited to open some dates on the IDLES tour of that year including a memorable performance at Larimer Lounge. There’s a dark, bluesy quality to the music reminiscent of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds but more punk and perhaps looking back to Nick Cave’s previous band The Birthday Party. Bambara is reissuing its early albums Dreamviolence and Swarm on double vinyl expected out November 1, 2023. Also sharing this bill is Irish, experimental post-punk outfit Gilla Band. Formerly known as Girl Band, the group’s fusion of more rock songwriting with raw noise and the aesthetics of bombastic electronic big beat artists and No Wave disregard for how songs have to sound or be structured. All to thrilling effect.

Sunday | 10.29
What: Bluphoria and Noah Vonne co-headlining w/The Disasters and Sunstoney
When: 7
Where: The Black Buzzard
Why: Bluphoria is a band now based in Nashville, Tennessee that originally formed in 2019 when lead singer and lead guitarist Reign LaFreniere moved to Eugene, Oregon to study film. LaFreniere grew up in the East Bay and South Bay in California loving horror shorts and went to an arts high school that allowed students to rent/borrow video equipment and production software. Raised in a musical family, LaFreniere didn’t really start playing music until high school in his sophomore year after getting a guitar. On a trip on the John Muir trail a friend only had Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and some Simon and Garfunkel songs on a player and being in a setting where music wasn’t as readily accessible for long stretches gave him a deeper appreciation of its importance listening to that music. When he returned from that hiking trip he got into Jimi Hendrix as someone who looked like him playing music of that caliber with Hendrix’s singing style an inspiration for LaFreniere’s fledgling attempts as a vocalist. But his focus was on film until he got to Eugene, Oregon when he met like-minded students like Dakota Landrum (rhythm guitarist, backing vocals) and Rex Wolf (bass).

At one of the band’s house shows an EDGEOUT Records intern was in attendance and signed the group to EDGEOUT/UME/UMG in January 2021 around the time when drummer Dani Janae joined the group. A year later Bluphoria drove to Tennessee to record their self-titled debut full length album which released on May 5, 2023. Even a casual listen to the songs and even the band’s 2020 debut EP Alone reveals a knack for entrancing melodic hooks in a power pop style mixed with touches of psychedelic rock and what might be described as soulful garage punk. With LaFreniere’s commanding vocals providing some of the grit and emotional resonance fans of The Replacements and The Plimsouls will find a lot to like about what Bluphoria has to offer.

Monday | 10.30
What: Allah-Lahs w/Sam Burton
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Allah-Las released their new album Zuma 85 on October 13, 2023 via their own imprint Calico Discos. When the group launched in 2008 it was an early adopter of a retro psychedelic pop and rock sound that a few years later would explode with surf rock and psych garage bands gaining an ascendancy in popular music. But Allah-Las had the benefit of actually crafting the songs more so than simply the style. Its roots in folk and left field pop as well as the aforementioned psychedelic bands like The Zombies, The Kinks and Love has resulted in a surprisingly consistent body of quality songwriting with a live show that preserves some of the inherent mystery of the milieu of its most obvious influences. The new record establishes a deep sense of space and time and with its rich use of field recordings has a subtly cinematic quality that conveys a continuity throughout the album like a experiences from an extended lucid dream.

Tuesday | 10.31
What: Flooding w/Church Fire, Allison Lorenzen and Fainting Dreams
When: 8
Where: Glob
Why: Flooding is an experimental rock band from Kansas City, Missouri whose elemental noise rock seethes with the force of expelled outrage and trauma in bursts of jagged noise and movingly emotive vocals whether cast in cathartic screams or ethereal introspection. Its new album Silhouette Machine sounds like what a stark and detailed sketch of a bleak future in the eroded world of diminishing expectation that we see before us but one flickering with a scrappy and agonized hope in the seeming absence of it. Also on the bill is industrial dance revolutionaries Church Fire fresh from its tour and likely in fine performance shape, Allison Lorenzen’s tender, mystical, luminous ambient folk and the vulnerable and emotionally charged dream pop of Fainting Dreams.

Tuesday | 10.31
What: Becca Mancari w/Bloomsday
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Becca Mancari’s 2023 album Left Hand propels their folk-rooted songwriting into new territory. Lead single “Over and Over” is a queer joy anthem featuring Julien Baker and at the heart of the song is an expansive quality that makes each song on the record feel like being able to stretch out and feel free after prolonged periods of feeling trapped by circumstance, culture and one’s surroundings. Because of that the album’s music feels like something that settles in your brain with a gentle touch that eases ambient anxieties.

To Be Continued…

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond May 2023

Skinny Puppy performs at Fillmore Auditorium on May 3, 2023, photo by Emilie Elizabeth and John Kraw, 2014

Tuesday | 05.02
What: Ruston Kelly w/Briscoe
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Ruston Kelly has never been limited by his association with country and Americana and his 2023 album The Weakness even expands what that music can sound like. His earnest and dynamically expressive vocals seem to come from a deep place in his live performances and in music that can have a hushed, introspective quality, Kelly brings a vulnerable fortitude to songs that could work as chamber pop or a cosmic and existential brand of folk informed by a frank self-examination that has an appeal that transcends genre. Best to catch an artist at a time of having transitioned to music that bursts past previous boundaries and fans of his earlier work would do well to see Kelly on this touring cycle.

Wilder Woods, photo by Darius Fitzgerald

Tuesday | 05.02
What: Wilder Woods w/Abraham Alexander
When: 6:30
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Needtobreathe lead singer Wilder Woods aka Bear Rinehart is now touring in support of his new album FEVER / SKY, a collection of spirited neo soul roots rock that sounds like it could have come from the same music scene that spawned Joe Cocker. It’s an album that sounds like the songwriter is coming to terms with who he is as a man and as an artist reckoning with his past and his purpose in life born of a time of isolation during the early pandemic and its impacts on the life of anyone that depended on the world of live music and its associated cultural and economic infrastructure. But Rinehart goes much further and hits deep places in his soul bared self-examination that are more cathartic than uncomfortable.

Skinny Puppy photo by Emilie Elizabeth and John Kraw, 2014

Wednesday | 05.03
What: Skinny Puppy w/Lead Into Gold
When: 7
Where: Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Skinny Puppy were pioneers of electronic industrial music when it formed in 1982 out of the Vancouver, BC New Wave scene. Taking new technologies like sequencers and samplers and pushing the potential aesthetics of these new tools, Skinny Puppy had as much in common with hip-hop artists of that time and now as it did with underground and experimental electronic and industrial rock acts. Its themes of alienation, environmental destruction, animal rights and left politics, Skinny Puppy innovated musically and challenging convention in musical form as well as content. When early member Dwayne Goettel passed away in 1995 the band ended for several years even as a recording project before reuniting in 2000 for its first live performance since 1992. Four years later the group’s new album, the pointedly titled The Greater Wrong of the Right, released and Skinny Puppy toured again and has remained an active project since but with composition steeped in sound design and even more keen social commentary. Unfortunately this tour has been announced to be its last and will more than likely include Skinny Puppy’s signature high use of theatrical performances and striking visuals and some of the most well crafted, intellectually stimulating and emotionally engaging electronic music ever made. The bonus is the opening act is Lead Into Gold, the long time project of Paul Barker, former bassist of Ministry.

Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit, photo by Danny Clinch

Wednesday and Thursday | 05.03 and 05.04
What: Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit w/Angel Olsen
When: 6
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit is touring ahead of the June 9, 2023 release of the band’s new album Weathervanes so you’ll get plenty of material from the new record for this show. Isbell has become one of the most acclaimed songwriters of his generation for his vivid, sensitive and imaginative storytelling and delicate vocal style that makes it easy to forget what style of music he’s playing as it engages your emotions with an unexpected immediacy. In that way he’s like Neil Young whose own diverse songwriting and performance draw upon a broad array of methods and aesthetics that nevertheless have a comfortable familiarity. For these two dates Isbell will be joined by another of the modern great songwriters of the current era in Angel Olsen who seems to be able to make retro musical sensibilities seem modern and vibrant.

Nuovo Testamento, photo courtesy the artists

Thursday | 05.04
What: Molchat Doma w/Nuovo Testamento and Mothe
When: 7
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Nuovo Testamento is a Los Angeles-based darkwave band whose sound blurs the line between post-punk, italo disco and synthpop. On its 2022 swing through Denver at the Hi-Dive the group’s performance was like seeing Madonna fronting Depeche Mode but with its own distinctive flavor. Its new album Love Lines is filled with gorgeously produced darkwave dance club hits like the soundtrack to a retrofuturist thriller that has yet to be made. Molchat Doma is the cult post-punk band from Minsk, Belarus whose introspective songs of loneliness and alienation have struck a chord well beyond their homeland. Its of necessity thin production style and minimalist guitar sound has proven massive influential in Russia as well as globally in the realm of post-punk and darkwave.

Saturday | 05.06
What: I Ya Toyah w/eHpH, Hex Cassette, DJ Nitrogen
When: 9
Where: The Broadway Roxy
Why: I Ya Toyah is a Chicago-based artist whose dark electronic music has a kind of European flavor in the production and tonal palette. Like a darkwave/industrial Danielle Dax with elements of noise, ambient and breakcore in the mix. ehpH is the evolving, long time project of Fernando Altonago and Angelo Atencio also of post-punk rock band Plague Garden. The blend of EBM and industrial with punk attitude and social commentary always hits harder than expected and for this show more of the industrial side of their songwriting will be featured. Hex Cassette is a one man EBM/industrial cult leader of furiously energetic dance music and confrontational stage performance whose banter unsettles some but the choice and absurd humor value is undeniable.

Saturday | 05.06
What: Fishbone w/Frontside Five
When: 6
Where: Levitt Pavilion
Why: Fishbone has been genre bending and bursting since 1979. Its hybrid style of ska, punk, funk and beyond was like the punk side of Afrofuturism. Its songs always seemed to depict a time in the non-too-distant days to come where people could just be who they are and have the normal struggles of life we all face. All along the way the group’s sharp social commentary was couched in a surreal sense of humor and infectious party anthem grooves that didn’t downplay the issues so much as provide a soundtrack for working through them and shining a light on corners of American society that are often swept under the rug. The group recently released “All We Have Is Now” on the Bottle Music for Broken People compilation on Fat Mike’s new NOFX imprint with founding member Chris Dowd performing on a recording for the first time since 1994 and the song has the same irreverent and fun-loving spirit one would hope for with new Fishbone material.

Saturday | 05.06
What: Zealot w/Owosso and Loose Charm
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Zealot is celebrating the release of its new single “Newer Testament” at the Hi-Dive. Its literate yet spirited music is like if an indie rock band got reconnected with the intensity and musical inventiveness of early 2000s New York City rock with a similar level of imaginative songwriting and aim to make music that isn’t background playlist nonsense but which commands your attention. Owosso is a similarly-minded band comprised of local scene veterans who seem to have rediscovered a knack for crafting pop-inflected post-punk noise rock. If Loose Charm can be considered alt-country or post-rock its because its songs seem to be composed with ear for evocative melody and soundscaping that don’t usually go together unless you’re listening to something like Silver Jews or Wilco though Loose Charm doesn’t really sound like either.

Polly Urethane in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Sunday | 05.07
What: Munly & The Lupercalians w/Polly Urethane
When: 7:30
Where: Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox
Why: Munly & The Lupercalians is like a darkly ritualistic, performance art mystical folk version of what Munly has been doing across his career. One might be tempted to compare it to neofolk but it’s more like a musical cognate to cinematic works like The Wicker Man and Kill List including the stage garb but also tied in with the singer’s baroque and stark poetry. Opening the performance is composer and performance artist Polly Urethane who seems to do a different type of performance and while sometimes combining musical elements and methods of previous performance with her new shows she always seems to push the boundaries of where she’s been before. Could be a weird DJ set, a visually striking performance to pre-recorded music with edgy components in presenting the material or who can say but always worth checking out.

Sunday | 05.07
What: Cobra Man w/Starbenders and Stolen Nova
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Cobra Man is a self-styled “power disco” duo comprised of Andy Harry and Sarah Rayne and currently touring in support of its new EP New Paradise which releases on May 19, 2023. The lead single “Thin Ice” has all the bombast and gloriously, unabashedly epic sound of something you might have heard on the soundtrack for a Cannon Pictures action movie from the 1980s. And the live band isn’t just a couple of button pushers basically doing karaoke to well-produced tracks. They’re like a post-irony glam rock band that exults in the grand sweep and sonic excess of its music.

Nox Novacula in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Monday | 05.08
What: Nox Novacula, Plague Garden and Weathered Statues
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Nox Novacula is a post-punk band from Seattle in the gritty death rock vein. Its moody guitar is shot through with a wiry energy and urgency that pairs well with impassioned vocals and driving rhythms. Its 2021 album Ascension bears obvious comparisons with Xmal Deutschland but with a more punk edge. Opening the show are two of Denver’s best post-punk outfits. Plague Garden’s music has a more electronic, New Wave-esque foundation with brooding lyrics and fiery, twin guitar work. Weathered Statues is a little more stark but with bright and buoyant vocals.

Tuesday | 05.09
What: Ringo Deathstarr w/Pleasure Venom, Cherished and Bloodsports
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Ringo Deathstarr is the cult shoegaze band out of Austin, Texas’ seemingly vibrant community for that style of music. Its own particular flavor is ethereal, drifty and transporting in that Slowdive and Lush vein but with its own fuzzily psychedelic sheen. It’s been two years since the group’s self-titled full-length so maybe we’ll get to see some newer material for this stop in Denver. For this trip to the Pacific Northwest, Ringo Deathstarr is joined by Austin noise-rock/art punks Pleasure Venom with local support in Denver from Sonic Youth-esque post-punk band Bloodsports and shoegaze/post-punk greats Cherished.

Death Grips in 2015, photo by Tom Murphy

Tuesday | 05.09
What: Death Grips
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Death Grips is the now legendary industrial hip-hop group from Sacramento, California comprised of MC Ride, Andy Morin and Zach Hill. The group has become known for its edgy imagery and its disdain for playing along with music industry expectations and doing so with creativity and deep irreverence. But its well-publicized antics perhaps boosted the group’s cachet while its inventive music spoke for itself with artwork and album and track names that demonstrated a keen awareness of internet culture and American social reality. When the band did perform live it was an incendiary and aggressive affair that has been unforgettable.

Wednesday | 05.10
What: Pixies w/Pond
When: 6:30
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Pond from Perth, Australia has been developing and evolving its cinematic, psychedelic art rock since 2008 and its 2021 album 9 sounds like a series of interconnected short films. There’s a spaciousness and dramatic sense of mood and atmosphere that washes around the core rhythms and melodies as they burst with emotion. Like if Pink Floyd hung out with Hawkwind more and ditched their epic sweeps in favor of their more raw rock instincts but infused it with disco and funk. Australia has become known for its popular psychedelic bands but fortunately for the world they’re all very different from each other and Pond is a band whose creative trajectory has left behind some fine listening. Of course there’s also the headlining band, Pixies, who were a choice cult band in its first iteration from the mid-80s through the early 90s and highly influential for its wonderfully eccentric lyrics and brilliantly unconventional, noisy, eruptively energetic alternative rock. But once a younger generation caught wind of the band through the appearance of “Where Is My Mind?” on the soundtrack of Fight Club it became a much more popular band and able to tour on the strength of its older material and bring its sound, foundational to modern rock music, to a much wider audience.

Spike Hellis in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Wednesday | 05.10
What: Spike Hellis w/Candy Apple, Moon 17 and Sell Farm
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Spike Hellis is basically making the kind of modern EBM and industrial that is informed by punk and even hardcore in its raw energy of delivery. In the live show it’s reminiscent of the kind of hard hitting vibe one might hear in early Nitzer Ebb and Meat Beat Manifesto but with the aesthetics of a modern, glitchcore project but with all the extraneous sonics ripped out but with the bombast left in place. One of the most electrifying live bands in the modern realm of darkwave. Sell Farm has lately been dipping deep into sequencing and sampling to create dystopian, politically charged dub dance post-punk. Candy Apple bridges the gap between a hardcore band and shoegaze-tinged noise rock. Moon 17 is a “Sci-Fi Industrial” band from Kansas City helmed by Zack Hames. The genre seems to fit even if it was dropped as slightly humorous but one hopes Nicolas Winding Refn taps these bands for his next movie soundtrack.

Wednesday | 05.10
What: Greg Puciato w/Escuela Grind, Deaf Club and Trace Amount
When: 6:30
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Greg Puciato is the former lead singer and lyricist for metalcore legends The Dillinger Escape Plan. Outside of the context of that band, Pusciato has been a member of synthwave band The Black Queen with its deep atmospheric, cinematic sounds akin to something you might expect to hear from the likes of Failure. And in recent years his solo records have been a fusion and evolution of his past work into something that reconciles an aggressive sound and energy with introspective sentiments and electronic aesthetics. The 2022 album Mirrorcell sounds like where metalcore should have gone and might be more favorably compared to a project like Author & Punisher or Blacklist. Opening are some heavy hitters as well with noise rock supergroup Deaf Club with Justin Person of The Locust, Brian Amalfitano of AcxDC, Scott Osment of Weak Flesh, Jason Klein of Run With The Hunted and Tommy Meehan of The Manx. And Escuela Grind, the modern grindcore/powerviolence legends from Pittsfield, Massachusetts who are quickly establishing themselves as a live band to catch whose songs are informed by a “intersectional progressive” revolutionary, inclusive fervor.

Wednesday | 05.10
What: Metronymy w/Glüme
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Metronymy has been constantly evolving its experimental pop sound with an early focus on exquisitely alien techno soundscapes to its more recent albums that demonstrate its finely honed songcraft with organic elements that seem to more directly reflect tender human experiences with a startling poignancy. Its 2019 album Metronymy Forever wasn’t the first hint at a shift in sound and style but it is an album full of the kind of songwriting one might expect on a Wilco record or an album by The National. And the group’s 2022 album Small World is fully in that mode with songs that are vulnerable yet rich in subtle production that clears the space for the lyrics and organic textures of the music to shine making Metronymy a fascinating anomaly in the expanded realm of modern indie rock.

Friday | 05.12
What: Church Fire w/Calm., Moon Pussy, Sorrows
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Church Fire is celebrating the release of its new music video. For what song? Who knows? You’ll have to go to find out and maybe it’ll be released online later. But video or not, Church Fire’s emotionally vibrant industrial dance music is best experienced live without the filters of a purely online experience. Calm. is the hip-hop duo of Time and Awareness who have been putting out some of the most literate and politically charged hip-hop out of the Mile High City in recent years and don’t do many shows at venues like the Hi-Dive or similarly-sized venues these days. And hip-hop in generally isn’t getting a lot of traction at smaller clubs in general but Hi-Dive is an exception to that general rule. Chris “Time” Steele will probably crack wise between songs with genuine wit. Moon Pussy is the getting to be known nationally on the underground circuit noise rock band from Denver whose eruptive music and explosive energy always seems to exceed expectation. SORROWS is a downtempo electronic duo of Glynnis Braan and Lawrence Snell whose dark atmospherics and operatic vocals pull from diverse influences.

Friday | 05.12
What: 7038634357, Verity Larsen, Emilie Craig, sleepdial and Polly Urethane
When: 9
Where: Glob
Why: 7038634357 seems to be a generative ambient noise artist from Arlington, VA whose releases display a knack for signal processing. Verity Larsen combines musique concrète with prepared environmental recordings and ambient soundscapes to produce sonic experiences that recontextualize everyday experiences. French Kettle Station is performing as sleepdial, his more ambient experiments in electronics and sometimes guitar. Polly Urethan you just never know what to expect from how now broad palette of ideas for performance and music and just be prepared to get to witness something unique and potentially challenging.

Friday | 05.12
What: Frontline Assembly and Whorticulture
When: 9
Where: Tracks
Why: EBM pioneers Frontline Assembly is performing for this “Bladerunner — A Cyberpunk Party” and providing the perfect soundtrack for such an event with its dystopian lyrics and electronic industrial.

Friday | 05.12
What: Crowded House w/Liam Finn
When: 7
Where: Paramount Theatre
Why: Australian band Crowded House is perhaps best remembered for its outstanding 1986 hit “Don’t Dream It’s Over” with its spare yet orchestral melody. But Crowded House produced some quality folk pop during its initial run of 1985-1996 and when it has since reunited in the 2000s and 2020s still led by singer/guitarist Neil Finn who had a fairly successful career while Crowded House was split.

White Rose Motor Oil circa 2021, photo courtesy the band

Saturday | 05.13
What: Scott H. Biram w/Garrett T. Capps and White Rose Motor Oil
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Scott H. Biram is the renowned blues punk musician/solo artist whose troubadour country ballads could seem like pure affectation but he’s done his time in punk and metal and bluegrass in crafting his signature gritty, gospel blues sound. Supporting this bill is the great Denver-based alternative country/outlaw rockabilly band White Rose Motor Oil whose own spare line-up as a duo always seems to punch above its weight in its forcefulness and emotional impact.

Sunday | 05.14
What: Caroline Polachek w/Alex G and Indigo De Souza
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Indigo De Souza’s songs have since early on been an expression of a moody vulnerability cast as deeply atmospheric pop songs that are often pointed but never cruel, simply honest and poetic. Her latest album out on Saddle Creek is 2023’s All of This Will End continues the development of her vibrant songwriting filled with stories that take the pain of lived experience and reflecting on the broad expanse of feelings one goes through in life and sitting in them and finding a way to put them into stories that give them a context that makes them something from which to learn and exult in life rather than be overwhelmed by disappointment, bitterness, petty betrayal (by others and by oneself). And she’s a perfect artist in this line-up of other art pop practitioners of note such as Alex G who has taken conceptual psychedelic rock to fascinating new heights and headliner Caroline Polacek who as a member of Charlift (which was founded in Boulder, Colorado while she was attending CU) made some of the cooler indie rock to have emerged out of that decade that produced the foundations of much of what we hear now. But in her solo career she has emerged as an innovative and experimental artist whose pop songs don’t seem beholden to anyone else’s style bending genres and sounds to suit her creative vision of the moment. For her 2023 album Desire, I Want to Turn Into You you can hear the impact of hyper pop and glitch but as elements and not a root.

Salads and Sunbeams, photo by Tom Murphy

Sunday | 05.14
What: Spooky Mansion w/Sour Magic and Salads and Sunbeams
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Spooky Mansion is a surf-rock inflected psychedelic lounge pop band from Los Angeles making a couple of stops in Colorado including this date at the Hi-Dive. Denver’s Sour Magic sound like they could have come from a similar musical lineage but with more luminous guitar melodies. Like maybe they got deep into DIIV and Mac Demarco and found their own voice as a band. Salads and Sunbeams is the kind of band that has crafted exquisite psychedelic indiepop that might have come right out of an unlikely scene that included the Zombies and The Apples in Stereo. But it works and doesn’t have that throwback yesteryear worship vibe even if to some extent that’s what it is because the songwriting stands on its own and worthy of its obvious and not so obvious influences.

Monday | 05.15
What: Wednesday w/Cryogeyser
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Wednesday from Asheville, North Carolina has garnered a bit of a cult following among fans of experimental noise rock and shoegaze and whatever one might call Canadian guitar bands like Women, Preoccupations and FRIGS. But then there’s another side of the band’s sound and that’s the more country flavor of some of its songs, unabashed, borderline cosmic honky tonk stuff. And Wednesday makes it work because it’s obvious the group is fully steeped in both creative instincts and its records are a journey for which a variety of sounds make sense. In particular its 2023 record Rat Saw God and its vivid stories of life in the American South told with great nuance, insight and poignancy. At times the songs can take you by surprise with an offhand lyric that’s so real but delivered with the nonchalance that makes it palatable and it all feeds into what’s making Wednesday one of the most fascinating bands of this moment.

Monday | 05.15
What: Yves Tumor w/Pretty Slick and NATION
When: 7
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Yves Tumor is an artist whose genre-bending art rock/hip-hop/electronic dance music/funk seems tapped into a raw, otherworldly energy that is a reflection of the anxieties and nightmares of the world we experience everyday. The 2023 album Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds) is more overtly rock than earlier albums but still like an alien glam rock that feels ahead of the curve. Live, Yves Tumor is a commanding figure with a lot of swagger and electrifying presence.

Monday | 05.15
What: Narrow Head w/Graham Hunt, Public Opinion and Flower Language
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Houston’s Narrow Head much like Phoenix’s Holy Fawn probably come from a general realm of local scene music but whereas Holy Fawn has transcended black metal into more the realm of a post-rock shoegaze, Narrow Head may have found its origins in a music scene that had or has fine examples of the resurgence of hardcore and emo in the compelling form that emerged all over the country in the past decade. But the band as we hear it on its new album Moments of Clarity is the kind of heavy shoegaze with dynamics like blossoming melodies and soaring vocals that seem to harmonize with the ethereal fuzz and dense low end to give the songs an undeniable uplift.

Tuesday | 05.16
What: Tim Hecker
When: 7
Where: Boulder Theater
Why: Can’t really blame Tim Hecker for expressing in his recent interview in the New York Times his misgivings for having helped to popularize ambient music since it has become such a workhorse of the bland playlist culture of Spotify. Who wants to be handmaiden to that? But to Hecker’s credit he’s always been an artist who has explored new vistas of the art form in terms of form, structure, sound palette, presentation and instrumentation. His new album No Highs is imbued with a textural, intimate quality that feels very much of the body as his music does in the live setting rather than the offensively bland and background quality of generic playlist ambient.

Tuesday | 05.16
What: Mr. Bungle w/Melvins and Spotlights
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: No matter where you check in on the Mr. Bungle timeline you will find boundary-pushing music that bends and breaks genres from the early death metal-surrealism to the lush and theatrical art rock of its late 90s output. Currently the band is touring with a lineup that includes Mike Patton, Trey Spruance, Trevor Dunn, Scott Ian and Dave Lombardo so who can say what the setlist will sound like whether its more baroque pop stuff or the material from its recently reissued 1986 demo The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny. Whatever it might be, the show will be bombastic and mind-expanding. Bonus: Melvins, the sludge rock legends, will bring their always riveting and cathartic performance of its own music that spans various ends of heavy rock with a hard hitting finesse.

Tuesday | 05.16
What: Hoodoo Gurus
When: 7
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Hoodoo Gurus are the legendary Australian garage rock band that was an influence on generations of bands that have been keyed into its particular brand of jangle psychedelia and punk. Currently the band is touring in support of its 2022 album Chariot of the Gods.

Future Islands in 2021, photo by Tom Murphy

Wednesday | 05.17
What: Future Islands w/Deeper
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Future Islands has come a long way from playing DIY spaces in Denver to Red Rocks and now headlining Mission Ballroom. But what hasn’t changed is its emotionally gripping synth pop and impassioned live performances. For this night Chicago’s arty post-punk band Deeper will bring its darkly atmospheric and poignant music to the proceedings.

Thursday | 05.18
What: Sparta w/’68 and Geoff Rickly
When: 6
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: The 2002 album Wiretap Scars is where Sparta picked up where At The Drive-In, singer Jim Ward’s then most recently prominent band, left off. The angular, Fugazi-esque, anthemic songs that astutely commented on the times without being so topical as to age poorly in the years ahead. Rather, Wiretap Scars today seems perhaps even more relevant than it did when America was in a state of confusion and nascent authoritarianism and misplaced nationalistic patriotism was starting to settle into the swing of public life. There is a passionate coherence of productive outrage on the record and based on the group’s 2022 tour Sparta will deliver on that messaging on this tour as well.

Thursday | 05.18
What: The Mssng w/To Be Astronauts and Tiny Humans
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: The Mssng is a band whose hybrid of styles sometimes comes off like people who were inspired by the agglomeration of 90s alternative rock, post-punk revival and the glam rock end of modern garage rock. To Be Astronauts has generally been sort of a 90s throwback, alternative hard rock band who displayed all the stylistic fingerprints of 2000s stoner rock but with more melody. Lately some of the band’s recordings have included versions of songs, live and otherwise, that reveal that if you strip away some of those hard rock instincts you find a band that has some solid songwriting with nothing to prove. Sure, it’s a bit like a better version of the kind of acoustic and electric alt-rock you might have heard from the likes of Counting Crows which isn’t for everyone but respectable nonetheless. Tiny Humans, what can you say, except that the singer has to stop being carted on stage in a wheelchair and in hospital robes and pretending like he’s doing a Nirvana tribute band when it’s more obvious it’s a strange attempt to fully emulate The Amboy Dukes’ guitarist’s entire solo career. But hey, who doesn’t appreciate such fetishistic performance art?

Friday | 05.19
What: Vast Aire (Cannibal Ox) w/Gee Tee and guests
When: 9
Where: Bar Red 437 W. Colfax
Why: Vast Aire is the charismatic and enigmatic rapper who is perhaps best known for his work with alternative hip-hop group Cannibal Ox. His forceful delivery and vivid, socially conscious storytelling once encountered sticks with you because his various collaborators like El-P on the 2001 classic album The Cold Vein are able to create a darkly haunting soundscape from which his voice stands out like an urban mystic and mythological poet.

Friday | 05.19
What: MUNA w/Nova Twins
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Given that the members of MUNA all have academic backgrounds in music or cultural studies one might expect the music to be something more cerebral or conceptual. And initially when developing their own material the trio of Katie Gavin, Josette Maskin and Naomi McPherson experimented with sounds and styles before coming upon exuberant pop songs with earworm hooks and lyrics that are sure about instantly relatable subjects of love and relationships but also with a sensitivity toward issues of identity beyond the usual tropes and which resonate broadly. The group released its 2022 self-titled album to critical acclaim and now MUNA is on a headlining tour of large concert halls with a supporting slot on the upcoming Taylor Swift tour where an appreciative audience for its particularly expansive and upbeat songs will be found.

Friday | 05.19
What: Shady Oaks w/Weary Bones, Fern Roberts and The Picture Tour
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Shady Oaks is a mix of blues and indie rock and Americana. Weary Bones is a bit of an Americana jam band from Louisville, Colorado but more in the vein of Widespread Panic where there are coherent songs that have resonance beyond the genre. It released its latest album Humble Echoes in 2023. Fern Roberts might be described as an indie rock band that seems to be equally influenced by Bright Eyes, 90s alternative rock and the more pop end of Built to Spill. The main reason to go to this show is to see the live debut of former Emerald Siam guitarist Billy Armijo’s band The Picture Tour. Its 2022 album Before the Sound, Before the Light was an audacious debut of introspective, gloomy shoegaze with an ear for interweaving atmospheres and feedback sculpting to produce unique melodies and an enveloping sound.

Friday | 05.19
What: Fruit Bats w/Kolumbo
When: 7
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: The new Fruit Bats album A River Running To Your Heart seems assembled and composed as a cinematic experience as much as one more musical. When the record gets up and going its intricate guitar arrangements flow with a grace and elegance that one normally hears more in music that operates at a slower pace and yet for this set of songs Eric D. Johnson and the band never sound rushed. The music is just focused even in reflective passages and there is an energy to the music that pulls you in. Fans of early The War on Drugs will hear some resonance here but Johnson’s songs seem to reign in the impulse to psychedelic self-indulgence and one gets the sense that as free as the music feels that it’s been crafted to edit out excesses that don’t contribute to one of the most consistently enchanting pop albums of the year.

Saturday | 05.20
What: Placebo w/Deap Valley and Poppy Jean Crawford – canceled
When: 7
Where: Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Placebo emerged at a time in the mid-1990s when the alternative rock wave was basically spent and a lot of really dull, beige rock and roll and uninspired pop was peddled as exciting. Placebo offered something that seemed to reinvent the edginess of the darker end of grunge with a more glam rock sense of theater and drama. Its early albums dipped into rock and dance music equally before it became even more of a thing at the turn of the century and in a fashion different than had been done by the likes of New Order, Primal Scream and their storied ilk. Its 1998 album Without You I’m Nothing and its promotional videos revealed a band that seemed to have embraced Goth-like personal darkness in musical style and outward presentation. That the band appeared in Velvet Goldmine, Todd Haynes’ 1998 glam rock fictional biopic of David Bowie and Iggy Pop and that early 1970s era didn’t hurt in establishing Placebo’s cred as a band that embodied the emerging new alternative culture. The band’s 2022 album Never Let Me Go, perhaps a reference to Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2005 tragic novel of of the same name as well as the 2010 film, its first in 9 years has Placebo pushing its own boundaries beyond where it has been before as a band with an unabashed use of saturated synth melodies and a much more creative use of processed guitar in rock music than we’ve heard in awhile. And if you’re going to have an opening acts like mutant garage psych duo Deap Valley and experimental pop/singer-songwriter Poppy Jean Crawford that just hints that someone in your camp has been listening for something different and actually cool which isn’t always the case in the music industry even on accident.

Fenne Lily, photo by Michael Tyrone Delaney

Saturday | 05.20
What: Fenne Lily & Christian Lee Hutson w/Anna Tivel
When: 8
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: The intimate production on Fenne Lily’s new album Big Picture puts her expressive and breathy vocals front and center without pushing the delicate, almost impressionistic, warm and layered guitar work into the background. The songwriter sounds resigned on these set of songs but that seems to come more out of a sense of having to come to terms with how you can never really get too complacent in life nor do you want to and that sometimes getting to used to comfort can be a path antithetical to personal growth but also how feeling like you’re always having to fend off life’s static and unpredictably intermittent challenges can be kind of a bummer even if you’re able to brush them off and move forward. Lily sounds like she understands and has some deep empathy for how in recent years everyday challenges have seemed like a bit much and how that pace isn’t exactly relenting yet we do have to maintain a core of some grace to weather this steady stream of a whole lot of everything. Big Picture, the title alone, points to how stepping back in the moment can give you the pause you need to keep things in perspective even if you have a moment or ten.

Sunday | 05.21
What: Shania Twain w/Hailey Whitters
When: 6:30
Where: Ball Arena
Why: Shania Twain needs no introduction. The “Queen of Country Pop” is one of the best selling artists of all time. Certainly in the realm of country and pop music of the last 30 years. Normally in this show listing these kinds of artists don’t make the cut because they’re just too mainstream and not creatively interesting. But Twain was a pioneer in pushing country music into the realm of pop. She and Garth Brooks, whether you’re into their music or not, paved the way for people like Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood to find an audience beyond the niche of country. Twain’s humor and charisma made her songs appealing beyond genre and continue to do so. In 2023 Twain released her new album Queen of Me which features current production techniques (even some elements of hyper pop) one might expect to hear on the record of a newer artist but of course the draw is her commanding voice and ability to articulate a range of feelings that seem to capture timeless experiences in new ways that fortunately hint that Twain is keenly aware of not only her place as a country artist that has always embraced new sounds but as one who has also been trying on new ways of having her songs hit with fresh sounds and songwriting that doesn’t sound like she’s stuck in the past.

Sunday | 05.21
What: Violent Femmes w/Jesse Ahern
When: 5
Where: Levitt Pavillion
Why: Violent Femmes will perform its 1983 self-titled debut album in its entirety for this show. That record was a staple of alternative rock radio and college dorms for decades. Its weird blend of folk, punk, jazz and outsider pop had an undeniable, immediate and enduring appeal with classics like “Blister in the Sun,” “Add It Up” and “Gone Daddy Gone” but the whole record beginning to end is a journey into the essence of youthful angst and frustrations but expressed in a way that somehow remained relevant well beyond anyone’s teen years. The Femmes remain a force in the live setting and always surprisingly powerful yet fun.

Arts Fishing Club, photo courtesy the artists

Tuesday | 05.23
What: Arts Fishing Club w/Homes at Night
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Arts Fishing Club is an indie rock band from Nashville that formed in 2016. Singer/guitarist Christopher Kessenich grew up seeing live music with his father and older brothers witnessing a mix of alternative music, classic rock and jam bands all of which fed into his own eclectic songwriting. The band’s debut album Rothko Sky (due out June 16, 2023) is arranged as a kind of personal journey of a person who in the first half of the record sets out in life idealistic and open to everything only to find out that all of us have limitations both human and of our own unique psychology. On the album’s second half there is a reflection on the nature and impact of love, sex and pain and how that can shape who we are once the shine and novelty of new experiences evolves into appreciating the breadth and depth of life. The songs have a bluesy grit and an often impassioned delivery informed by the flow of its narrative element for a record that sounds like it had to be made by a band a few releases into its career once it has figured out who it is and what it wants to say with intention but with the exuberance of a new band intact. Listen to our interview with Kessenich on the Queen City Sounds Podcast on Bandcamp.

My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult in 2012, photo by Tom Murphy

Monday | 05.22
What: My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult w/ADULT. and KANGA
When: 6:30
Where: Oriental Theater
Why: My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult is currently touring celebrating its 36 years as a band with a set list that focuses on the group’s first decade. The band’s campy, industrial disco sleaze has always demonstrated a more fun and lighthearted side of industrial culture while offering a distinctive visual and musical style in its bombastic live shows. By the time Thrill Kill Kult appeared in The Crow (1994), the band had already been staples of the more underground end of alternative rock write large but its performance in the film was the perfect embodiment of the aesthetics of the movie. ADULT. is the great industrial post-punk duo from Detroit whose music of the past few years has really been the musical reflection of the conflicted and dystopian times we’ve been going through with a world on the brink of domination by authoritarian regimes and the already unfolding disastrous consequences of climate change with little to no vision and action by world leaders. ADULT.’s music is an act of human solidarity and a catharsis of ambient despair. KANGA is a Los Angeles-based producer whose dusky pop music is darkwave adjacent but also adjacent to a more dance beat infused chillwave and vaporwave with sultry vocals. It might be more apt to compare KANGA to the likes of Charli XCX and Jessie Ware than an artist out of the Goth world.

Tuesday | 05.23
What: Martin Dupont w/Julian St. Nightmare and French Kettle Station and Kill You Club DJs
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Legendary French New Wave band Martin Dupont, formed in 1982, is playing few shows on this tour through the US and one of those stops is in Denver. The group has a new album out called Kintsugi that with its sweeping synths and darkly melancholic melodies seems to have arrived in time for the current era of appreciation for its particular style of cold wave pop/minimal synth and marking its first album in 36 years. French Kettle Station might be described as a hybrid New Age/glitch/post-Cloud rap/abstract post-rock artist whose stage antics involve some impressive dance moves and prodigious energy. Julian St. Nightmare is one of the best post-punk bands from Denver at the moment whose songs seem to have emerged out of its members having gone through phases of playing garage and psychedelic rock and surf but come through with some strong songwriting skills and the ability to craft moody yet powerful songs that don’t sound like the cookie cutter version of modern darkwave.

Tuesday | 05.23
What: Y La Bamba w/Ritmo Cascabel
When: 7
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Ya La Bamba is currently touring in support of its new record Lucha which in its typically exploratory fashion employs folk music of various traditions and an experimental soundscaping aesthetic that allows for a rich expression of themes and the sounds that serve to anchor them in your mind. The album is one about various identities and how they overlap and how we can come to embrace them as a coherent and intermingled part of our existence no matter what those categories might be of gender, sexuality, culture and individual psychology. It’s a gentle record but one that runs deep into the aforementioned subjects and through that more vulnerable approach that encourages patience with self and others is able to more successfully enter into the more tender realms of the heart and mind and comment with an intuitive insight. The psychedelic folk of these songs are ambitious in scope and imagination and the live band always seems to truly render the songs into a vibrant and moving form.

Friday | 05.26
What: Mareux w/Cold Gawd
When: 7
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: Mareux established his cult following as a darkwave artist with singles and EPs over the past few years. What set him apart from some of his peers though are his deeply lush and detailed production with rich low end, his dusky and soulful vocals and his poetic tales of romantic yearning like something out of late night cafe reminiscing about heartbreak and lost loves. Currently the producer/singer/songwriter is touring in support of his debut full-length Lovers From the Past, a record that reveals a dimensionality to Mareux’s gift for conveying sonic depth and emotional nuance. Opening is the Cold Gawd whose 2022 album God Get Me the Fuck Out of Here was one of the records of choice to connoisseurs of shoegaze and music that pushes the boundaries of established styles. With R&B beats and granular guitar melodies in densely expressive layers, Cold Gawd is helping to reshape what both forms of music have to sound like and whether there has to be a separation.

Friday | 05.26
What: Chromeo and Hot Chip w/Coco & Breezy and Cimafunk
When: 5
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Canadian electro-funk duo Chromeo seems to regularly tour with its bombastic and visually arresting live show and always with an innovative opening act or two along for the ride. For this outing at Red Rocks you will get to see Hot Chip. The UK band came to prominence in the early 2000s for its innovative fusion of synthpop and dance music that sounds like a successor to the kinds of sounds we heard out of Madchester, the Balearic Beat, disco and neo soul. Hot Chip always seems to have a keen ear for use of space in its compositions and how that can have a very powerful emotional resonance that goes beyond the mere us of dazzling, atmospheric melodies and strong beats. Its latest album is 2022’s Freakout/Release which found the band leaning heavy into its alternative pop sound with some nice experimental moments reminiscent of Kraftwerk and perhaps contemporaries it influenced like Cut Copy. It might be the group’s most full-realized album in its long career.

Friday | 05.26
What: Ganser w/Antibroth and The Red Scare
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Chicago’s Ganser is probably well within the realm of post-punk but artier and with a more interesting palette of sounds upon which it draws. In moments like noise rock math rock psychedelic weirdos with angular flow but with an ear for sculpting the collective soundscape it creates. In this way the band has more in common with other Chicago weirdo post-punk bands like Facs or Dehd or beyond the Windy City and akin to bands like Studded Left, Body Double, Dry Cleaning, Lithics or FRIGS. Whatever the exact nature of Ganser might be for anyone into more experimental post-punk that isn’t being defined by a trendy sound. Opening are confrontational, mathy post-punk band Antibroth and the more noise rock The Red Scare.

Saturday | 05.27
What: Suzanne Ciani w/Colloboh
When: 7
Where: Central Presbyterian Church
Why: Synth pioneer Suzanne Ciani is doing a rare performance in Denver this night with quadraphonic sound and a projection-mapped light show. Ciani’s long career has seen her work appear in film, television and commercials as music and sound effects and her 1980s and beyond New Age albums have been nominated for a Grammy five times. Her contributions to sound design and music has been a part of popular culture in ways both subtle and overt and her unique achievements as a composer in league with the likes of Morton Subotnick, Wendy Carlos, Laurie Spiegel, Pauline Oliveros and Delia Derbyshire. Don’t sleep on these shows. You may never get another chance to see Ciani live.

Saturday | 05.27
What: Nerver, Almanac Man and Edith Pike
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Nerver from Kansas City is a rising noise rock band in the vein of the kinds of artists you’d hear from Amphetamine Reptile and Touch and Go. It’s 2022 album CASH was a brutal yet haunting selection of songs that are somehow both melancholic and introspective yet fiery in their cathartic moments. In 2023 Nerver released a split with noise rock legends Chat Pile called BROTHERS IN CHRIST. Edith Pike’s self-titled EP from 2022 may have been pretty lo-fi but you can hear the kind of screamo-noise rock crossover sound that may have its roots in hardcore but has evolved beyond the predictable version of that music. Almanac Man also from Denver has the kind of gristly noise rock that’s feral like Neurosis but with a post-punk angularity that gives its music a vibe like Shellac if Steve Albini had come up in the music world he helped to influence.

Meet the Giant in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 05.27
What: Meet the Giant album release w/Church Fire and The Mssng
When: 8
Where: Enigma Bazaar
Why: Meet the Giant is releasing its new album We Are Revolting. The group’s 2018 self-titled debut was the product of several years of woodshedding musical ideas and songs as well as production and its gritty mix of rock and downtempo with emotionally stirring vocals reflected with the then emergent live band. This time around the trio appears to have focused on an even sonically edgier catharsis with songs that express an anger born of frustration and weariness at the political and cultural situation in which we find ourselves in America and really worldwide. As touchstones one might point to the likes of Failure and its own fusion of rock and electronic sensibilities and a sheen of the cinematic. Or Nine Inch Nails in even further implementing sound design elements in the mix. But Meet the Giant’s songs tend to be more melodic and its sound having more in common with a modern shoegaze band with a bit more rock and roll kick to its songwriting. Church Fire is also on the bill bringing its own reinvented amalgam of political, electronic industrial dance music and are rock touches.

Sarah Shook and the Disarmers, photo by Harvey Robinson

Sunday | 05.28
What: Sarah Shook and the Disarmers w/Porlolo and Wheelright
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Outlaw country, country-punk, whatever designation fits Sarah Shook and the Disarmers, Sarah Shook is one of the most distinctive voices in modern country music on the still fairly underground level where a great deal of the best of that and other musical styles are found. Shook’s voice has enough of a rough edge to be interesting but their melodic resonance serves well stories of every day life written in a way that seems so specific yet relatable in spirit and substance. Speaking of, Pololo is more an indie rock band but Erin Roberts has a gift for turning a sense of humor into music with a sharply observational and existential bent.

Sunday | 05.28
What: Yob w/Cave In and Dreadnought
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Yob is an influential doom band that began in 2000 before splitting in 2006 and reconvening in 2008. Its sound is definitely in that realm of mining what Black Sabbath, Saint Vitus, Sleep and Earth had done before but seeing Yob live it seems obvious that Mike Scheidt is injecting a sense of fun into the music and its flows of heavy rock is tinged with psychedelia. This coming year the group is re-issuing its debut album Elaborations of Carbon so perhaps the set list will favor that record but either way, Yob is a fun live band that makes music that is both cosmic and deeply human. Cave In is the influential post-hardcore, foundational metalcore band from Massachusetts. Dreadnought is the doom band from Denver whose rhythmic style has a tribal sensibility and whose overall sound is more atmospheric, psychedelic and more rooted in dark folk than many of its heavy music peers.

Monday | 05.29
What: Djunah w/Moon Pussy and Limbwrecker
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Chicago’s Djunah is a noise rock band of the kind that fans of the jarring and cathartic music of HIDE and Diamanda Galás might find much to their liking. Fronted by guitarist/singer/Moog bass player Donna Diane, Djunah recently released its new album Femina Furens. The heaviness of the music doesn’t just come from its gloriously clashing dynamics and instrumentation, it’s, per Djunah’s Bandcamp page, “the story of diagnosis and continuing recovery from complex post-traumatic stress disorder, or C-PTSD. The album’s title comes from the Latin for ‘furious woman.’ The artwork is inspired by representations of the divine feminine in 1970s sci-fi metal art.” Touchstones on a quick listen would have to include Chelsea Wolfe, Patti Smith and Nick Cave for the exuberantly unleashed emotional energy present within. Who better to open than Denver’s Moon Pussy whose own eruptive noise rock while often accompanied by an eccentric sense of humor between songs has a similarly elemental energy that releases personal darkness, pain and frustrations in built and rapidly uncoiled tensions. Limbwrecker has a similar aesthetic though from a place that seems more steeped in a foundation of hardcore and extreme metal.

James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem, photo by Ruvan Wijesooriya

Monday and Tuesday | 05.29 and 05.30
What: LCD Soundsystem w/M.I.A. and Peaches
When: 6
Where: Red Rocks
Why: LCD Soundsystem is the band started by James Murphy of DFA Records as a vehicle for his experiments in blending indie rock and electronic dance music. Though often associated with “dance punk,” LCD Soundsystem is much more wide-ranging than that designator would suggest with innovative production and a highly experimental approach to songwriting format and style beginning with the early single “I’m Losing My Edge” to its newer material like “New Body Rhumba” from the soundtrack to Noah Baumbach’s 2022 film White Noise based on Don DeLillo’s 1985 novel of the same name. Perhaps just as noteworthy for this show are the opening artists. Sure, irreverent and theatrical electroclash pioneer Peaches was in Denver recently with a powerful and entertaining show at the Summit Music Hall but rapper M.I.A., who learned how to make her own music from Peaches, hasn’t played in this area since her most recent national tour in 2008 at the Fillmore Auditorium, and her own music and performances are informed by her fusion of hip-hop, experimental electronic dance music, non-Western musical styles and an activist bent that challenges human rights abuse and imperialism.

Tuesday | 05.30
What: Helloween w/Hammerfall
When: 6
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Helloween is the influential power metal band from Hamburg, Germany. Since 1984 released a string of albums that have often featured concepts and storytelling commenting on the human condition in both personal, emotive narratives and paralleling historical references with current events and commenting on recurring themes of human civilization and the impact of culture and those in power on the lives of people within and without a particular country. The iconography of the pumpkin has been part of the group’s artwork since early on and infuses the often weighty subject matter of the songwriting with a touch of humor and humanity. In 2016 older Helloween lead vocalists Michael Kiske and Kai Hansen rejoined along with long time singer Andi Deris for the kind of sound not many groups in metal have ever had in one band. In May 2023 the group was slated for induction into the Metal Hall of Fame. In the coming days look for our audio interview with guitarist Sascha Gerstner on the Queen City Sounds Podcast series.

Tuesday | 05.30
What: Ryan Oakes w/Layto and Cherie Amour
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Ryan Oakes released his new album WAKE UP on May 12, 2023. The album makes good on the rapper’s experiments in genre bending and blending. The subject matter is about personal struggle, mental health difficulties and overcoming adversity but the attitude and delivery is punk set to trap beats and production for a sound that could be a complete disaster but works because the words are raw and real and the music hitting with an exhilarating immediacy. Somehow Oakes takes the anthemic quality of modern post-hardcore emo and a dazzling parade of current cultural references to tell stories of striving and struggling in an era of amplified anxiety and pressure to succeed despite human limitations and vulnerabilities. Oakes doesn’t bother not tapping into hyper pop’s sonic surrealism and industrial hip-hop as well as the aforementioned styles to create a compelling sound of his own.

Tuesday | 05.30
What: Drain w/Drug Church, MSPAINT and TORENA
When: 7
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Drain is a melodic hardcore trio from Santa Cruz, California that recently released its new album Living Proof. Drug Church hails from the opposite end of the country in Albany, NY but its own style of hardcore is also not short on melody but its style is one with some roots in pop punk or the modern, better, version that emerged in the early 2010s. But the real reason to go to this show is to see MSPAINT from Hattiesburg, Mississippi whose debut full length Post-American release came out on Convulse Records. Clearly the band came out of the punk/hardcore scene but it’s synth-driven art punk is stranger and more colorful than a lot of what else is on offer for this night but delivered with the same level of intense energy and outpouring of passion. One might compare the band to Milemarker and The VSS but it’s really its own, unique flavor of challenging-to-classify punk.

Chella and the Charm in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Wednesday | 05.31
What: Chris King & The Gutterballs w/Chella and The Charm and Silver Triplets
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Chris King & The Gutterballs is a band from Seattle whose flavor of Americana has more in common with CCR than the more modern country folk strain though that’s in the mix too. Chella and The Charm has for the past decade or so provided the kind of Americana that is an urban soundtrack to contemplating life and the sorts of issues and thoughts and feelings that drive an authentic existence and performed with the earthy energy of a rock and roll band. But even within that you can hear the irreverent humor and sharp social commentary and observations on human behavior with affection and insight.

Ultrabomb, photo from ultrabombmusic.com

Wednesday | 05.31
What: Ultra Bomb w/Black Dots, The Black Gloves and Shiverz
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Ultrabomb is a punk supergroup featuring Greg Norton of Hüsker Dü, Jamie Oliver of UK Subs and Finny McConnell of The Mahones. The music that’s been available appears to be a particularly vibrant style of power pop and fantastic vocal melodies that one might expect from a group of such punk luminaries.