Whores – 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 and Beyond February 2025

**The Velveteers perform at Hi-Dive 2/14/25, photo by Jason Thomas Geering**

The Milk Blossoms in 2024, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 02.01
What: Dressy Bessy, The Milk Blossoms and Bellhoss
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Dressy Bessy is the great indiepop band from Denver with roots in the wave of that music in the 90s. Early on the band was a bit like a psychedelic pop band mixed with noisiness of The Velvet Underground. Subsequently the band’s songwriting has developed into various branches but live always entertaining and spirited in its presentation with enough of a touch of the genuinely weird to be interesting. Since its inception The Milk Blossoms have offered music of the type of vulnerability and sensitivity that feels like being invited into a secret world of imagination, introspection and emotional richness. Its 2024 album Open Portal is like listening to and experiencing a series of vivid dreams cast in the language of personal mythology. Bellhoss is another of Denver’s premier pop bands whose music is a self-aware and heart on sleeve style dream pop with raw emotional expressions baked into its cathartic confections.

Lauren Mayberry, photo by Charlotte Patmore

Saturday | 02.01
What: Lauren Mayberry w/Cult of Venus
When: 7
Where: The Gothic Theatre
Why: Lauren Mayberry is perhaps best known as the frontwoman of dream pop band CHVRCHES. In 2024 she released her debut solo album Vicious Creature. The record which explores themes of mortality, social expectations, personal development and the not so quiet rampant sexism in the music industry. Mayberry took inspiration from 90s pop and early 2000s pop in particular female artists whose work was and is vital in its refreshingly unvarnished honesty and creativity like PJ Harvey, Jenny Lewis, and Fiona Apple among others. The album itself sounds very modern but with songwriting that has a clarity of purpose that informs the performances and the impact of Mayberry’s incisive lyrics. The album is eclectic yet unified in the excellence of production and the strength of Mayberry’s vocals, perhaps stronger than her work in CHVRCHES.

Replica City in 2024, photo by Tom Murphy

Sunday | 02.02
What: Bad Knees EP release w/Replica City, Motel Frunz and Calamity
When: 4
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Bad Knees is releasing its new EP Small Talk which showcases the band’s ability to mix punk attitude with introspective pop songwriting for an effect somewhere between post-punk and slowcore. Also on the bill is angular post-hardcore circa Dischord Records act Replica City and Kate Hannington playing solo under her band moniker Calamity with her own style of atmospheric post-punk with some real grit, passion and imaginative musicianship behind the songwriting and performance.

Thursday | 02.06
What: Kool Keith: Black Elvis w/Ultramagnetic MCs
When: 8:30 doors, show 9
Where: Ophelia’s Electric Soap Box
Why: Kool Keith is the influential rapper and producer from NYC who cofounded Ultramagnetic MCs. The latter impacted newer school hip-hop in the late 80s with production innovations including developing a style of “chopped” samples that directly inspired Boogie Down Productions. Kool Keith made waves of his own under his name as well as under the moniker Dr. Octagon. The artist has collaborated with numerous other acts on all levels of fame and thus his fingerprints can be heard in a broad spectrum of commercially popular and underground music. For this tour he will be performing music from his Black Elvis albums perhaps in conjunction with Ultramagnetic MCs and one hopes resulting in a unique and theatrical live show.

Friday | 02.07
What: The Ocean Blue performing self-titled and Cerulean w/Brian Tighe
When: 7
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: The Ocean Blue got started before the term “shoegaze” was a thing and its 1989 self-titled debut is more in line with atmospheric post-punk like an American analog to what Echo & The Bunnymen and The Smiths were doing in the UK. But The Ocean Blue had its own sound that suggested broad vistas and emotional expansiveness that transcended the melancholic undertones of its urgent and sometimes jangle-y guitar work. The music certainly had a kinship with bands out of the realm of C86 in the UK and the Dunedin sound in New Zealand. The group’s 1991 follow up Cerulean developed on that foundation and added a little fuzziness without compromising its melodious compositions while focusing the songwriting a touch more. The band will perform both albums at this show.

Saturday | 02.08
What: Wave Decay, Pale Sun, Pinkku and Pyramyd
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Wave Decay recently released its debut full-length Reflections on both digital and vinyl for which this show is a celebration. The Denver-based band’s sound is rooted in shoegaze and psychedelic rock with the motorik beat of Krautrock. It’s easy to get swept up in the band’s mastery of dense yet expansive atmospheric melodies and hypnotic rhythms for the duration of the live set like you’re on that ride with them. Fans of Black Angels, A Place to Bury Strangers and Denver’s own Bright Channel should definitely catch the band on stage but failing that don’t fail to give the record a listen. Fortuitously Jeff Suthers, former guitarist of Bright Channel, will be performing with his more recent band Pale Sun and offering his own emotionally-charged space rock thick with mind-altering low end and vibrant, melancholic riffs. Pinkku launches again after a nearly two decade-long hiatus. The project led by Wymond Miles began as an otherworldly space rock band and evolved into a moody post-punk band akin to the Bad Seeds. The new version is more in the realm of a noisier Slowdive or the solo Kevin Shields music.

Lucas “Granpa” Abela, photo from Bandcamp

Saturday | 02.08
What: Lucas Granpa Abela, Fearless Leaders, John Gross, Pipsqueak, Mumble and MPW
When: 7
Where: The DMV 2424E 43rd Ave. 18+, $15
Why: This will be a noise show in the tradition that faded out for a few years on either side of the 2020 pandemic including sets from John Gross, one of the godfathers of modern Denver noise with his long membership in Page 27. Also performing is Mumble from Colorado Springs who has helped hold down an outpost of experimental music in that city for years with his own experiments in power electronics, electronic beats, harsh noise and industrial ambient. And touring from Sydney, Australia is noise legend Lucas “Granpa” Abela whose prolific career in sculpting sound and collaboration would be difficult to sum up as simply noise even though much of his output fits in the broad umbrella of the term.

Tuesday | 02.11
What: Howard Jones w/ABC and Richard Blade
When: 6
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: In the mid-80s Howard Jones was all over the pop charts with ten top 40 hits. His exquisitely crafted synth pop songs helped to define the sound of an era with his mastery of the synthesizer as a songwriter with a deep knowledge of the instrument so that his compositions had a stylistic coherence and aesthetic innovation that could be missed because his knack for combining sensitive, romantic lyrics and imaginative musicianship meant he became a mainstream artist with diverse and superb technical skills. His 1984 debut album Human’s Lib was a breakthrough with multiple charting songs including “What Is Love?’ But the 1985 follow up Dream into Action pushed the artist further into international popularity with “Things Can Only Get Better,” “Life In One Day,” “No One is to Blame” and the reissue of “Like to get to Know You Well” meant Jones’ music essentially became part of the soundtrack for a generation. Sure he sang about love and all of those pop music subjects but didn’t come across cheesy or corny in his sentiments and his talent for a melodic hook is undeniable. Also on this tour are ABC, the soul-infused synth pop band from Sheffield who came out of that weird world of experimental music that is what that city has produced and made that experimental spirit accessible with their own bevy of hit singles including the enduring “Poison Arrow.” Perhaps tagged with the designation of “Northern soul” ABC nevertheless made danceable synth pop with incredible and innovative production. The band’s 1982 debut album The Lexicon of Love was written with Anne Dudley of avant-garde pop/production band Art of Noise combining punk spirit with the sonic sophistication of disco.

Benjamin Booker, photo by Trenity Thomas

Thursday | 02.13
What: Benjamin Booker
When: 7
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Benjamin Booker has been at making music for several years with his genre bending style that early on seemed more in the realm of bluesy indie rock but always with a keen ear for mood and atmosphere. His second album Witness (2017) had more of a punk edge to the songwriting as he continued to comment on social issues that America has tried to bury and pretend isn’t right in front of everyone’s faces. His new record LOWER (2025) is an even more daring stylistic leap. What to call it? It has some deeply ambient soul and electronic noise rock style with his emotionally nuanced vocals running through it all. The record is boundary pushing in a way that more than hints that Booker’s musical instincts and tastes don’t bother with needing to fit into anyone’s boxes even his own. It’s difficult to compare his new songs to much of anything else except for maybe The Weeknd’s more recent work or Yves Tumor or when Osees go off the expected map. It’s the kind of album that is perhaps being underrated now but the elements of which will be seen and appreciated more in years to come. Best to get into it now when it’s a fresh thing that you can experience live.

Friday | 02.14
What: Kiltro w/Nina de Freitas
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf
Why: Kiltro is the brainchild of Chris Bowers Castillo who over the course of two albums has woven together strands of folk, psychedelic rock, prog and the aesthetics of experimental electronic music. The band’s sophomore album Underbelly fully realized this melange of musical influences as it was partly written and developed during the early part of the pandemic. Live the band is unique in its evocation of the fusion of styles so that it resonates with the subversive eclectic style of psych innovators Os Mutantes as heard through the lens of an IDM band but done with live instruments.

The Velveteers, photo by Jason Thomas Geering

Friday | 02.14
What: The Velveteers w/Cherry Spit and Diva Cup
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: The Velveteers are a rock trio from Boulder, Colorado that has blossomed from humble origins playing house shows and DIY venues in the mid-2010s after forming in 2014 to touring internationally with the likes of Great Van Fleet and Black Keys. Dan Auerbach of the latter took a liking to the band and produced and released the 2021 debut full-length Nightmare Daydream. That record demonstrated that the group had moved beyond some of its more blues rock/garage rock early days into something with more musical depth and with something to say regarding the vagaries of society, identity, self-image and sexism. A little over three years later The Velveteers are releasing their second album A Million Knives which reveals the band’s further explorations into integrating an electronic music aesthetic and songwriting into its core sound of vulnerable pop songs charged with raw emotional power. The themes of the record involve the complexities of navigating relationships and one’s aspirations. Underlying it all are elements of heartbreak of all varieties—the interpersonal, the kind when one’s expectations and dreams find reality lacking from the world and from oneself and the sort stemming from disappointment. But as the album makes it obvious, finding the will and energy to pull yourself back from that brink.

Saturday | 02.15
What: Jordana w/Rachel Bobbitt and Sarah Adams
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Jordana Nye is a bedroom pop songwriter and musician originally from the Washington, DC area but these days calling Los Angeles home. Her 2019 debut album Classical Notions of Happiness garnered her label interest for a 2020 re-release. The lo-fi pop of the album had an undeniable appeal with vulnerable, well-crafted songs with an attention to sonic detail that made the record stand out in an often crowded indie/bedroom pop field of the time and even today. Her new record, the self-aware and humorous Lively Premonition (2024) is much more developed in production and songcraft, Nye clearly having taken her music on tour and absorbed some of the atmosphere of her new environs and one hears echoes of classic 1970s and 80s pop music and the sophistication in production and musicianship often imitated but not often captured. Jordana and co-songwriter Emmet Kai definitely nail the vibe and live you’ll get to see the band pull off this music including Jordana playing violin and singing which is something you don’t see that often in pop music.

Tuesday | 02.18
What: Whores, Facet and Moon Pussy
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Whores is the sludgy, noise rock band from Atlanta with a wonderfully caustic heaviness to it reminiscent of Unsane with the momentum of Melvins. The band will headline a show in good company with Oakland’s post-hardcore/post-punk stars Facet. The trio recently released a split with Seattle’s Haunted Horses that sounds like the deconstruction of modern existential anxiety turned into music designed to ease that tension at least a little. Moon Pussy from Denver is challenging to compare to any band in particular and its raw power and sheer catharsis on stage has baked into it a surreal sense of humor with social commentary and personal anxiety stitched together in a thrilling mutant cyborg of noise rock.

Sierra Spirit, photo courtesy the artist

Tuesday | 02.18
What: David Gray w/Sierra Spirit
When: 7
Where: Temple Hoyne Buell Theatre
Why: David Gray is the well-known British singer-songwriter who moved beyond his folk-rock origins in the early 90s to establish himself as a latter day alternative rock icon beginning with the 1999 hit single “Babylon.” Gray never divested his style of its folk roots and crafting songs in an acoustic vein before developing them into the energetic yet atmospheric songs with a signature guitar jangle and shimmer alongside his emotionally-charged vocals for which he is rightfully known. In January 2025 Gray released his new album Dear Life, a record that seems more intimate and personal in execution with poignant observations on getting older and the need to remain engaged in a struggling world. Opening the show is Tulsa, Oklahoma-based artist Sierra Spirit. In October 2024 she released her debut EP coin toss. The six songs are resonant and even confessional narratives about mental health issues, the struggles of growing up with her unique background in the Otoe-Missouria and Kieetoowah Cherokee tribes and how that impacts and informs navigating a world that can be challenging in itself. Her songs are awash in exquisitely melancholic melodies like a nimbus of personal reflection that the listener can identify with immediately. Her vocals are what command your attention with their emotional strength and open and expansive spirit.

Tuesday | 02.18
What: Phantogram
When: 7
Where: Fillmore Auditorium
Why: New York-based psychedelic pop duo Phantogram returned in 2024 with its new album Memory of a Day. The record represents the band coming out of the early pandemic era after it couldn’t tour in the wake of the March 6, 2020 release of its previous album Ceremony. If you’re looking for the immersive, hard rocking synth pop the band has developed since its early days you’ll find that but Phantogram has also always had a knack for pushing its own boundaries and the new album reveals that Sarah Barthel and Josh Carter have been experimenting with the production and composition ends of the music to create a sound palette that taps further into hip-hop beatmaking and the potential of archaic electronic sounds to make for memorable sounds within equally memorable songs that once again re-establish the band as fine purveyors of fusing the entrancingly otherworldly with emotional intimacy.

Thursday | 02.20
What: Forty Feet Tall, Shadow Work and Supreme Joy
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Forty Feet Tall is one of the most commanding and underrated post-punk bands going at the moment. Melding angular rhythms and melody in perfect proportion with a visceral live show Forty Feet Tall may have a name that suggests something more straight forward but it is a lot weirder and more spirited than expected. Shadow Work is a Denver band whose hazy psychedelia has its seeming roots in shoegaze and lo-fi post-punk. Supreme Joy too has a name that suggests a different kind of music than the Dischord-esque post-punk you’re in for but go expecting that sound to be infused with a psychedelic garage rock sound of the kind that should have happened more often in the 2010s but perhaps one might have found more often in the Bay Area in the 80s and 90s.

Michigan Rattlers, photo courtesy the artists

Thursday | 02.20
What: Michigan Rattlers w/Elias Hix
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf
Why: Michigan Rattlers is a band of lifelong friends who have been in bands together since they were in their early teens and started recording their songs in 2016 under their current name. The band’s first two albums offered beautifully pastoral Americana about everyday life, articulating the aspirations of yearnings that would be recognizable instantly to anyone that has spent more than a few months contemplating what it is you really want and what you have and what you value. The 2024 album Waving From A Sea is a creative leap forward for the band with more atmospheric elements and a songwriting style more in line with the kind of power pop one heard in the late 70s or in a more modern era with the likes of The War on Drugs. The songs tie the feelings to a strong sense of place both physically and psychologically at a time when you’re re-orienting your life and finding the anchors in your psyche that remind you of the contexts that have helped shape you and the boundaries you have moved beyond. Listen to our interview with singer Graham Young on the Queen City Sounds Podcast.

Thursday | 02.20
What: Franc Moody
When: 7
Where: Fox Theatre
Why: London’s Franc Moody has been releasing music that sits at the intersection of disco, funk and soul since 2018. The duo had tried to make music in the vein of jazz circa the early 1950s until Jon Moody bought a Juno 60 and discovered the possibilities of synthesizers opened up for songwriting and the broad palette of sounds and styles into which it could be plugged. The band’s new album Chewing the Fat will be released on March 7, 2025 but this show will offer more than a peek into the immersive, psychedelic, electronic disco-funk that the act has been developing since its 2022 album Into the Ether.

Saturday | 02.22
What: Mount Eerie w/Ragana
When: 7
Where: Fox Theatre
Why: With the 2024 release of the new Mount Eerie record Night Palace we hear in Phil Elverum’s songwriting a different essence and energy that what we witnessed in the previous few, emotionally harrowing records that so eloquently documented loss and devastation. The album’s 26 tracks engages in the sprawl of the styles the Elverum has explored so well during his career as The Micophones and Mount Eerie. The pastoral washes over meditative, abstract slowcore pop, the black metal vistas and the noisy lo-fi folk, the ambient and field recording collages and a re-embrace of poetry itself to go with the poetic sensibilities of earlier efforts. It’s a richly varied record that feels like a journey through the ravages of time and the cycles of life and the environment and coming to the other side of struggles and loss and finding meaning to sustain oneself in some of the things that gave one’s life meaning at key points in one’s existence, using songwriting as a vehicle for personal mythology as part of the context of a greater narrative, finding not just the horror but a sense of peace with the essential uncertainty of a mortal life. Apparently Elverum had been inspired by Zen meditation which leads one to a dynamic mode of tranquil acceptance of how fickle things can be when you spend so much of your life struggling against the way things are and imposing one’s ego on reality in that Western mode rather than being open to the possibilities of operating in the moment. Also on the bill is the anarcho-feminist black metal band Ragana from Olympia, Washington who cite Mount Eerie as an influence along with the likes of avant-ambient legend Grouper and fellow Olympians Wolves in the Throne Room. Ragan’s latest release is the harrowing and politically-charged 2023 album Desolation Flower.

Playground Ensemble in 2019, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 02.22
What: Playground Ensemble: Community Resonances
When: 6:30 doors, 7pm concert
Where: Holiday Theater
Why: This interactive performance will feature a commissioned version of Arone Dyer’s Dronechoir, an experiment in social performance that brings together unfamiliar collaborators in an unrehearsed performance with everyone singing together. The night will also premiere works by Denver composers Gabriel Mininberg and Playground Ensemble founding director Conrad Kehn.

Molchat Doma, photo by Alina Pasok and Karim Belkasemi

Tuesday | 02.25
What: Molchat Doma w/Sextile
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Molchat Doma has quickly established itself as one of the most critically acclaimed and beloved post-punk bands of the past decade since its 2017 debut album S krysh nashikh domov made it out of their home country of Belarus. That record as well as the 2018 follow-up Etazhi got reissued on vinyl via its current label Sacred Bones in 2020 making the band’s unique blend of post-punk/darkwave/synthpop widely available. Unfortunately for the band that was the same year that COVID-19 hit and ending touring and the possibility of playing live to an appreciative audience in North America. But when live music performance opportunities opened up more broadly in 2022 Molchat Doma played to sold out audiences in large clubs in support of its then most recent album Monument (2020). The live performances proved what was hinted at on the early records with the lower fidelity production that being a commanding presence and tonal richness that was enveloping and transporting. In 2024 Molchat Doma released its new album Belaya Polosa. Benefiting from more immediately available recording studios the new record has an immediacy and presence worthy of the live band and its haunting and vibrant songs reminiscent of peak era Depeche Mode linger with you well after giving the record a deep listen.

Friday | 02.28
What: MJ Lenderman & The Wild Wind w/Wild Pink
When: 8
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: MJ Lenderman aside from his membership in alternative rock band Wednesday and having played drums for Indigo De Souza has been establishing himself as a gifted songwriter in his own right with a handful of albums under his name beginning with the self-titled 2019 album. His most recent studio effort is 2024’s Manning Fireworks. Lenderman’s wit and vivid storytelling on the album are obvious and on the surface level it’s in an alt-country mode. But Lenderman’s imaginative guitar work bears comparison to that of J. Mascis and his style of Americana closer to the psychedelia tinged variety favored by Jason Molina and Meat Puppets at their most countrified.