Watch Yourself Die – Queen City Sounds and Art

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 New Shows in Denver and Beyond November 2023

**Chat Pile performs at The Bluebird Theater on November 2, 2023, photo by Bayley Hanes**

Thursday | 11.02
What: Chat Pile w/Agriculture
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Like its self-professed biggest influence Big Black, Chat Pile didn’t really fit in with the underground music scene of its home town of Oklahoma City as a noise rock band that even critics often describe as sludge metal. But its sound even early on captured the ambient anxiety of anyone that’s been paying attention to what’s been happening in America and the world in terms of politics and its failure to adequately address the challenges of the current era like the climate change effects we were told were decades off and the market would come up with something to make the proper adjustments along the way. Except that fascism is on the rise which is the opposite political ideology to take on global challenges and one that seems to think bellicose international policy is the answer in a time of great tensions and unfurling conflicts. Chat Pile’s fracturing guitar rock and soundscaping embodies that milieu with lyrics that make very personal experiences that can seem abstract unless you’re not too distracted to notice. The group’s monumental 2022 debut full length album God’s Country expressed all the aforementioned and even had moments of heartbreaking storytelling that ring as true as the bleakest documentaries as cast in stories about real life with gritty details of being in the working class with no hope for the future and eking out what existence you can with the small shred of dubious joy to be garnered. And yet live Chat Pile’s shows are a joyous catharsis of civilizational anxiety in a way those of few other bands ever are. You also get to see Los Angeles-based, ecstatic black metal band Agriculture which released its own, self-titled, debut full-length. Agriculture is definitely not the typical black metal band and on the record avant-garde musician Patrick Shiroishi contributes saxophone and there is an experimental and improvisational aspect to the songwriting that feels more wide open than a lot of black metal.

Friday | 11.03
What: Genesis Owusu w/The Deep Faith
When: 8
Where: Globe Hall
Why: If Ghanaian-Australian singer Genesis Owusu is a hip-hop artist he’s equally steeped in post-punk and synth pop. His albums from his 2021 debut album Smiling with No Teeth to his new release Struggler from 2023 are a fusion of the aforementioned and futuristic funk with a masterful command of lyrical flow. Owusu’s eclectic style is both accessible and avant-garde and crafted with a clearly playfully spirit that keeps his songs fresh and inviting. In the live setting Owusu’s commanding presence and theatrical presentation of the music like he’s a late night lounge MC who kicks things up a notch when the song calls for it but never lacking for the smooth dance moves. Cobranoid sounds like it has a leg in both thrash and power metal.

Friday | 11.03
What: Lost Relics w/Messiahvore, Cobranoid, Voideater and Burning Sister
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: This show features some of the best sludge metal-oriented bands from Denver but all also have elements of noise rock rendering them a little different than any standard metal act. Lost Relics released its new album Die + Cry + Loathe in June 2023 and a quick listen reveals what should have been obvious all along but there’s a touch of Melvins from the Big Business period in there but with a drive and menace reminiscent of Unsane. Messiahvore has a little more groove and doom psychedelia in its sound but possessed of a seething heaviness as well. Voideater is like if a metalcore band stripped away everything but a stark and colossal sound that feels like it could collapse at any moment under its own heaviness. Burning Sister is a “downer rock trio” that sounds like it used to be a garage rock band that got bored with that and got into trippy music and absorbed the entire Sleep and Captain Beyond catalog and then got a little weird with those influences.

Saturday | 11.04
What: Margaret Glaspy w/Cat Clyde
When: 6 doors, 9 show
Where: Ophelia’s Electric Soap Box
Why: Throughout her prolific career Margaret Glaspy has garnered critical accolades for the immediacy of her poetic songwriting. Her new album 2023’s Echo the Diamond is a consistently refreshing and earnest offering of songs that hits with strong emotional resonance with fairly minimal elements. Singles like “Get Back” and “Act Natural” sound like they could have come out of the early 90s alternative rock era with some wonderfully roughened edges in the guitar work and eschewing excess in favor of essentials and putting the focus on Glaspy’s gift for expressing personal insight with resonant life details that always seem to transcend specific context without glossing over the human experience.

Barns Courtney, photo courtesy the artist

Sunday | 11.05
What: Barns Courtney
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Barns Courtney is challenging to describe using simple genre designations. His style seems informed by the blues rock the triumphant sound of a single like his recently released “Young in America” is triumphant and expansive, rich in stirring atmospheric melodies like an Arctic Monkeys song. In 2022 and 2023 Barns has been dropping a single here and there to hint at what he might have in store for a future album since he hasn’t had released a new record since the pandemic so for this show you may get to a see a showcase of what you might expect to see more of in 2024 delivered in his usual spirited and engaging fashion.

Monday | 11.06
What: Subhumans w/Cheap Perfume and Poison Tribe
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Subhumans are the influential and foundational anarcho-punk band from the UK. Forming in 1980 the group’s creative presentation of humanist anarchism and a left critique of politics and culture in an era when the right was on the ascent globally including in the UK and the USA proved to have an enduring appeal. Partly because the music while very steeped in punk and hardcore aesthetics made that rebellion seem fun and attainable, even a collective endeavor not led by the band so much as the band provided some incisive observations and a sense of play that embodied Emma Goldman’s words about how she didn’t want to be a part of someone’s revolution if there was no dancing. Though the group originally split in 1985 it reunited briefly a couple of times in the 90s but has been back to being active and touring since 2004.

Periphery, photo by Ekaterina Gorbacheva

Monday and Tuesday | 11.06 and 11.07
What: Periphery w/Mike Dawes
When: 7
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Periphery is a progressive metal band that formed in Washington D.C. with roots in guitarist Misha Mansoor’s home audio experiments. But over the years the group has evolved with various lineups until its current quintet. In 2023 the group released its first album in four years with Periphery V: Djent Is Not a Genre. The title is a clear and wryly humorous nod to a style of guitar sound that became the defining feature for a whole swath of modern metal with the sharp, clipped riffing. But that’s just one sound in Periphery’s broad range of expression and the new record is more imaginative than that with even elements of electronic composition and creative pinch harmonics making Periphery V not just arguably the band’s most fully-realized record but a high water mark in the progressive metal genre. Witness for yourself at one or both of these shows at a small theater like The Bluebird.

Tuesday | 11.07
What: Dale Hollow w/Sarah Adams and Peter Stone
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Dale Hollow got his start in music in his hometown Nashville, Tennessee but is now based out of New York City. Hollow refers to himself as THE Country Music Superstar (“Trademark Pending”) and his stage persona larger than life, his mystique as a fully-formed artist when his earliest released dropped in terms of songwriting and musicianship and the quality of his output supports a case for that designation regardless of that dubious claim on purely verifiable commercial grounds by the likes of Luke Bryan, Loretta Lynn, Jessica Simpson, Darius Rucker or Kenny Chesney. There is a thrilling earnestness to Hollow’s performance on recording and on stage that is commanding even when there’s an element of humor and playfulness to many aspects of Hollow’s craft. His new record Hack of the Year beats critics to the punch with the title and yet it speaks to the spirit of the underdog and the performative humility rampant in much of country music. Hollow takes on the tropes of the genre and and both embraces their virtues and upends the pretensions. Hollow’s use of humor doesn’t mean his songwriting is a joke or satire rather it plays the same role humor does in approaching life and putting everything into the proper perspective and injecting a little joy into some of the most downbeat moments we might experience. The songs of Hack of the Year are very much unalloyed country performed with a grace, elegance and passion one might hope for out of any record or any genre. Listen to our interview with Dale Hollow here.

Tuesday | 11.07
What: Tallies w/Cherished and Pill Joy
When: 7
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Tallies are the shoegaze band from Toronto, Ontario, Canada whose guitar jangle and shimmer are reminiscent of an era of music in the early 90s when a band like Sky Cries Mary wouldn’t be considered shoegaze but more psychedelic rock even though its musical ideas were resonant with a broad range of atmospheric guitar rock. Tallies’ excellent 2019 self-titled album is a bit like if The Sundays and a Sarah records band fused with a more modern shoegaze band that has benefited from developments in the sound of guitar music in the past decade and the shedding of genre adherence. Cherished is the Denver dream pop and shoegaze band whose lush and entrancing guitar work fronted by an emotionally charged frontperson in Chloe Madonna who is also the vocalist for hardcore band Destiny Bond.

Mass of the Fermenting Dregs, photo from Bandcamp

Wednesday | 11.08
What: Mass of the Fermenting Dregs w/Replica City and The Sickly Hecks
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Mass of the Fermenting Dregs is a Japanese trio whose musical style traverses post-hardcore, shoegaze and progressive rock. Formed in Kobe in 2002. After a break in 2012 the group reunited in 2015 and currently touring in support of its 2022 album Awakening: Sleeping. What Boris is for metal and psychedelic rock and noise, this group is sort of for post-hardcore/shoegaze and psychedelia in that its songs seem to have a creative coherence but its presentation can be unpredictable in ways that transcend expectation.

Slaughter Beach, Dog, photo by Dan Winters

Wednesday | 11.08
What: Slaughter Beach, Dog w/Bonnie Doon
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Slaughter Beach, Dog started as a solo side project of Jake Ewald of emo/indie rock legends Modern Baseball. But since that band’s 2017 indefinite hiatus Ewald has made Slaughter Beach, Dog his main songwriting outlet. The group’s 2023 record Crying, Laughing, Waving, Smiling has a gentle sound with guitar and percussion flowing like a gentle creek. The introspection is one of looking far afield and assessing both the past and looking to the future while trying to remain emotionally present and striking a Zen-like balance. Musically it’s like a pastoral Luna or a more countrified Low. There is an elegance to the sound and Ewald’s vocal phrasing akin to Steve Kilbey in more tranquil moments. Which seems like a flavor of the season when the world seems on the brink of deep existential turmoil.

Wednesday | 11.08
What: Bell Witch w/Spirit Possession and Paul Riedl
When: 7
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: Seattle’s funeral doom duo Bell Witch released one of its typically hypnotic, crushing, epic, concept albums in 2023 with Future’s Shadow Part 1: The Clandestine Gate. Anyone that has seen Bell Witch knows the bone rattling reputation of its low end is much deserved. But the new record begins with the sound of spectral organs evoking the mood of some kind of cosmic transition that Dylan Desmond and Jesse Shreibman are going to guide us through for the duration of the album and if you go to the show the range of frequencies generated will render that experience if not literal definitely not fully abstract.

Wednesday | 11.08
What: Kim Petras: Feed the Beast World Tour w/Alex Chapman
When: 7
Where: Fillmore Auditorium
Why: After some time struggling with the release of her two most recent albums Feed the Beast (released in June 2023) and Problématique (released September 2023), pop singer Kim Petras is finally able to share that music on a headlining tour with a stop in Denver. The latter album got delayed despite completion and was headed for being scrapped with a mass leak of the songs in 2022. But now the EDM-infused hyperpop can be experienced with Petras’ orchestrated, richly multimedia, theatrical production. Petras has been releasing singles and mixtapes and has worked with the likes of Sam Smith, Nicki Minaj, Charli XCX and Banks and is in many ways a veteran and yet this tour is a bit of an introduction of her energetic, sex positive songs of love, hedonism and heartbreak to a wider public.

Thursday | 11.09
What: Devil Master, Fuming Mouth, Final Gasp and Victim of Fire
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Devil Master is a black metal band from Philadelphia whose 2022 album Ecstasies of Never Ending Night is a blend of the aforementioned and Goth-y hardcore. Fuming Mouth is a death metal band from Massachusetts that just released its new album Last Day of Sun with its contorted vocals and expansively grindy guitar work. Victim of Fire is one of the best Denver-based hardcore bands in that more metallic vein and at times will unexpectedly cover an older and more obscure Iron Maiden song and the like. Final Gasp dropped its debut full length Mourning Moon via Relapse on September 22, 2023. It’s the perfect amalgam of hardcore, thrash and deathrock. Anyone that caught the band at Seventh Circle Music Collective over the summer of 2023 knows that these guys have a furiously intense live show and yet their music has great mood flowing through the fiery performances. The new record is reminiscent of if Testament, Fields of the Nephilim and Rozz Williams-era Christian Death collaborated on an album and made something that seemed completely out of step with its time but would seem prophetic decades later.

Pussy Riot circa 2018, photo by Sacha Lecca

Friday | 11.09
What: Pussy Riot w/Sloppy Jane
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Pussy Riot is the legendary punk and performance art group from Russia that courted controversy and experienced imprisonment for their unapologetic critiques of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Vladimir Putin regime. Those antics might not translate so well to a touring band that continues to challenge the authoritarianism of its home country and others but if you’ve managed to catch a Pussy Riot show in the past half decade and more you know that the band actually delivers an exuberant and visually compelling live performance.

Friday | 11.10
What: Cindy Lee, Freak Heat Waves, Bobby Amulet and Tepid
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Cindy Lee is the solo project of former Women singer Patrick Flegel. The music Flegel has released under this moniker has been well far afield of the experimental guitar rock of women and according to the Cindy Lee Wiki page, it’s a “drag queen ‘confrontation pop’ project.” Flegel was inspired by Karen Carpenter in her appearance and style and how her life was a kind of cautionary tale about the way stardom and the music industry can and will chew you up and dispose of you when you’re no longer getting the spotlight or if your human frailty becomes anything resembling a liability that isn’t readily marketable. The project’s fifth album What’s Tonight to Eternity is like a pure fusion of classic pop and experimental electronic music that fans of modern darkwave will appreciate with a theatrical live presentation to go along with it. Also on the bill is the solo electronic project of Nick Salmon of local shoegaze/post-punk luminaries Voight.

Friday | 11.10
What: Fever Ray w/CHRISTEENE
When: 7
Where: The Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Fever Ray really created a rich body of content in terms of composition and paired presentation for their 2023 album Radical Romantics. From science fiction noir style music videos, a broad spectrum of promotional photography depicting the singer and songwriter as an androgynous every person like a modern day David Bowie free associating and blurring the lines of gender while commenting incisively about state of the world and culture. It’s clearly one of the most ambitious creative endeavors by a musical artist who has always had a vision for the visual presentation of the music and how it will be experienced by those who show up. To call it arty synth pop is inadequate but a starting point like calling Bowie’s output glam or art rock or pop and the live show is likely to be a dazzling affair that invites participation. CHRISTEENE is the legendary synth punk and art pop artist originally from Brooklyn, NY but these days based out of Austin, TX and really an ideal opening act for Fever Ray.

Friday and Saturday | 11.10 and 11.11
What: Huerco S, Pontiac Streator, Dull Tusk, Polly Urethane, Sleepdial, Goo Age live show on 11.10, Huerco S. (DJ), Pontiac Streator, Loudmen and Aalala.One on 11.11.
When: 8:30 (11.10) and 11 (11.11)
Where: Glob
Why: Huerco S. is making an extremely rare live appearance at Glob with a live music set on 11.10 and a more DJ-oriented set on 11.11 for the late night rave crowd. Brian Leeds aka Huerco S. has had a diverse and prolific career of experimenting with the form and compositional elements of minimal electronic and musique concrète, perhaps even utilizing aspects of plunderphonics in crafting imaginative ambient and minimal house songs while genre bending at will. Pontiac Streator is a likeminded producer from Philadelphia whose own work operates in similar musical realms but with some more seeming roots in deep house and left field pop. Dull Tusk blends glitchcore production style with ambient for something markedly different from both. With Polly Urethane you don’t know what you’re going to get except that it will be something creatively different than what she’s done before as a live artist whether or not it includes bits of her work in noise, art pop, industrial punk beatmaking, classical or the unclassifiable stuff that really is part of her oeuvre. But it won’t be boring and on her own worth the price of admission. Sleepdial is the ambient project of Luke Thinnes who rarely performs this side of his music live and is perhaps more well known for his visionary futuristic retro pop and New Wave glam project French Kettle Station. Goo Age is post-glitchcore and New Age ambient soundscaping in abstract threading together of tone, texture and rhythm.

Saturday | 11.11
What: Baroness w/Wayfarer
When: 6
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Sludge rock legends Baroness reinvented themselves with the 2019 album Gold & Grey with contributions of new lead guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Gina Gleason. It not only expanded the horizons of what the group had already done and bringing a new creative edge to the band’s songwriting but set a new high water mark for progressive metal. With the band’s new album Stone (2023) Baroness has reached another level with its incorporating the driving and heavy guitar attack that established it as one of the more significant artists in modern heavy music with a more keen ear for atmosphere and nuanced emotional resonance. Yes, the people in the band are all ace practitioners of their craft who can show off aplenty and do on the album but it’s the kind of record that people who aren’t as dazzled by chops alone can appreciate much more fully as a set of songs that engage with an appeal beyond simple rocking out.

Saturday | 11.11
What: The Bright Light Social Hour w/Demob Happy
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Bright Light Social Hour is the popular Austin-based psychedelic rock band that recently released its new album Emergency Leisure, which is a great title for a record at a time when we’re all encouraged to grind and strive beyond reasonable human capacity. This time there’s perhaps an extra element of lounge vibe to its finely crafted psych pop. But get there early to catch Demob Happy who are touring in support of their own new album Divine Machines. The group based out of Newcastle upon Tyne, England some how play fuzzy, bombastic rock and roll but in the mix one imagines one hears the atmospheric alien dystopian stylings of Gary Numan and the mutant pop sensibilities of Sparks. Especially on the new record. If Demob Happy could ever be considered “stoner rock” at any point in its career at this point it has evolved into maybe a hard rock, psychedelic art glam band whose creative vision broke out of any instincts for reinventing classic rock.

Saturday | 11.11
What: Baby Baby album release w/RDFM and Deth Rali
When: 8 doors/9 show $10
Where: 715 Club
Why: Lily Conrad is known for her contributions to the likes of indie rock band Rose Variety but her solo project Baby Baby has always had this earnest, indie/bedroom pop charm and she’s releasing her new album for this show with some assist from electronic pop soundscaper RDFM and dream pop band Deth Rali.

Saturday | 11.11
What: Cherry Spit w/Moon Pussy, Watch Yourself Die and Caged Grave
When: 7pm, $10-15
Where: D3 Arts
Why: This is the debut Cherry Spit show. The band might include former Antibroth bassist Dan Witalski. But these rumors cannot be confirmed and you’ll have to see for yourself. But you also get to see hardcore/extreme metal heroes Caged Grave, Denver death rock super group Watch Yourself Die and one of the best noise rock bands of all time and fortunately based out of the Mile High City with Moon Pussy and maybe, if you’re lucky, Crissy Cuellar will have a bevy of her signature between song stage banter dad jokes.

The Holy Ghost Tabernacle Choir, photo from Bandcamp

Sunday | 11.12
What: The Holy Ghost Tabernacle Choir, Edith Pike and Fainting Dreams
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: The Holy Ghost Tabernale Choir from Savannah, Georgia is rooted in various branches of post-hardcore but its 2022 album Slow Murder expanded on what one might expect from the band if your only exposure to it was previous releases. It includes samples and its songs sound like a thrilling blend of hardcore and the noisy heavy rock of the likes of Melvins or even the more punk end of Boredoms. Opening the show is post-hardcore/dream pop hybrid band from Denver Fainting Dreams whose emotional range is broad and expressed with an intense poignancy and vulnerability. Edith Pike traverses a similarly diverse territory while exuding the raw emotional expressions in its noisy yet atmospheric songs. Like the more punk side of Unwound had that band come up during the era of power violence with sharp angles and hanging chords that drift into sharply amplified feeling.

Sunday | 11.12
What: Chat Pile w/Agriculture
When: 7
Where: Vultures
Why: This is your next chance to see Chat Pile and Agriculture on this tour. See above on November 2 for more information.

Monday | 11.13
What: SDH (Semiotics Department of Heteronyms) w/MVTANT, Church Fire and Sell Farm
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: SDH is an italo-disco/darkwave band from Barcelona, Spain. Like a gloomier version of early Ladytron and cast more in dance music style. Its 2023 album Fake is Real sounds like the soundtrack to an ultra hip retro-futurist espionage thriller. San Antonio’s MVTANT is also on the bill with his own brand of hazy, gloomy dance music that live comes off more as a hard hitting industrial band with irresistible momentum. Church Fire always brings a joyful, emotionally charged energy to its own presentation of industrial dance music that brings a sense of fun to taking down the patriarchy and authoritarianism. Sell Farm is a one-man force of early EBM and industrial soundsculpting.

Tuesday | 11.14
What: We Are Scientists w/Sean McVerry
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: We Are Scientists formed in 1999 after guitarist/vocalist Keith Murray and bassist Chris Cain met two years prior while attending Pomona College. From early on the group adopted something like a fusion of David Bowie-esque glam rock and post-punk. Its earliest releases reflected a more punk spirit in its songwriting. But over the intervening years the group of course honed and developed and reinvented its sound and its 2023 album Lobes is brimming with melodic atmospheres, funkier rhythms and sophisticated pop songcraft akin to where Phoenix has been going in recent years with more nuanced lyrical content and a series of fantastic promotional music videos featuring a car driving through a city nightscape.

Wednesday | 11.15
What: Harm’s Way w/Fleshwater and Ingrown Jivebomb
When: 6
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Harm’s Way is a hardcore band from Chicago whose particular style of sonic aggression has evolved over the years from its early powerviolence roots to what we got to hear on its 2023 record Common Suffering. Featuring a guest appearance by King Woman on “Undertow,” the album seethes with the struggle with mental health issues, turmoil in society and within one’s own relationships and the corrosive effects of political corruption and the impact of creeping authoritarianism. To meet the challenge of expressing the sorts of anxieties and frustrations most of us have felt for the past several years Harm’s Way injected its core sounds with industrial beats and caustic atmospheric elements that give the music a little more bite than previous releases which is no mean feat.

Wednesday and Thursday | 11.15 and 11.16
What: Allison Russell
When: 7 (both nights)
Where: Boulder Theater (11.15) and Bluebird Theater (11.16)
Why: Allison Russell some may know for her masterful turns in the great folk Americana duo Birds of Chicago. When that project when on hiatus in 2021 Russell released her debut solo album Outside Child and told some of the most raw and intense personal stories put to record that year. It also featured a more soul-infused sound to which her versatile and emotionally vibrant voice seemed well suited. In 2023 Russell released her new album The Returner. Rather than the seemingly autobiographical exploration of her first solo outing the new record seems uplifting and explicitly points to a spirit of transcending the demons that haunted her and perhaps held her back emotionally and as an artist. Whether this album reflects recent personal discoveries or a lifetime of overcoming childhood and not so childhood trauma matters less than its lush and entrancing sound that is informed by the soul and gospel sounds of her earlier work but also comes across as ambitious art pop akin to the likes of Kate Bush and Caroline Polacek.

Thursday | 11.16
What: Speedy Ortiz w/Space Moth and Mr. Atomic
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Speedy Ortiz started as a solo project for guitarist/singer Sadie Dupuis but expanded to a full band in 2011 that has gone on to release three EPs and four full-length albums including 2023’s Rabbit Rabbit. From the beginning Dupuis, also a visual artist, has done a most of the artwork for the band including its album covers and thus one gets a unique and personal aesthetic and perspective from the band’s music that has thankfully made its music challenging to pigeonhole outside of the umbrella term of indie rock. But there is also something immediately accessible about the pop songcraft and poetically and often cleverly observed lyrics that has set the project apart from artists more content with following an established style popular at any given moment. In October 2023 Rolling Stone magazine released a list of “The 250 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” where Dupuis charted at 176. And a quick listen to any of the band’s records reveals that Dupuis while an imaginative artist in her songwriting is also technically gifted musician who channels that talent into songs that come from the heart. Rabbit Rabbit is an album that explores various themes including survival mechanisms, those behaviors many of us undertake to get us through challenging times in our lives some of which we may not be consciously aware of adopting and which can affect us for much of the rest of our lives. And becoming aware of these patterns gives us some ability to guide our lives in ways we really want so that we can live instead of settling for mere survival. Its a complex and emotionally rich album that is also not short on humor and cultural Easter eggs for the perceptive listener that enrich the full meaning of the songs. Listen to our interview with Sadie Dupuis on Bandcamp.

Friday | 11.17
What: Eventually It Will Kill You 6 Year Anniversary: Light Asylum, Human Leather, Ortrotasce, CXCXCX and Teller
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: This anniversary show celebrating the Denver-based darkwave label Eventually It Will Kill You lead by Brian Castillo features a headlining set with legendary darkwave band Light Asylum. The latter is at this point more or less the solo project of Shannon Funchess and we haven’t heard much new music released on an album or EP since 2012 but in 2022 Funchess performed a couple of new songd at the Cold Waves festival in Chicago that year. Light Asylum’s music is a bit like a post-punk synth pop band with Funchess’ commanding vocals and dance prowess to lend the performance some visceral intensity. This marks the first time Light Asylum is performing in Denver. Also on the bill are Salt Lake City synth pop group Human Leather, modular synth noise project CXCXCX, Floridian industrial darkwave project Ortotasce and Denver synth pop solo act Teller.

Saturday | 11.18
What: Cory Hanson w/Slowhand and Supreme Joy
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Some may know Cory Hanson better for having been in Wand. But his solo works are psychedelic in a slightly different way as exemplified by his 2023 album Western Cum and its equal facility with waxing freak folk and cosmic country as bombastic psych akin to early Meat Puppets. Also on the bill is Supreme Joy which blurs the line between countrified psych and angular post-punk to fascinating effect.

Saturday | 11.18
What: Yard Art, Moonlight Bloom, Totem Pocket, Fly Amanita
When: 7
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Thankfully the Denver psyche scene of the 2010s is basically over and you get something in that realm but more in the vein of shoegaze and post-punk with indie pop in the mix with this entire bill of some of the better bands of that vintage.

Saturday | 11.18
What: FRENSHIP w/Torine and Bizzy
When: 8
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Los Angeles-based electropop duo FRENSHIP new singles “Love or an Enemy” and “Copenhagen” from their October 13, 2023 EP Base Camp. Weaving together a smooth R&B aesthetic with its signature synthpop sound, songwriters James Sunderland and Brett Hite seem to be using the new set of songs to express a vulnerability that both felt in their travels outside the US and now living apart with one living in Los Angeles and the other in Washington State and able to see their home country from different perspectives and the fragmented nature of the culture and its politics. Rather than rendering judgment the duo speak to the unease and feelings of uncertainty that seem to be a shared experience not just among Americans but internationally for what seem like similar reasons or at least for causes that are interconnected. In typical fashion FRENSHIP approaches the subject matter with nuance and sensitivity.

Sunday | 11.19
What: Eventually It Will Kill You 6 Year Anniversary: Buzz Kull, Normal Bias, Many Blessings, Terravault and Verhoffst
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: For this second night of the Eventually It Will Kill You 6-year anniversary celebration, Australian coldwave artist Buzz Kull will perform bringing his melodic and dark fusion of EBM and post-punk to the stage. And a good deal of the rest of the show will feature prominent local noise artists like Many Blessings and Verhoffst as well as the industrial synth duo Terravault as well as NYC-based synthwave/industrial funk project Normal Bias.

Friday | 11.24
What: Quicksand w/Hotline TNT and Abrams
When: 7
Where: The Gothic Theatre
Why: Quicksand is the influential post-hardcore band from New York City that included then and now members of renowned hardcore groups Gorilla Biscuits, Youth of Today, Beyond, Bold and Burn. Quicksand’s sound was sludgier, slower, heavier and thus fit in well with the nascent alternative rock milieu of the early 1990s. It’s angular, foreboding sound was a new kind of heavy that wasn’t metal so much and not grunge and you could hear in its songs’ clear roots in punk. After a couple of breaks in the 90s Quicksand reconvened in 2012 to critical acclaim with live shows a reminder that its heavy sound was also a soundtrack to getting through life’s struggles and triumph over everyday adversities. This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of the release of its debut full-length Slip which was reissued early in 2023 with an extensive companion booklet. Along for this tour is Hotline TNT also from New York led by Will Anderson formerly of the Canadian band Weed. This project released its new album Cartwheel on November 3, 2023 and for this show the group will provide a good deal of the joyous, atmospheric sonics with its expansively melodic songs. Often lumped in with shoegaze and indie rock the band’s music resists easy categories because its guitar swirl is definitely within the realm of more pop-oriented shoegaze bands but it has enough of and edge to delivery densely glittery moody soundscapes that fit in well with a show with heavier acts. If its music videos are any gauge, Hotline TNT has a healthy and irreverently self-deprecating sense of humor that gives its uplifting melancholia some grounding. Abrams is came out of the more doomy and stoner rock world of Denver metal but its own songs might be described as heavy psych and its own shoegazing instincts have always set the band apart from a more predictable musical path.

Shadows Tranquil in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 11.24
What: Shadows Tranquil album release w/Polly Urethane and Julian St. Nightmare
When: 7
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Shadows Tranquil is finally officially releasing its album Downward Flowers and celebrating with this release show. The quartet has some diverse roots in shoegaze, post-punk, emo, psychedelia and noise rock with finely tuned tonal details in the songwriting that emerge with repeated listens to its songs and a bit of a live mystique that isn’t something that’s easily imitated. So the band invited a couple of Denver’s most interesting artists in the world of local experimental and post-punk music. Julian St. Nighmare is secretly one of the best bands from Denver with its alchemical blend of post-punk, surf rock and psychedelia and a charismatic and passionate live show. Polly Urethan is simply someone whose shows you can’t fully predict because she changes up the type of set she does with every performance whether that’s noise, ambient pop, modern classical, noise rock psych or performance art or whatever. But never boring and rote which is not something many artists can claim with validity.

Teenage Halloween, photo by Okie Dokie Studio

Sunday | 11.26
What: Teenage Halloween w/Elway (solo), Broken Record and Plasma Canvas
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Asbury Park, New Jersey’s Teenage Halloween has given us an outstanding and heartfelt emo and power pop album with its new album Till You Return. Its a record that dives deep into exploring issues of identity, the heavy legacy of trying to survive and find a place in the world we’re all trying to navigate now but the whole record feels like a big journey of a concept album that doesn’t offer pat answers or solutions but plenty of solidarity and a catharsis of collective trauma. Broken Record from Denver offers its own fusion of melancholic yet vital power pop and modern emo and live comes across as though it absorbed plenty of the influence of Dinosaur Jr and Hüsker Dü. It too released a solid 2023 album with Nothing Moves Me. Assuming its still on for the gig this may or may not be one of your last times getting to see the legendary emocore band Plasma Canvas from Fort Collins. Its sound and chops are steeped in a more radio rock and classic rock vein but delivered with a spirited punk attitude with lyrics that mince no words about struggling with issues of class, gender and sexuality and how that all intersects with a culture and people that are hostile to one’s own unique overlapping identities.

Tuesday | 11.28
What: The Japanese House w/quinnie
When: 7
Where: The Summit Music Hall
Why: The Japanese House is the musical project of Amber Bain who has been developing her sound and songwriting for several years with a leg up from being signed to The 1975’s label Dirty Hit early on and being thusly championed. Bain’s style in some ways anticipated the strain of yacht rock and soft pop that has become a feature of certain branches of indie rock. A great deal of Bain’s output has been on singles and EPs and so In the End It Always Does releasing in 2023 as her second album can give the impression of the musical sophistication and lush and imaginative arrangements as having come out of nowhere. And for Bain it does seem like a lateral leap into experimenting with textures, tones and unorthodox arrangements in crafting her typically well composed pop songs. Adele Julia of Gigwise in a June 28, 2023 review spoke to the album’s candid “discussions surrounding queerness and sexuality.” The album’s rich array of melodies and moods provide a comfortable place within which to have those discussions and the vital yet gentle quality of the album invites the listener along for those discussions regardless of one’s own specific sexual or gender identification.

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond December 2022

Palm performs at Larimer Lounge on December 6, 2022, photo by Eve Alpert

Thursday | 12.01
What: Wild Pink w/Trace Mountains and Knuckle Pups
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Wild Pink’s John Ross wrote one of the great story albums of recent years with 2021’s A Billion Little Lights and its themes of coming to terms with adulthood while staying connected with one’s creative life and navigating the temptations to ditch music as the occupation of adolescence. And how through creative work one can explore an evolving sense of meaning that hits you throughout your thirties and the rest of your life. 2022’s ILYSM (an acronym for “I Love You So Much”) takes that perspective to examine the details of life that deepen one”s bond with the people in your life. Knuckle Pups in from Denver released a deeply self-reflective album with 2022’s TV Ready in which the ambitious pop band fuses radical vulnerability with a compassionate honesty that is not nearly common enough in the realm of indie rock or any form of music today. Sometimes earnestness can seem like a pose but with Knuckle Pups it seems inspirational in its lack of pretension.

Friday | 12.02
What: Cold Cave w/Voight and Hex Cassette
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Wesley Eisold of Cold Cave has been mostly been releasing singles and EPs since the most recent full length album Cherish the Light Years came out in 2011. His most recent Fate in Seven Lessons (2021) is well within the realm of modern darkwave post-punk with his usual gift for teasing grit and darkness out of the songwriting although plenty of the music has a beautifully melodic melancholia reminiscent of New Order. Eisold has also been involved in a bit of writing including his work with the late, great Mark Lanegon on the book of poetry Plague Poems (2020). Opening the show are two Denver acts. Hex Cassette’s confrontational industrial dance music challenges notions of the role of artist and audience and breaking that barrier for a collective experience. Voight seems to be making good on its threat of completely injecting techno into its own searing shoegaze-infused post-punk and emotionally intense music.

Friday | 12.02
What: Decibel Magazine Metal & Beer Fest Denver 2022 Day 1: Cannibal Corpse, Dark Funeral, Immolation, Black Anvil, Onyx and In The Company of Serpents
When: 5
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: This unique event includes some pretty extensive beer tasting for those so inclined but the real reason is to get to see some of the great extreme metal acts of today. That includes death metal legends Cannibal Corpse whose over the top gory lyrics have been banned in various countries despite how obviously absurd they are in the vein of the most demented horror movies of the 80s but really just more creative than a lot of those films. And the music itself stands up well in upholding the brutality of the lyrics with a technical proficiency worthy of the name of the band. Get there early to catch the bluesy, cinematic doom band from Denver In the Company of Serpents who don’t play Denver as much as they once did these days.

Saturday | 12.03
What: Decibel Magazine Metal & Beer Fest Denver 2022 Day 2: Pig Destroyer, Skinless, Wayfarer, Of Feather and Bone and Wake
When: 4
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Day two of this event includes more noteworthy acts out of the broad world of extreme metal including performances from Denver’s masters of cinematic doom, Wayfarer, the caustic death grind onslaught of Of Feather and Bone, the blackened grind of Calgary’s Wake and grindcore legends Pig Destroyer whose contorted and savagely brutal music is a fitting companion to JR Hayes’ darkly incisive lyrics about human experiences on the edge.

Saturday | 12.03
What: Soccer Mommy w/TOPS
When: 7
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Sophia Allison has been writing music and performing as Soccer Mommy since she was in college before dropping out and moving back to Nashville to pursue her career as a musician full time. It helped that she had a record deal with Fat Possum which released her debut album Clean in 2018 before she turned twenty-one. The album’s emotional openness and unabashed embrace of unconventional melody and song structure while crafting undeniable hooks garnered the record widespread critical acclaim. The most recent Soccer Mommy album Somtimes, Forever (2022) was produced with Daniel Lopatin aka Oneohtrix Point Never and the team-up brought to Allison’s particularly confessional lyrics and always imaginative guitar work an experimental edge and sound design element for the songwriter’s most musically adventurous recording of her career thus far. Additionally, the lyrics probably startled listeners that expect artists to be vague in their sentiments in a pop song setting but hasn’t Allison been poetically pointed and vivid in her words all along? Opening the show is Montreal’s indie pop band TOPS whose gentle yet passionate compositions seem like they’d be pretty light and airy live as well but at the show the band seems to exude an unexpected vitality.

Saturday | 12.03
What: HaemoGoblin and Fast N Loose at L. Lazer art opening
When: 9
Where: The Crypt ($10 cash)
Why: HaemoGoblin is an electronic duo that will be performing what it calls a ritualistic invocation. Calling the performance “Inauguration” what you will see is a “mini stage play set to music, designed to disorient, disturb and ‘shake awake’ the audience for a half hour or longer.” What will this look like? Well, veteran carnie frontwoman Ortenzia von Deadworry and S.S.G. her “summoned demon” synth player will definitely bring some theater to an often very predictable local music scene. Also on the bill for this art opening featuring the work of L. Lazer is Fast N Loose is a Motorhead tribute band.

The Soft Moon in 2015, photo by Tom Murphy

Sunday | 12.04
What: The Soft Moon w/Nuovo Testamento and Kill You Club DJs
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Luis Vasquez was a little ahead of the curve when he launched The Soft Moon in 2009. Originally a solo project, The Soft Moon evolved to become more of a live band that brought Vasquez’s songs of nervy energy and anxiety-purging urgency to life. His most recent album is 2022’s Exister which in the wake of one of the most challenging periods in recent world history on a wide scale is a catharsis of overcoming the enervating influences that come your way and considering the mere continuation of existence a triumph in itself. The songs seem to have leaned more into the industrial side of Vasquez’s songwriting with some real visceral power driving the moody atmospherics. Los Angeles-based darkwave/synth pop band Nuovo Testamento opens the show.

Sunday | 12.04
What: Hembree w/Little Hurt, False Report and Mae Mae
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Hembree from Kansas City, Missouri that formed in 2015 and its big break to a national audience was the placement of its single “Holy Water” in an Apple ad during Super Bowl LII. The group’s tight rhythms serve as a foundation for the rest of the songwriting to stretch out whether into focused, unadorned rock songs or expansive, moody pieces and the techno-underpinned indie funk that is at the core of its sound. The group’s new album It’s a Dream! is a record tinged with nostalgic examinations of the roots of current anxieties and insecurities expressed in hazy melodies and resonating tones driven by a hypnotic beat. On the surface it may sound like another current indie rock offering with more than its fair share of more imaginative songwriting but Hembree really charts an internal journey in which one is prepared to exit the gauntlet of lucid dreams trapped in feeling everything until it makes sense and after one is able to move through tangled emotional memories.

The Lemonheads, photo by Barry Brescheisen

Monday | 12.05
What: The Lemonheads w/Bass Drum Of Death and On Being an Angel https://www.bluebirdtheater.net/events/detail/443688
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: The Lemonheads are one of few still extant bands to have come to prominence during the alternative rock era that didn’t quite fit in with the more trendy subgenres that made that era one of the most vibrant in the history of popular music. Its own brand of power pop was a vehicle for the songwriting of only constant member, singer and guitarist Evan Dando. The latter seems to have an ability to look into situations and people and extrapolate poetic insights with a compassionate perspective. The title track of the group’s 1992 breakthrough album It’s A Shame About Ray isn’t just about a troubled person who doesn’t fit in with any school and its politics, it’s about feeling like a perpetual outsider and the rest of the songs on the record are vivid stories about people we all know and might even be in a way that didn’t comport with the tales of desperation one heard in a lot of grunge and too “dark” for more faux posi faire of that era to now. Ever since The Lemonheads went on hiatus in 1997 and returned to operations in 2005, the group hasn’t been prolific with original material but Dando’s interpretations of artists that have influenced him on Varshons (2009) Varshons 2 (2019) have been a peek into what Dando’s brain has latched onto for inspiration and perhaps for this performance we’ll get to hear what the veteran songwriter has been up to in recent years. One thing is for certain his own songs have aged far better than those of many of his contemporaries owing in part to the gentle but raw honesty of the songwriting. Also on this bill is Bass Drum of Death originally from Oxford, Mississippi whose blues tinged noisy garage rock has a refreshing level of grit and menace befitting the name of the project.

Monday | 12.05
What: W.A.S.P. w/Armored Saint
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: W.A.S.P. is the kind of band out of the glam metal era in Los Angeles of the 1980s that more than any other group out of that world that courted controversy. Its music was and is a spirited, melodic hard rock with a strong sense of theater even in the songwriting. Sure its cover art for its debut single “Animal (Fuck Like a Beast)” with the circular saw codpiece offended people that took it more literally than could even remotely be intended. Certainly former guitarist Chris Holmes looked the buffoon drunk in a pool with his mother sitting by in the 1988 documentary The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years seemed to affirm the extreme and self-destructive hedonism associated with the band. But at its best W.A.S.P. were avatars of a music scene that could be cartoonish, bombastic and puerile while offering an alternative to a conformist puritanical culture with its lurid and triumphant storytelling. Perhaps co-headlining though less notorious is Armored Saint who also started in 1982 in Los Angeles and also pre-dated glam metal though often associated with that world of music due to the big hair and knack for solid melodic hooks. But like W.A.S.P. there was something with more edge than most of its glam rock contemporaries. While never quite having any mainstream breakthrough hits, Armored Saint was a staple of 1980s metal that has held up better than much of the music out of the 1980s Los Angeles heavy metal scene has.

Water From Your Eyes, photo by Ana Fangayen

Tuesday | 12.06
What: Palm w/Water From Your Eyes
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: As Water From Your Eyes, Nate Amos and Rachel Brown have made a career of using an eclectic and ever evolving palette of sounds to explore ideas and concepts through what could be considered dance pop. That is if your frame of reference might be the experimental electronic and punk out of New York and Los Angeles of the last fifteen years. Its 2020 album 33:44 is something you’d expect more out of a band on the Northern Spy label with its beautifully dire, ambient and modern classical soundscapes that are almost an homage to Penderecki’s “Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima” crossed with Howard Shore’s work for the films of David Cronenberg. But the duo’s most recent album Structure at times sounds like what might have happened if Aphex Twin in writing Selected Ambient Works Volume II had decided to turn those into pop songs. Except that Water From Your Eyes inserts enigmatic spoken word elements that serve as a a meta narrative that re-configures traditional album structure and gives the whole album a non-linear quality made cohesive by reimagining the nature of how creative work is structured. Fitting that this arty yet incredibly accessible group is sharing the stage with Philadelphia’s art rock weirdos Palm touring in support of Nicks and Grazes, an album that sounds like the band challenged its members to go on separate retreats to clear their minds of contemporary influences and to immerse themselves in non-musical art forms and come back to make the kind of psychedelic rock record that comes across like a collage of playful daydreams and arranged in a way that brushes aside conventional structure itself.

Thursday and Friday | 12.08 and 12.09
What: OFF! w/Zulu
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: OFF! is of course the newer hardcore project fronted by legendary vocalist Keith Morris formerly of Black Flag and of Circle Jerks. The current lineup includes founding member Dmitri Coats of Burning Brides on guitar and as of 2021 Autry Fulbright II on bass and Justin Brown on drums. After an eight year hiatus on releases, OFF! released Free LSD in 2022. It’s still the searing hardcore sound you’d expect from the group but there are some clear differences with what sounds like synth and other ambient sounds giving the songs a psychedelic feel that wasn’t so much a part of its earlier sound. A refreshing update for a band that still maintains the intensity and edge without being stuck in a stylistic rut. Opening both dates at the Hi-Dive is anti-racist powerviolence band Zulu which injects its music with R&B samples and eschews the tough guy stance of hardcore.

Friday | 12.09
What: Pond w/Cryogeyser — rescheduled to April 16, 2023
When: 8
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Pond has shared membership with Tame Impala over the years with lead singer Nick Albrook being involved with both bands for a few years and Kevin Parker serving as drummer in earlier years and as a producer until 2020. The polished psychedelic pop of its first eight albums was helped in no small part due to Parker’s influence in the production department but with the 2021 album 9, Pond has given us its most interesting record to date with more grit in its overall sound, some edge to its funk elements and a willingness to embrace some rawness in its sound as well as take its atmospherics into a realm flirting with space rock. Los Angeles-based jangle fuzz trio Cryogeyser opens the show with its melancholic, lo-fi dream pop.

Friday | 12.09
What: Obituary w/Amon Amarth, Carcass and Cattle Decapitation
When: 5:30
Where: The Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Obituary is touring ahead of the 2023 release of its new album Dying of Everything. After nearly 40 years as a band exploring the outer edges of the death metal format and pioneering some of that aesthetic it can be challenging to have something new to say with your music and a return to form can be tedious. But Obituary this time decided to stick to writing a strong set of material worthy of its pre-1997 split output. The dire messaging delivered with still convincingly brutal vocals but without cartoonish lyrics. Rounding out the bill are Seattle grindcore outfit Cattle Decapitation who are somehow both keenly aware of the absurdity and cruelty of modern human civilization and the need to ridicule the hubris of our species without making light of the situation in which we and other animals find ourselves due to a tolerance for savage forms of economic and social organization. And yes, grindcore/death metal legends/pioneers Carcass and Swedish, melodic death metal group Amon Amarth and its proclivity for lyrics about the Viking Age and a time before the Christian domination of Nordic culture.

The Smile, from the band’s Facebook page

Saturday and Sunday | 12.10 and 12.11
What: The Smile w/Robert Stillman
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: The Smile is Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead fame with drummer Tom Skinner of Sons of Kemet. The trio made its debut at Glastonbury Festival in 2021 and its music produced during the limitations of association and collaboration during the COVID-19 lockdown emerged as an intimate and spacious, lonely set of melodies and fragile emotional expressions. In 2022 the group released its debut album A Light for Attracting Attention. The record is contemplative as one might expect with the musicians involved but also vulnerable and open in sentiments embracing a massive level of uncertainty and peril that continues to flow seemingly unchecked in a world beyond the ongoing pandemic and perpetuating a sustained anxiety that will have untold impacts for decades to come and written about in history books or their equivalent in some future time should such indulgences be permitted in a post-authoritarian era. The Smile seems to have written a record from the perspective of people keenly attuned to these concerns and not knowing if they’ll live long enough to see better days but not being attached to a sinking spirit of despair.

Bartees Strange, photo by Luke Piotrowski

Wednesday | 12.14
What: Bartees Strange w/Pom Pom Squad and They Hate Change
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Bartees Leon Cox Jr. has worn various hats in his career both musical and otherwise. But he is perhaps best known for his music under the moniker Bartees Strange following his stint in in the post-hardcore band Stay Inside. With the release of his 2020 debut Live Forever, Cox has proven himself a master of writing emotionally nuanced and vulnerable pop songs that incorporate elements of indie folk and, synth pop and hip-hop but with a production element that seems to make the music and its complex arrangements hit with a stirring immediacy. Fans of Twin Shadow will hear some similar sonic touchstones and the sophomore album Farm to Table (2022) revealed more of Cox’s gift for genre bending to great effect in delivering songs that are at once deeply personal and politically charged.

Thursday | 12.15
What: Twin Tribes w/Dancing Plague and Plague Garden
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Twin Tribes from Brownsville, TX have garnered no small amount of buzz for its blend of minimal synth and post-punk and a kind of vitality amid melancholic tones. Its most recent studio album Ceremony (2019) sounds like songs written during a flurry of peak emotions and capturing the urgency and desperation of a recent breakup. In most cities of size, Twin Tribes is performing in medium sized clubs but in Denver we’re fortunate to be able to catch the popular band in a small club like HQ. Dancing Plague is a darkwave solo act from Portland, OR whose dusky synth pop is like a darker OMD with some touches of influence from John Maus. In the interest of full transparency, the author of this blurb is in Plague Garden, a noteworthy post-punk/New Wave band from Denver.

Thursday | 12.15
What: ABANDONS w/Old Soul Dies Young, Almanac Man and Fainting Dreams
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: This show is a nice split of experimental noise rock and shoegaze. ABANDONS might at another time be considered a post-rock band but in its mix one hears bits of post-metal, noise rock and ambient and it live shows have a visceral quality with music that one might more expect to be performed in a more meditative spirit. Old Soul Dies Young is the kind of band that happens when guys who were way into post-hardcore and doom drop that sound palette for something more melodic and atmospheric but with the same level of sonic bombast. Almanac Man is like a collision of doom and borderline aggressive, Chicago style noise rock. Fainting Dreams is the kind of dream pop band that comes about when its members maybe came up through hardcore and death metal and are shedding the aggression and mathematical precision and heaviness for radical vulnerability and dreamlike tones.

Friday | 12.16
What: Sounds for Charity: Avarice, Organ, No More Cheering, Gabriel Albelo
When: 7
Where: Glob
Why: Proceeds from this show go to Colorado Coalition for the Homeless. Warm weather gear and hand warmers also accepted. For your donation you can catch the glitch industrial dance stylings of Organ, Gabriel Albelo’s solo performance of his heavy psychedelic rock, Avarice’s dark, menacing industrial techno and the prepared noise environment soundscapes of No More Cheering.

Meet the Giant in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 12.17
What: Love Stallion w/Shanghai Metro Temple and Meet the Giant
When: 8
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Love Stallion is basically an 80s style glam metal band and if that’s your thing they’re definitely on the better end of the modern version of that with of course stage antics and style and the level of musicianship you’d expect. Shanghai Metro Temple is a fairly straight ahead indie rock band that sounds like it is heavily influenced by late 90s alternative and hard rock. Meet the Giant fuse downtempo electronic pop with post-punk, heavy shoegaze and imaginative soundscapes on the production end.

Saturday | 12.17
What: Bluebook w/Wave Decay and Mon Cher
When: 8
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Bluebook these days isn’t the experimental indie folk jazz band of its early days. Instead there is a darkness and not so buttoned downed, controlled intensity to the performances. Seems like Julie Davis is letting her flaws, anxieties and dreams hang more loosely with this version of the band and that has just meant its music has blossomed more and its sound palette greatly expanded with the inclusion of formery Monofog and Snake Rattle Rattle Snake singer Hayley Helmericks on drums and backing vocals, Jess Parsons on keys and other instrumentation and maybe even Anna Morsett on guitar. Wave Decay is the kind of band that sounds like it took the door through psych garage into more shoegaze sounds and all the better for it. Mon Cher’s music is a particularly transporting and lies somewhere between dream pop and downtempo jazz.

Milk Blossoms in 2021, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 12.17
What: Milk Blossoms w/Meek and Knuckle Pups
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Knuckle Pups write radically vulnerable and thoughtful indie pop in the classic mold and its 2022 album TV Ready is both heartbreaking and uplifting. Milk Blossoms play a rare show with Michelle Rocquet now that she spends much of her time in New York City for professional and academic pursuits. So with this configuration of the band you’ll get the full dual vocal effect of powerfully rendered, tender pop songs that are irresistibly twee and cathartic.

Master Ferocious in 2021, photo by Tom Murphy

Sunday | 12.18
What: Never Kenezzard w/Zingaro, Sea of Flame and Master Ferocious
When: 3
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Never Kenezzard don’t really fit in with the metal scene so much though its blend of progressive rock sensibilities, doom and psychedelia finds it in a particularly more interesting corner of that realm of music. Sea of Flame are a sludge rock/doom band whose epic arrangements are not the rote edition of what doom has become. Master Ferocious somehow mix classic power metal with glam rock without seeming corny because the musicianship is so strong and the performance bordering on theatrical.

Alaska Thunderfuck, photo by Albert Sanchez

Sunday | 12.18
What: Alaska Thunderfuck Presents: The Red 4 Filth Tour
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Alaska Thunderfuck is perhaps best known for her competing in RuPaul’s Drag Race but over the last several years she has cultivated a pop music career. Steeped in modern electronic pop and a showcase for her outsize stage persona. Her latest album Red 4 Filth leaves behind some of the camp and humor of previous releases with a more obviously sincere set of pop songs that bring together sounds from hip-hop and classic modern pop including a cover of “All That She Wants” by Ace of Base.

Thursday | 12.22
What: FaceMan Western Jupiter vinyl release, Tivoli Club Brass Band and Anthony Ruptak
When: 7
Where: The Skylark Lounge/Bobcat Club
Why: Faceman celebrates the release of its latest album on vinyl as well as making available on vinyl for the first time its 2016 album Wild and Hunting. The band fronted by Steve Faceman has long offered finely crafted pop Americana with an experimental edge though its new album Western Jupiter shows an embrace of a more straightforward approach to songcraft. But every release is fulled with songs that have heartfelt and sharply observed lyrics in stories about life that feel like they’re part of your life because Steve has honed in on an aspect of culture and social reality that seems to be in the air in that moment. In years past Faceman has put on theatrical performances with set pieces and costumes that help to illustrate the music in dramatic fashion in collaboration with local visual artists who have helped to make these outfits and elaborate sets and pieces of artwork like the stage Megalodon of several years ago or the huge tornado of paper made for the epic Faceman’s 100 Year Storm event of 2016 at The Oriental Theater in which Faceman invited 100 bands to perform. So there’s a bit of community involvement and creative vision behind what drives the band even if it’s not necessarily abundantly obvious from listening to its excellent songs on their own.

Friday | 12.23
What: Baby Baby, Gila Teen, SORROWS and Ray Diess
When: 7
Where: Enigma Bazaar
Why: Baby Baby is the indie dream pop project of Lily Conrad. Reminiscent of bedroom pop artists of the late 90s and 2000s and has the aesthetics of lo-fi but with better sound production than much of that stuff often had. Gila Teen is the genre defying emo-shoegaze-post-punk band whose eccentric songs nevertheless always seem to be a direct line into the anxieties and affections coursing through the cosmos at the given moment of the performance. SORROWS is an emotionally charged downtempo band comprised of vibrant vocals, elegantly crafted rhythms and electronic production. Ray Diess is one of the Denver scene’s most compelling darkwave pop artists operating today.

Julian Street Nightmare, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 12.23
What: Fast Eddy, Julian Street Nightmare and Morning Oil
When: 8
Where: Globe Hall (free)
Why: When garage punk and the more mundane end of psychedelic rock collapsed under the weight of its own hubris and fake excitement some of the people who were on one end of that broader scene with any talent or imagination had to do something different and Fast Eddy came out of that milieu as a solid power pop band. Julian Street Nightmare create music from a thrilling nexus of post-punk, surf rock and art rock. Morning Oil sounds like it took some bit of inspiration from the better part of 80s glam metal and The Dead Boys.

Tuesday | 12.27
What: The Roots and BIG K.R.I.T.
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: The Roots are the influential, jazz rooted hip-hop band from Philadelphia that many may also know for serving as the house band on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Its use of live musical instrumentation has always set The Roots apart from most hip-hop groups whose use of samples is most often used to craft the beat and thus its live performances have a powerful physical presence that is impossible to duplicate otherwise. Big K.R.I.T. is the acclaimed rapper and producer from Mississippi whose eclectic production and socially conscious lyrics seem to hit at a very grassroots level of appeal with an accessible sound and a way of presenting heady ideas in a way that is both creative and personally relatable.

Thursday | 12.29
What: Watch Yourself Die, Voight, Sell Farm https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sell-farm-voight-wyd-at-the-mercury-cafe-tickets-481076160747?aff=ebdshpsearchautocomplete
When: 8
Where: Mercury Café
Why: Watch Yourself Die is kind of a post-punk supergroup comprised of members of Hex Cassette, Ray Diess and Julian Street Nightmare. Voight has long blurred the line between shoegaze, post-punk, darkwave and techno and infused it with emotionally intense live performances. Sell Farm might be an indiepop band but one that doesn’t see a reason why heavy dub and industrial music can’t be a part of the overall wheelhouse of sounds going into the project’s eclectic but always interesting songwriting.

Thursday | 12.29
What: Discomfort Creature w/Curious Things, Nightfishing
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Discomfort Creature is a punk band from Denver whose lineup includes current and former members of Gamits and Uphollow and this show signals the vinyl release of its 2021 self-titled debut on Snappy Little Numbers now that Chris Fogal is back in town for the occasion from his current residence in Switzerland. The record is an energetic fusion of pop punk and the more angular, Dischord-esque variety of punk.

Brotherhood of Machines at Deep Club event in 2014, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 12.30
What: FOANS, Brotherhood of Machines (album release) and Luxury Hearse
When: 9
Where: Broadway Roxy
Why: FOANS is the brainchild of producer Andrew Dahabrah whose melancholic house and techno music has been at the center of Denver’s underground dance music world for several years. Luxury Hearse is the project of Dan Coleman (Blank Human) and Rin Howell (Psychic Secretary) that breaks the barrier between techno, ambient and musique concrète. Brotherhood of Machines is apparently returning with its first new release and album in over six years. The project live has been a mysterious and sonically rich example of where ambient, abstract industrial, techno and noise converge to produce a sound that establishes a deep sense of mood and place.

To Be Continued…