Total Cult – Queen City Sounds and Art

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond July 2026

Blucifer’s First Rodeo is Denver’s newest and most ambitious music festival. Buy tickets here.

Modern Leisure, photo courtesy Casey Banker

Thursday | 07.02
What: Modern Leisure, Angel Band and Caspar Milquetoast
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Modern Leisure makes its more high profile return to Denver stages after a bit of a hiatus. The group fronted by Casey Banker who has been a member of some of the better indie rock bands of the past several years including The Don’ts and Be Carefuls and Shady Elders. Banker’s talent for writing a memorable melodic hook with emotionally vibrant songs about heartbreak, heartache and everyday life in urban America with vivid storytelling that renders some of life’s downbeats seem like something you can pull yourself out of often by just really feeling those moments. Opening are two of the more noteworthy bands from Denver. Angel Band writes exquisite pop songs in the vein of vintage early Slumberland and Sarah Records groups with some actual grit and emotional weight. Caspar Milquetoast writes the kind of psychedelic country that sounds like what would happen if some great 90s lo-fi pop band discovered both Townes Van Zandt and the more cosmic end of The Byrds or The Flying Burrito Brothers while free associating experimental musical ideas and cultural references. Who names a song after Cy Twombly? Not many acts.

Friday | 07.03
What: Suicide Cages, Church Fire, Seam Ripper and f-ether
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Suicide Cages is the rare heavy band in its post-hardcore/noise rock mode that is intense and forceful in its performance style with incredibly precise musicianship and nearly unhinged in the outpouring of feelings while sensitive and giving expression to the rage, pain and sadness that comes from navigating the offenses against humanity that come from navigating late capitalism. Church Fire will pretty much debut it’s four-piece configuration and new light show with this performance, it’s first in months, which is a bit of a record for a band that has regularly performed live every year for more than a decade so if you’ve been seeing them it’s going to be noticeably different but likely still the gloriously energetic and emotionally charged catharsis of industrial dance pop. Seam Ripper from Greeley appear to have found the sweet spot between doom, Gothic rock and post-hardcore without feeling the need to fit in strictly in a genre. f-ether has often been one of the best electronic dance producers with a gift for inventive beat-making and tonally rich melodies. Skyler Heck aka f-ether has been delivering hard hitting yet fluid industrial hip-hop.

Saturday | 07.04
What: Ed Sheeran w/Myles Smith amd Aaron Rowe
When: 5:30
Where: Empower Field at Mile High
Why: Ed Sheeran is one of the most commercially successful pop artists of his generation and needs no introduction. But Sheerhan is someone who started writing songs in his very early teens and worked as a guitar tech in his late teens before being accepted at Academdy of Contemporary Music and then dropping out to focus on his budding career in music as a songwriter and musician but also as support for other artists. But by the time he was 19 he was garnering mainstream attention for his own work and he signed to a major label after self-releasing a few EPs. Since 2011 Sheerhan has become one of the most famous songwriters in the world for his particular style of folk pop with obvious influence from hip-hop in the production. He has also used his success to uplift other artists whether as a collaborator or with opening slots on his tours. One artist who was inspired by Sheeran is opener Myles Smith who grew up in a British Jamaican family near London. Smith himself has cultivated a wide fan base for his uplifting, expansive and soulful folk pop. With three EPs released between 2024 and 2025 Smith has grown as a songwriter and his 2026 debut full-length My Mess, My Heart, My Life is an especially vulnerable set of songs that are open about personal and interpersonal struggle, love and what makes life worth living. There’s a song called “Sertraline” which is another name for Zoloft signaling how open Miles is about real issues that one is willing to take necessary steps to help oneself get through some of life’s super downbeats.

Thursday | 07.09
What: Replica City album release, Total Cult, Glueman and Cleats
When: 7:30
Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Room
Why: Replica City is releasing its new full-length album A Better You. The ten songs confirm that the trio has put together a narrative of the state of American society today with heartfelt songs about self-accountability, authoritarian paranoia and corruption and the multitude of ways our economic system and culture aim to keep us all distracted and powerless. Like a Millennial cognate of Zen Arcade but whose version of angular yet melodic post-hardcore is reminiscent of the likes of Drive Like Jehu, Hot Snakes and Pretty Girls Make Graves. Opening are post-garage punk group Total Cult from Colorado Springs, garage grunge stars Glueman and noisy post-hardcore band Cleats.

Friday | 07.10
What: BleakHeart, Spiritual Poison, Mournful Ruin and El Welk
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Denver-based doomy shoegaze group BleakHeart is celebrating the release of its latest album A Stone Thrown to Silence with this stacked lineup. The four-piece has undergone a bit of reinvention since the 2024 release of Silver Pulse with greater experiments in the use of space and now with just one vocalist in Kiki Ganun, The lead singles and song titles suggest the record leans into themes of impermanence and searching for hope or at least the will to move forward when there seems to be little to nothing to offer solace in a world that seems to be headed to annihilation. The album seems to most completely reflect the name of the band but in its dark drones and most crushing guitar work one hears resilience and a strength of personality that everyone has but often forgets until the time comes to draw on inner resources one didn’t know one had. Spiritual Poison is the “ambient” band of Ethan McCarthy of Primitive Man fame but don’t show up to the set expecting something like Brian Eno or Laraaji. Nothing as soothing as that but an cathartically unsettling flow of textural atmospheres and deep, layered tone. Mournful Ruin is a death/sludge quartet from Denver with more than a touch of Sabbath and black metal in its sound. El Welk is the great, dark garage Americana band fronted by George Cessna with Kim Baxter on drums.

Saturday | 07.11
What: The Church – The Singles: 1980-2025
When: 7
Where: The Summit Music Hall
Why: The Church is the legendary Australian post-punk and psychedelic rock band from Sydney who got off the ground in 1980 and has had a distinguished career of producing some of the most emotionally engaging and poetic rock music of the past few decades. They have classic material most people who have been aware of rock and pop music since the 80s but the group’s entire catalog of studio material is worth a listen and the band has managed to reinvent itself regularly without losing its gift for creative storytelling and heartfelt and insightful lyrics delivered with passion and grace. Truly one of the greats of modern music and they will play some of the finest material from throughout its career for this performance.

Tuesday | 07.14
What: PINKNOISE w/Edith
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: PINKNOISE aka Kacey Foxx released their sophomore EP FLESH AND BONE on April 17, 2026. The seven song offering is the singer/songwriter’s follow up to the 2025 EP HUMAN=KIND. Foxx makes a kind of music that perhaps fits in with industrial metalcore/screamo but the vulnerability doesn’t feel performative or like misplaced aggrievement. The songs invite the listener in for a shared experience where one can explore painful experiences, insecurities and resistance to a toxic culture of cruelty that seems to permeate channels of social and political power. Regardless of any specific styles that may have influenced Foxx as a developing artist, their ability to fuse emotional power with the ability to express truths of inner turmoil has a catharsis resonant with some of the better music of Nine Inch Nails.

The Head and the Heart, photo by Alex Currie

Wednesday and Thursday | 07.15 and 07.16
What: The Head and the Heart with The Colorado Symphony Orchestra w/Evan Honer 7/15 and w/Wilderado 7/16
When: 6:30 both nights
Where: Red Rocks Amphitheater
Why: Seattle’s The Head and the Heart emerged in 2009 around the time of a national upswing of indie folk in various corners of the country. Its members met through open mic nights at Conor Byrne pub in the Ballard neighborhood in northwestern Seattle and when the group put together a recording in 2010 they home made covers with denim to house the CDRs it was an organic hit locally with stores like Easy Street in West Seattle and Sonic Boom in the aforementioned Ballard not being able to keep up with demand. That fall the band signed to Sub Pop who remastered and reissued the self-titled debut on vinyl, CD and digital. The album went on to Platinum-selling status. The Head and the Heart has since gone on to much wider acclaim and fame playing large venues on national and even international tours but its core virtues as a band can be heard in that first record for which it is now touring behind a 15-year anniversary of the self-titled album. The band’s vocal harmonies feel intimate and powerful with the three vocalists complementing each other with an intuitive connection with each other accented with the prominent percussion and orchestral arrangements on guitar, bass and mandolin. On this two-night run of performances the group will be joined by The Colorado Symphony Orchestra itself acclaimed for syncing well with indie rock and other bands whose songs easily adapt to a larger and more expansive sound palette.

Friday | 07.17
What: The Body and Big|Brave w/Spiritual Poison and Fainting Dreams
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: The Body has for years been a reliable source of some of the heaviest, most crushing, dynamic experimental metal around. Freely mixing sludge, doom, noise rock, screamo and power electronics, the duo of Chip King and Lee Buford seem to collaborate with many of the more forward thinking heavy bands of the past three decades as well as offering up several albums of only their own material. Going to a show from The Body is like signing up for a flood of sounds and outpouring of emotion in a joyous yet bare bones display of maximalist guitar, drums, electronics and vocals creating more noise than a duo has any seeming right to doing. The music may seem monolithic to the uninitiated and fans alike but listen to their records and there is a great deal of nuance and concepts that the band has masterfully executed all along with influences ranging from the most extreme metal to mainstream pop and synth pop. Currently The Body is touring with Canadian experimental metal trio Big|Brave who have done a fascinating collaborative avant-folk album with The Body called Leaving None but Small Birds (2021). But the band recently released in grief or in hope, a record that pairs melody with processed noise, textural harmonics and drone for an effect that is both intimate and enigmatic in a deep exploration of living as a human in the current era when everything seems to be falling apart socio-politically and the climate crisis and widespread extinction event hovers on the nearby timeline but clinging on to faint possibilities.

Valley Fever, photo courtesy Johnny Lundock

Saturday | 07.18
What: Valley Fever, Rowboat and A Strange Happening
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Valley Fever from Tucson, Arizona is making a stop in Denver with its fiery blues rock. Think like a progression out of the boogie rock/classic rock throwback of a decade ago. If you go you can catch Johnny Lundock formerly of Futurebirds and Denver notables Houses, Rowboat and Blue Million Miles lend his considerable gifts behind the drum kit. Opening are Lundock’s old band Rowboat and its shoegaze adjacent, noisy indie rock with songwriting rooted in folk and literary lyrics that display Sam McNitt’s gift for sharp social commentary and emotional vulnerability. Also on the bill is A Strange Happening who somehow inject Americana indie rock with a cinematic conceptualization behind the songwriting that sets the trio apart from many of its peers.

Saturday | 07.18
What: Pink Hawks, Last Reel Hero and The Opalites
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Room
Why: A full show of Afrobeat with Pink Hawks and the more rocking end of ska with Last Reel Hero’s punk spirit driving the songwriting as well as the rocksteady stylings of The Opalites. Don’t go expecting it to be a super mellow affair as Pink Hawks tend to being an intensity to the performance and a righteously politicized sensibility and Last Reel Hero includes former Fanatics frontman Geoff Anderson.

Saturday | 07.18
What: Dildox w/Hex Cassette, Watch Yourself Die and Insipidus
When: 8/8:30
Where: The Crypt
Why: Dildox is an electro-industrial post-punk duo from Los Angeles whose lyrics explore themes of trauma from living and surviving in the era of late capitalism and the inherent alienation therefrom society and ourselves. The band also delves into concepts of modern primitivism and the contrasts and contradictions of disconnecting ourselves from how humans have developed as animals through the process of civilization and reconnecting with our deep humanity. Definitely for fans of ADULT. and Youth Code. Opening are the “Satanic” shenanigans and brilliant darkwave beatmaking and performance art of Hex Cassette’s confrontational show. Watch Yourself Die takes that confrontational performance style to a different place with angular yet psychedelic noise rock and Ray Diess’ inspired breaking the fourth wall throughout the set. Insipidus is a great, progressive death metal band whose membership can be seen performing an entirely different (maybe not entirely) style of music in Pink Lady Monster.

Sunday | 07.19
What: Johnny Dynamite w/Tassles and Porcelain Horses
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Johnny Dynamite has been fusing decades and musical styles for several years and his most recent, self-titled, album from 2026 sounds like he’s absorbed chillwave nostalgia and mastery of atmospherics, 80s sophistipop and synthpop and channeled it into his own kind of melancholic post-punk with some clever turns of phrase and sly cultural references. Opening the show are Denver’s Tassles who started out as sort of a bedroom shoegaze project for singer Nick Tassinari but with the addition of bassist Molly McGrath and drummer Zach Johnson the music took on greater dimensions even though the songwriting preserved the core appeal of Tassinari’s introspective lyrics and unique guitar style. The current band has an unexpected power and gravity paired with transcendent melodies. Porcelain Horses is a darkwave/post-punk band that includes former Princess Dewclaw vocalist Amanda Gostomski.

Tuesday | 07.21
What: Trace Amount w/Lunacy and Modern Devotion
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Trace Amount is an industrial noise and abstract metal project from Brooklyn, NY. Its 2025 album FLAGRANT is a thrillingly caustic and savage set of sounds that fans of Author & Punisher will appreciate. Lunacy is a like-minded artist but his industrial sounds are more in the realm of ambient and blown out shoegaze whose own new album The Crisis of Existence has a title apt for the current time and whose songs are like a bleak projection of the prospects for our immediate future. Modern Devotion is Adam Rojo of post-punk band Voight exercising his gift for crafting masterful ambient industrial techno.

Corrosion of Conformity, photo by Danin Drahos

Tuesday | 07.21
What: Corrosion of Conformity w/Whores and Crobot
When: 6:30
Where: The Federal Theatre
Why: Probably the band’s most ardent fans knew that Corrosion of Conformity still had one of its best albums waiting to be released and so the group delivered Good God/Baad Man on April 3, 2026. It is a blunt yet heavy and rife with some of the group’s heaviest psychedelic grooves. COC of course started off as a hardcore band but by the end of the 80s it had shifted into more sludgy metal but always out of step with trendy sounds and with lyrics that more than hint at social commentary hearkening back to its punk roots. Whores is a sludgy noise rock band from Atlanta whose own experiments in volume and psychedelic heaviness has left a mark in recent years with its seething fusion of industrial metal era Ministry and Unsane.

Thursday | 07.23
What: Kim Gordon w/Sasami
When: 7
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Kim Gordon is of course a legend whose work in fine art, fashion, film and of course music is well-known. But in case someone reading this doesn’t know who she is, Gordon first came to the attention of a wide number of people was as the bassist/guitarist, singer and songwriter for influential alternative rock band Sonic Youth. Her calm presence, cool and raw emotional power and nuance and thought-provoking lyrics have influenced generations of musicians. And for that alone, Gordon would be an important figure. But her cultivation of younger and not-as-established artists along the way and has exerted a positive energy into the music and art worlds that might not have been there without her presence and advocacy. After Sonic Youth split Gordon continued to make genre bending and establishing work with Body/Head and under her own name pushing boundaries as she often did with Sonic Youth and other projects and her latest record Play Me proves that Gordon has been immersing herself in new musical ideas and incorporating some of those newer production methods and aesthetics into her own songwriting and soundcrafting imagination to produce one of the most fascinating records of 2026 with a set of songs deep in mood and inventive in beatmaking and might be considered industrial by some, trip hop by others but all Gordon’s own inimitable style. This is a rare chance to witness that music live in Denver.

Blucifer Fest, photo courtesy Gillian Pasley

Th-Su | 07.23-07.26
What: Blucifer Fest: Blucifer’s First Rodeo
When: Varies
Where: Denver DIY Spaces, Baker District, Baker House Shows
Why: This is the newest music festival in Denver and one that was initiated and run by musicians in DIY fashion with an eye for an inclusive booking and an awareness of the types of small venues, DIY spaces and house shows that have made the music scene in the Mile High City vibrant the past few years and going back decades. The first night of the festival will take place in various DIY spaces in Denver, the second and third nights will be at small venues and spots in and near the Baker neighborhood in the center of the city and the final day will be at houses in the Baker district as well. The festival will feature a wide spectrum of the music in Denver’s underground/indie scene. You could literally wander to any venue during the run of the event and catch something worthwhile that you’ve never heard of before or catch up with some of your local favorites. Below is a short list of my picks by day. For more information and full schedule please visit bluciferfest.com

Thursday July 23 2026
7PM
The Picture Tour at Ante Up!
Monkey Man at D3 Arts
Sun Swept at Squirm
Dead Boyfriend at 7th Circle Music Collective

7:15PM
head slug at D3 Arts 2

8PM
Gartener at Ante Up!

8:15PM
Soneffs at D3 Arts 2

9PM
“Horse Girl” at Squirm

10PM
Watch Yourself Die at D3 Arts
Sonic Chick at Squirm

11PM
Voight at Squirm

11:15PM
GUNK! At D3 Arts 2

Friday July 24 2026
6PM
White Rose Motor Oil at Wax Trax Broadway Bazaar
Chella & The Charm at Hi-Dive
Nina de Freitas at Bar404
Joshua Trinidad at HQ
The Milk Blossoms at Skylark

7PM
Modern Leisure at Adrift Tiki Bar
Silver West at Chaos Bloom
Jaguar Stevens at Li’l Devils
Pleasure Prince at Wax Trax Broadway Bazaar
Pink Hawks at HQ

8PM
Chroma Lips at Li’l Devils
Look at Fiona at Skylark
Bluebook at Hi-Dive
The Tammy Shine at The Saint Mary
The Savage Blush at HQ

9PM
Wheelchair Sports Camp at Hi-Dive
Munly J Munly at The Saint Mary
Circling Over at Import Mechanics
Summer Bedhead at Adrift Tiki Bar
Autumnal at Bar 404

10PM
Circling Girl at Bar 404
Patrick Dethlefs at Chaos Bloom
Dressy Bessy at Hi-Dive
Suicide Cages at Import Mechanics
Hex Cassette at The Saint Mary

11PM
Pink Lady Monster at Skylark
Los Mocochetes at HQ
babybaby4ever at The Saint Mary
SPELLS at Hi-Dive
blankslate at Bar 404

12AM
Cheap Perfume at Skylark
Sell Farm at The Saint Mary
Ritmo Cascabel at HQ
Bud Bronson & The Good Timers at Hi-Dive

1AM
DJ Kay Bay at The L

Saturday July 25 2026
6PM
Wave Decay at Adrift Tiki Bar
Fresh Fruit! At Hi-Dive
Moonlight Bloom at HQ
Bun Bun at Wax Trax Broadway Bazaar
[SALT] at Bar 404

7PM
Deth Rali at Wax Trax Broadway Bazaar
Mr. Shrimp at Li’l Devils
Shady Oaks at HQ
In Plain Air at Hi-Dive

8PM
Blood Oath at Hi-Dive
Datamen at Li’l Devils
Insipidus at Ritual Tattoo Gallery
Dollpile at The L
Cobranoid at Import Mechanics

9PM
Cherry Spit at Hi-Dive
Your Friend Nirantha at Chaos Bloom
Tassles at The L
Sour Magic at Adrift Tiki Bar
sunstoney at Skylark

10PM
Blackberry Crush at The L
Divingbell at The Saint Mary
Plastic Mystic at Bar 404
Bitchflower at HQ
Abrams at Import Mechanics
Mainland Break at Irish Rover

11PM
Julian Street Nightmare at Hi-Dive
Travel Kit at Adrift Tiki Bar
Tiny Tomboy at HQ
Night Fishing at Import Mechanics
Claruin at The Saint Mary
moonpool at The L

12AM
MF Ruckus at Bar 404
Team Nonexistent at Hi-Dive
Vegan Gore at The Saint Mary
Horse Bitch at HQ
Shadow Work at The Skylark

1AM
Neoma at HQ

Sunday July 26 2026

Baker House Shows
Big Dopes, Church Fire, Don Chicharron, Geno Beach, Mouth Cathedral, SeFa-LoCo, Totem Pocket – Venues to be announced to wristband holders

After Fest Shows at TrashHawk Tavern
Gion Davis & The Designated Strangers 9:30
Caspar Milquetoast 10:30
Clementine Was Right 11:30

Twin Shadow performs at the UMS 7:25PM at Showcase Stage, Saturday 7/25/26

F-Su | 07.24-07.26
What: Underground Music Showcase
When: Varies
Where: RINO District
Why: Underground Music Showcase reconstituted this year but now taking place in the RINO neighborhood. It will still feature some of the premiere Denver underground bands as well as out of town headliners across small venues and two outdoor stages this year along Larimer Street. A short list of the highlights of this year’s fest according to me below. Venues italicised.

Friday July 24 2026
Bierstadt Lagerhause
RAREBYRD$ 8PM

CAMPGROUND
Yugs 10PM

Finn’s Manor
Travel Kit 9PM

Improper City
Izcalli 9PM

Matchbox
Battle Pussy 8PM

Ratio Beerworks
Macheté Mouth 9PM
Animals in Exile 10PM
Cleaner 12AM

Two Moons
DNA Picaso 10PM

Saturday July 25 2026
Showcase Stage
Twin Shadow 7:25PM

Underground Stage
Rubedo 3:50PM
Snooper 6:10PM

CAMPGROUND
Legs. The Band

Finn’s Manor
Bad Boy Bug 4PM
Nina de Freitas 8PM

Larimer Lounge
NIIS 7PM

Matchbox
May Be Fern 9PM
Erin Stereo 10PM

Ratio Beerworks
Pleasure Prince 6PM
Colfax Speed Queen 8PM
The Photo Atlas 11PM

Two Moons
Venus Cruz & Super Distant Boyfriend 5PM
Covenhoven 7PM
Bluebook 9PM
Ritmo Cascabel 12AM

Sunday 7 26 26
Larimer Lounge
Madeline Hawthorne 7PM
The Milk Blossoms 9PM

Ratio Beerworks
Lost Relics 4PM
Rugburn 6PM
The Death Chat 8PM
Plastic Mystic 9PM

Black Moth Super Rainbow, photo courtesy the artist circa 2018

Friday | 07.24
What: Black Moth Super Rainbow w/Giant Day
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Black Moth Super Rainbow has done an wide national tour in several years but with the release of its 2025 album Soft New Magic Dream, its first in seven years, the group delivers a more clear-toned set of songs with themes of being lost in coping with the multiple layers of late capitalism’s caustic effect on civilization and individual human life. The distractions, the dissociating behaviors and desperation for something more imaginative, fulfilling and vital in times when the most celebrated social and cultural rewards are a dullened, diminished, infuriating version of what one would hope it could be and how it’s all a big farce and rip-off compared to what’s possible if we had the collective will to create and sustain even an okay world. The album is an escape from that and a critique of the same and a declaration of a need to aim for something much more inspirational than what is widespread in the American and even international zeitgeist. But that aside it’ll be a strange show with beautiful and rich psychedelic sounds like something from another era and a better imagining of existence.

Tuesday | 07.28
What: Sarah McLachlan w/Allison Russell
When: 6
Where: Red Rocks Amphitheater
Why: Sarah McLachlan is an award winning, celebrated songwriter with a long career and the founder of touring festival Lilith Fair that from 1997-1999 brought some of the most prominent female artists in music of that time around the country in a well curated and successful series of events at large venues. But McLachlan’s own songwriting has been imbued with a striking honesty and deeply atmospheric production that takes nothing from the intimate quality of McLachlan’s performances. For this tour she brings with her another prominent Canadian artist, Allison Russell. The latter had distinguished herself as a member of acts like Birds of Chicago and Our Native Daughters. But her solo albums beginning with 2021’s Outside Child revealed Russell’s versatility as a songwriter and singer with her signature soulful melodious vocals that fit whatever specific style she chooses to delve into. Her latest record is In the Hour of Chaos out July 10, 2026. The album showcases Russell’s mastery of pop folk songcraft but also incorporates more experimental production and unconventional song structure without sacrificing the immediacy of the music. It’s a diverse record that finds a way to describe the current era and its perils and the importance of love and recognizing hope and goodness when they are presented to you.

MaryAnne Muglia, photo courtesy the artist

Friday | 07.31
What: MaryAnne Muglia w/Lonely Choir and Kat Goblin
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Room
Why: MaryAnne Muglia is an Arizona-based composer, arranger, pianist, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist. For this tour she’s traveling with her husband and their children in an RV as an way for family and music to coexist rather than needing to choose between the two for something like a tour. Muglia released her latest EP Try Hard – Pt. 1 on March 18, 2026. Her bright and focused vocals are placed within fairly dreamlike retro pop music like something one imagines from a 2000s underground indie pop world before everyone discovered Laurel Canyon and retro synths and made imaginative music drawing on memories of summer nights and having the time and psychological space to stretch into pondering existential questions and the nature of one’s feelings for a beloved other and really both feel it all and thing it through with poetry and finding the right tones and paces to express it in song. That may not be the intention and certainly not the creative process of Muglia’s EP but its orchestral songwriting conveys so much and evokes another time much less compressed and desperate as things feel today and listening to music with that resonance is a gift. This show gives you the opportunity to experience it live.

Best Shows in Denver January 2026

**Cherished celebrates the release of its self-titled debut LP at Hi-Dive on 1/22/26**

Friday | 01.02
What: Angel Band w/Ryan Wong, Fishlegs, Elaine and Nimona
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Angel Band is an indie pop band that seems to have taken inspiration from jangle pop groups of the late 80s and early 90s. Like C86-affiliated groups and acts on the Sarah Records and early Slumberland imprints. There is an enthusiasm with which the music is performed but without losing a sense of delicacy and gentleness. Fishlegs is like-minded in its embrace of the kind of charming twee pop that made 90s underground music worth seeking out. Ryan Wong is of course the songwriter and producer behind his band Supreme Joy but his solo performances can wax into his equally worthy country songwriting.

Thursday | 01.08
What: Victim of Fire, Cronos Compulsion, Aleister Cowboy, Pedestal for Leviathan
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Victim of Fire is a Denver-based hardcore/black metal band that has been at the forefront of that music out of the Mile High City. Its 2025 album The Old Lie is a sharp and ferocious dissection of economic elitist lies told to working class people to get them to give up their best interests in pursuit of enriching the wealthy at the expense of everyone. Cronos Compulsion is a death-sludge metal band also from Denver whose 2025 album Lawgiver is a bracing listen and a solid example of the caustic and brutal sonic power of the art form. Fort Collins’ Aleister Cowboy released an EP of what might be described as cosmic death metal called Neolithic Blood Rites in 2025. Pedestal for Leviathan’s flavor of black metal is the more symphonic variety but don’t worry, it’s plenty brutal as well once the songs get into gear.

Friday | 01.09
What: An Evening With Black Flag
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Ever since replacing the most recent lineups of Black Flag with young musicians, Greg Ginn seems to want to bring some new blood into his venerable and influential punk band Black Flag. Did it work? You’ll have to go to find out but Ginn’s guitar work remains impressive and unique in the canon of punk and hardcore.

Precocious Neophyte, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 01.09
What: Warper, Precocious Neophyte and Blackberry Crush
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Warper released its new album Something, Sometime in October 2025 showcasing its further development from moody, atmospheric emo band into a heavier shoegaze band. The new record also showcased the band’s development as songwriters since its 2021 Lateness EP. Sure, you can hear a touch of possible influences like Hum and Sunny Day Real Estate but also newer groups like Cloakroom. Warper doesn’t shy away from demonstrating musical chops in the songs as well with evocative solos. Precocious Neophyte seems to come from similar roots but its musical instincts seem to have some noise rock and metal influences along with obvious touchstones like My Bloody Valentine with a knack for fragile melodies alongside searing guitar work and crushing heaviness. Blackberry Crush has evolved into more of a shoegaze band in the past couple of years but without sacrificing a knack for writing compelling pop hooks with some clear inspiration from 90s grunge.

Saturday | 01.10
What: The Pretty Shabbies, The Futons and Watch Yourself Die
When: 7
Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Room
Why: The Pretty Shabbies sound like its music is comprised of bits of 1970s jazz and funk. There’s a chance the members listened to a lot of Zappa, a bit of Jethro Tull, modern jam bands and someone in the mix probably has every Traffic record. And yet the organic free flow of the music is not without a certain appeal because it’s not like many other local bands. The Futons are sort of a psychedelic garage punk band. But Watch Yourself Die is seemingly different every time with a strong and confrontational, transgressive performance art component which is going to make it completely divergent from everything else on this bill in the best way.

Saturday | 01.10
What: Night Fishing, Nativity in Black, Tainted Blade, Halo of Lightning
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Night Fishing is a collision of fusion, psychedelic prog, surf rock and post-rock but heavy and it includes members of other much heavier and more brutal bands. This is not gentler so much as not aggressive in its sound. Nativity in Black is a Black Sabbath cover band fronted by Chella Negro. Don’t expect the poetic Americana of her other band Chella and the Charm. It’ll be legit Black Sabbath evocation. Tainted Blade is a blackened death doom band from Denver. Halo of Lightning is a “stoner-doom metal” band from Colorado.

Thursday | 01.15
What: Summer Bedhead, Circling Girl and Majona
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Summer Bedhead’s eclectic indie rock reflects the changing musical landscape of the past decade. In the band’s story songs you hear strands of the throwback to 90s rock, garage rock, dream pop and more. But it’s all channeled into the group’s own style of confessional pop songs with some bite and more than a little vulnerability. Circling Girl is a Denver-based dream pop band whose sound has some bright shimmer in the guitar melodies with vocal harmonies that are reminiscent of The Sundays, Lush in its more pop mode and a touch of Cocteau Twins. Its 2025 album Only My Veins Know is one of the better releases in the broad spectrum of shoegaze and dream pop of the past five years with its intricate and entrancing songwriting. Majona is the style of atmospheric pop that is adjacent to shoegaze but more in the realm of Mazzy Star-esque slowcore.

The Green Typewriters, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 01.16
What: Green Typewriters, Salads and Sunbeams and Teacup Gorilla
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Room
Why: The Green Typewriters are the kind of psychedelic pop band that makes use of conceptual framing and aesthetics to deliver a unique style of music that blurs the line between Elephant6 indiepop including the experimental streak of that music, art rock and mystical psychedelia. Salads and Sunbeams engages in modern pop storytelling through the sonic lens of 60s and 70s psychedelic rock with poetic observations on modern life and the ways our current civilization works to erode our humanity and offering ways to reclaim it through imagination and honest feeling. Teacup Gorilla is a high concept art pop band that challenges conventional views of gender and identity in its songs and in its presentation of the music.

Sunday | 01.18
What: Kayo Dot and Abandons
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: New York-based avant-garde metal and Kayo Dot makes a rare appearance in Denver following the release of one of its most challenging and visionary records to date in 2025’s Every Rock, Every Half-Truth under Reason. The album was written against the idea of the creative act and creativity as a result of predictive modeling and its dystopian offspring, AI music and art. The songs are not in the vein of traditional metal or really something easily or at all identifiable as metal. It’s often like an organic, mutant and sprawling set of songs that at most has something in common with something like Mamaleek. But even more abstract. Abandons is not as avant in its songwriting but it is in the way the band writes music in a more improvisational mode and without seeming to try to fit in with a neat genre. Sure if you want to call them post-rock or post-metal they fit that but also noise rock and art rock and in moments with songs written with more abstract electronic ideas in mind.

Thursday | 01.22
What: Cherished album release w/Tassles, Flesh Tape and Headslug
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Ever since switching names to Cherished in 2022 and a shift in sound more toward the shoegaze end of post-punk this Denver quintet has developed a body of work that defies easy categorization. There is some noisy, punk edge underlying the sonics and performance style but the atmospheric melodies and introspective and thought-provoking lyrics set the band apart from any obvious niche aesthetics. Its 2025 self-titled album was recorded and mixed by Seth Manchester at Machines With Magnets who is perhaps best known for working on records by Model/Actriz, Lingua Ignota, Battles, Big|Brave and Lightning Bolt. It emphasizes the more gritty side of the band’s sound without sacrificing the deep moods Cherished manifests live. Opening the show is bedroom dream pop band Tassles, noise-rock post-punk group Flesh Tape and Headslug whose sound sits somewhere between grunge pop and shoegaze.

Friday | 01.23
What: Cthonic Deity, Street Tombs and Death Possession
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Cthonic Deity is the doom/death metal/punk band from Denver that includes Paul Riedl of Blood Incantation fame. It’s much more stripped down and brutal in its guitar attack and includes members of Scolex and Ascended Dead as well. Street Tombs from Santa Fe, New Mexico are a collision of d-beat punk and thrash-infused death metal. Death Possession play the kind of death metal that sounds like it was inspired by many sessions of taking in early Slayer, early Possessed and Xasthur in a secret club house.

Friday | 01.23
What: Gion Davis, Dollpile, Your Friend Nirantha
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Room
Why: Gion Davis is a poet with the indie rock band Clementine Was Right who is releasing a new book Designated Stranger that “spans years, states, genders, and climates as it confronts the concurrent apocalypses of being trans and poor in America.” Seems appropriate for the world today. Also performing is Dollpile fka Isadora Eden, a band whose dream pop is more theatrical and atmospherically dense than the genre is often known for producing. Also Your Friend Nirantha and its endearingly earnest bedroom dream/noise pop.

Turning Jewels Into Water, photo by Ed Marshall

Saturday | 01.24
What: Turning Jewels Into Water
When: 6PM doors for Artist Discussion and Q&A, concert 7:30PM
Where: Bug Theater
Why: Turning Jewels Into Water is a project with composer/percussionist/turntablist Val Jeanty and percussionist/composer/electronic musician Ravish Momin. Formed around 2017 when the two met at a jam session at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, New York. Recognizing a shared affinity for crafting unique rhythms and soundscapes and compatible methods of working the two artists have since worked together to explore the ways in which new technologies can be used to blend electronic and acoustic instruments in creating music that reflects the diverse cultural heritages and musical interests in common. The name of the project is a commentary on access to natural resources and howthat has been politicized in human struggles for power especially in the capitalist era increasingly so with the rise in climate change impacts. A casual listen to any of the duo’s three albums reveals a mastery of rhythmic arrangements and patterned tones for a sound that is ambient adjacent but more akin to the kind of early industrial beat-making and culture jamming sounds heard in a band like Cabaret Voltaire but steeped in modern sensibilities and production methods. For our interview with Ravish Momin please follow this link.

Saturday | 01.24
What: Vulgarian, 908, Old Skin and Cop Killer
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Denver-based, anti-capitalist, doom/sludge/crust group Vulgarian are releasing their third album Cost of a Bullet at this show. Expect caustic and brutal riffs and plenty of pointed and incisive lyrics about what a demented and corrupt civilization we’re living through right now. 908 is a grindcore/powerviolence band from Colorado Springs that includes current and former members of Aberrant, Catheter, Throcult, Upon a Field’s Whisper, Havok and Tree of Woe. Old Skin sounds like a band that came up playing stoner metal and doom but leaned into the Unsane and Cherubs end of that sound and now is almost more of a noise rock band with some sludgy grooves while still sounding incredibly menacing. Cop Killer is the hardcore band from Denver that thankfully has lyrics that are appropriate to the name of the band and a confrontational performance style worthy of the name as well.

Thursday | 01.29
What: William Elliot Whitmore and Jim Ward (Sparta)
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: William Elliot Whitmore is a singer/songwriter from Iowa who earned a reputation as one of the more skilled practitioners of folk Americana since the late 90s. With releases on Southern Records, ANTI- and Bloodshot Records Whitmore’s respectable body of work has garnered him a bit of a following and he has toured with Chris Cornell, Murder By Death, Converge and Esmé Patterson, with whom he has worked, to give a sense of his broad appeal beyond the obvious for his charismatic performances and fine songcraft. Also on this bill is Jim Ward, the frontman and guitarist of Sparta and former member of At the Drive-In performing his solo material that spans genres but all graced with his vulnerable yet passionate vocals.

Call Sign Cobra circa 2006, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 01.30
What: Call Sign Cobra w/Friends of Cesar Romero, El Welk, Total Cult
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Back in the mid-2000s Call Sign Cobra was a bit of a local supergroup that included members of now, minus the punk cognoscenti of the day, forgotten punk bands like Scott Baio Army, The Facet, Mail Order Children and Out on Bail. It’s sound was a kind of loose around the edges garage rock and what later “neo-classic rock” bands aimed for but could never quite nail in trying to sound pro. Imagine a Memphis garage rock band of the 90s, The Dirt Bombs, Teengenerate and a glam rock band mixed together and add a horns section and you have some idea of what you’re in for. It’s raucous, ridiculous and here’s a rare chance to see the band nearly twenty years after it dissolved. Also on hand will be modern garage punk luminaries Friends of Cesar Romero and Total Cult as well as noisy post-Americana group El Welk.

Saturday | 01.31
What: The Crooked Rugs, Rugburn and Chroma Lips
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: The Crooked Rugs from Fort Collins live come off like a countrified psychedelic rock/shoegaze band with a deep appreciation for T. Rex. But one with a knack for memorable and transporting melodic hooks. Rugburn’s own flavor of psychedelia is more steeped in grunge and more distorted sounds in general with a bit of an edge. Denver’s Chroma Lips has more synth in the music and its motorik beats point to some inspiration from Krautrock, possibly a touch of Silver Apples and possible hints of having soaked up bits of the better end of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Black Mountain and the most inspired bits of Tame Impala but with more interesting guitar work.

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond April 2024

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

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

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

Five Iron Frenzy, photo courtesy Leanor Ortega-Till

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

Dust City Opera, photo courtesy the artists

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

The Crystal Method from the band’s Facebook

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Carbon Diablo Ensemble, photo by Tom Murphy

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

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

The Non-Renewed, photo courtesy the artists

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

The Playground Ensemble in 2019, photo by Tom Murphy

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

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

Munly & The Lupercalians in 2013, photo by Tom Murphy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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