Thursday | 06.01
What: Kiltro w/Nina De Freitas
When: 7
Where: Mercury Café
Why: Kiltro started as the solo acoustic project of Chris Bowers Castillo who as a Chilean-American, had moved to the port city of Valparaíso where he worked as a walking tour guide. And that job not only afforded him the time to learn the city and take in its richly diverse cultural influences but also the opportunity to write a body of work as a songwriter. After returning to Denver Kiltro formally came to life in 2017 and Bowers Castillo developed his acoustic songs with loops, pedals and percussion elements. But in 2018 the project expanded into a trio with Will Parkhill on bass and drummer Michael Devincenzi and later with Fez Garcia on board as a percussionist for live shows.
Kiltro’s 2019 debut album Creatures of Habit had been recorded after the material had been performed live and getting feedback from audiences and friends before being committed to an easily transmitted and shareable form. But the group’s new album, 2023’s Underbelly, is the product of crafting music in quarantine and working in the studio, following whatever creative paths sparked the most inspiration in the moment resulting in a more experimental set of songs which incorporates aspects of shoegaze, ambient, South American folk, psychedelia and a literary yet spontaneous form of storytelling that feels like a deeply personal experience in the listening. The record is a hypnotic and transcendent work of surprising immediacy that one might compare with the likes of Devendra Banhart, Hermanos Guitérrez and more locally to the work of artists like Midwife American Grandma. It fuses the aesthetics of electronic music with the intimacy of mythical folk music around the campfire for a truly unique record refreshing in its originality.
Kiltro is following up the release with a tour throughout the USA in June and July with other live dates in support of the album in August and September with an appearance at VORTEX festival at The JunkYard at Meow Wolf on August 25. Listen to our interview with Bowers Castillo on Bandcamp linked below.
Thursday | 06.01
What: Reptoid w/Quits and Endless, Nameless
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Reptoid is a one man, industrial noise rock freakout from Oakland. His most recent album WORSHIP FALSE GODS (2020) is a borderline, or not so borderline, nihilistic set of songs like a series of trainwrecks about how we’re all pretty much screwed in face of likely developments in the history of our species and its impact on the environment. If you’ve been into Buck Gooter or Author and Punisher this is your thing. Quits is a crushing noise rock juggernaut of a four piece from Denver whose incisive songs and eruptive energy can be startlingly scathing and heavy at once. Endless, Nameless erases the line between progressive metal, post-rock, post-hardcore, black metal and shoegaze with a forceful elegance. Its 2023 album Living Without should end up on the more discerning year end best lists.
Thursday | 06.01
What: Sorted: Surgeon & John Templeton
When: 9
Where: Black Box
Why: Surgeon is a DJ and electronic music composer from England whose labels Counterbalance and Dynamic Tension has been issuing some fine techno records for over 20 years. John Templeton is based in Denver whose own techno music has made a bit of a splash in the Mile High City and his Great American Techno Festival brought some of the most innovative practioners of that style of music to town for several years.
Friday | 06.02
What: ACxDC w/No/Más and Berated
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: ACxDC is the infamous powerviolence/grindcore band from Los Angeles whose 2020 album Satan Is King is a seethingly uncompromising run of anarchistic political sentiment set to blast beats and oddly anthemic antiestablishment shout along songs.
Saturday | 06.03
What: M. Sage Paradise Crick release show w/Zander Raymond
When: 3 p.m.
Where: TBA in Boulder
Why: M. Sage has been a prolific and evolving songwriter and composer going back to at least far back as when he was based out of Fort Collins and doing early indiepop groups. But when he started writing and releasing music as M. Sage and often through his now defunct label Patient Sounds (2009-2019) it became obvious that Sage was thinking beyond standard songwriting even in the more experimental folk vein. His latest release, and first for RVNG Intl., is Paradise Crick, a collection of meditations on communing with nature as a route to a sustainable relationship with the world we all share. The pure fusion of acoustic and electronic aesthetics resonates with some of the more avant releases on the ECM label and its intuitive rhythms and informal structures ease the mind out of the standard pathways of being within one’s own mindset. This show is at unique venue and one must purchase a ticket at the link provided to get the address.
Saturday | 06.03
What: Danceportation – Justin Jay and others
When: 9:30
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station
Why: Danceportation is an immersive dance party pulsing through the worlds of Convergence Station. Be immersed in the full exhibition while stunning live performances on several stages with psychedelic projections and sentient universes welcome you. Danceportation on June 3rd will feature a takeover from Justin Jay’s Fantastic Voyage, the Los Angeles-based electronic dance music imprint now celebrating its seventh year of exisence.
This lineup features multiple sets from Justin Jay, along with performances from Ardalan, DJ Swisha, Juliet Mendoza, Todd Edwards, Adrian More, B Goody, Blake, Coldsweat, Danny Goliger, DJ Parqués, Don Jamal, Ed Hoffman, Gusted, Keefe, Lipgloss, Massii, Mick Jeets, Mizzmegan, The Other Jon, Planet Bloop, and Taylor Bratches.
Sunday | 06.04
What: Korine w/CD Ghost, Voight and DJ Niq V
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Philadelphia-based dream pop band Korine plays a headlining show in Denver for the first time in support of the release of its 2023 album Tear. The group’s sound is somewhere between 80s New Wave groups like, yes, Tears For Fears, late 90s emo’s earnest emotional release and punk attitude. Voight will bring the dark industrial intensity with its scorching shoegaze/techno concoctions CD Ghost from Los Angeles released a set of lush pop songs called Night Music in 2022 that sounds like a a more synth driven and more ethereal Black Marble.
Monday | 06.05
What: Yeah Yeah Yeahs w/Perfume Genius
When: 7
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Yeah Yeah Yeahs have been delivering scrappy, uplifting pop music with punk attitude since forming in 2000 and as first put into recorded form with its 2001 self-titled EP. But the band comprised of three art school kids from New York never rested on its laurels and immediately its creative ambitions drove the band to explore new sounds and expressions to match its emotional growth as well. Its spirited live shows turn even its more melancholic songs into epic anthems that sweep you up in its always deep mood. In 2022 the band released its first album in 9 years, Cool It Down, a record that showcases the group’s gift for richly evocative songwriting and ability to surprise with its willingness to explore new directions in sound and subverting the tropes of pop lyrics while offering new ways of thinking about and feeling timeless themes of human experience with a thrilling immediacy. You also get to see Perfume Genius whose own career in crafting meaningful and engrossing synth pop isn’t short on reinvention and re-envisioning core artistic impulses.
Monday | 06.05
What: Clan of Xymox w/Curse Mackey, A Cloud of Ravens and The Siren Project
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Clan of Xymox is the pioneering dutch darkwave band whose early post-punk songs has been foundational to the modern version of that music with its icily melodic synths and deep, mysterious yet emotionally resonant vocals from Ronny Moorings. Curse Mackey has been involved in a variety of electronic industrial bands of the past few decades including My Life With The Thrill Kill Cult and Pigface and the music under his own name has been more in the vein of synth pop end of darkwave. The Siren Project is a Denver band that has persisted since the old local Goth scene of the 1990s but has never been a fashion victim group in sound or appearance. Its downtempo music and dream pop guitar sound with Malgorzata Wacht’s soaring vocals and emotional power has set it apart from most bands in the Denver Goth scene so its music has aged well and its excellent and so far only official album Denouement should appeal to fans of Dead Can Dance and Faith & The Muse.
Tuesday | 06.06
What: The Cure w/The Twilight Sad
When: 5:30
Where: Fiddler’s Green
Why: The Cure is of course the foundational post-punk band whose gloomy, darkly melodic songs has exerted a lasting influence not just on what one might presume in the realms of Goth and darkwave but also shoegaze, pop music and even certain corners of hip-hop. Singer Robert Smith’s sensitively and sharply observed lyrics embody poetically a sensibility that takes in the possibilities and harsh realities of the world and casts dreams for the best against the odds. Though the band’s music has a reputation for melancholy sounds and sad songs its rich body of work is quite varied and not short on expressions of joy, amusement, romance and hope. Its music conveys the broad human experience like few popular bands get to with the level of power and nuance The Cure has brought to bear across decades and as a live band there is an uplifting warmth and sense of human solidarity to the performances. Scottish post-punk band The Twilight Sad is cut from a similar artistic cloth with songs that are both vulnerable and ferocious.
Wednesday and Thursday | 06.07 and 06.08
What: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard w/Kamikaze Palm Tree
When: 6 p.m (06.07) and 12 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. (06.08)
Where: Red Rocks
Why: With a name like King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard you might imagine some acid head RPG nerds making psychedelic metal with lyrics based on an epic fantasy story arc. And other than maybe the RPG part and maybe the doing LSD bit you wouldn’t be wrong in essence. The group from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia has steadily built a large cult following with a prolific career (in both 2017 and 2022 King Gizz released five albums each year with other years yielding at least one if not two records) with sounds from psychedelic pop to prog, to synth pop and groove metal, thrash and psych power metal. With album titles like Flying Microtonal Banana, Nonagon Infinity, Butterfly 3000, Fishing for Fishes and the 2023 album so far PetroDragonic Apocalyp; or Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation you’d expect bizarre concept albums worthy of Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s Tarkus or Genesis’ The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway or at least unclassifiable songs like Pink Floyd’s “Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict.” And King Gizz delivers just that. The kinds of albums and songs and shows that take you on a mind-bending, genre-bursting musical journey worthy of Hawkwind or Gong at their self-indulgent best.
Thursday | 06.08
What: Alphabet Soup #61: Machu Linea, Dub FX, Savage Bass Goat, Yung Lurch, Furbie Cakes and Skyfloor
When: 9
Where: Black Box
Why: This monthly showcase of some of the most forward thinking/experimental producers in Denver includes some of the usual suspects like Furbie Cakes and Skyfloor and their brand of glitch and melodic ambient but this time out also Machu Linea whose avant-pop R&B/techno fusion has long crossed over into the realm of the indie scene.
Friday | 06.09
What: Endless, Nameless and Antibroth tour kickoff w/Rose Variety and Polly Urethane
When: 7
Where: D3 Arts
Why: Antibroth and Endless, Nameless are embarking on a tour to the East Coast and back through the Midwest after which Antibroth and its weirdo, experimental, angular form of post-punk and confrontational surrealism will effectively come to an end though during the tour the trio will release its final EP, Satan and the Dying Baby. This is the band’s final show so don’t miss it. Endless, Nameless is a multi-genre band crossing the boundaries of post-hardcore, death metal, math rock and shoegaze. Rose Variety from Boulder came out of a time in local music that had recovered from that wave of really cookie cutter psychedelic and garage rock but took that raw material and made a pop band out of it with some real punk kick. Polly Urethane always reinvents her show with every performance so maybe you’ll get a gorgeously classical vocal show with some vinyl sampling or backing track or raw noise and signal processing or a pure performance art piece or all of it. Always worth coming to check out.
Friday | 06.09
What: The Sisters of Mercy w/A Primitive Evolution
When: 7
Where: Fillmore Auditorium
Why: The Sisters of Mercy will probably fill the venue with a thick fog and you’ll get some colored murk in which to experience its foundational political post-punk but maybe this time the fog won’t be so thick and you’ll get to see Andrew Eldtrich and his band clearly delivering the kind anthemic, dark rock that launched a thousand Goth bands without directly being that music itself.
Saturday | 06.10
What: Jerome’s Dream and Elizabeth Colour Wheel and Only Echoes
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Jerome’s Dream is the influential screamo/powerviolence band from Sacramento that started out in the early heyday of that music in the late 90s and early 2000s and during its first run of 1997-2001 the trio made a major impact on the kind of music that would later be associated with modern hardcore and extreme metal and where those two fuse. The band has been reunited since 2018 and its latest album The Gray In Between is a fine example of the kind of cathartic extreme music that is has had a popular resurgence in the last handful of years. Elizabeth Colour Wheel is of similar sound but its fusion of noise rock and shoegaze but delivered like a hardcore band has made it a wonderful musical mutant of the past several years. Only Echoes is an instrumental post-metal band from Denver that has been honing its imaginative soundscapes on the road and around Denver whose 2022 album Sunsickness is both melancholic and fiery, reconciling both musical impulses.
Saturday | 06.10
What: Bayonne w/Mmeadows
When: 8
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Bayonne is the project of producer and composer Roger Sellers who started off releasing music under his given name but beginning with 2016’s Primitives he adopted his current moniker. The latest Bayonne record Temporary Time (2023) is an entrancing, orchestral electronic pop record of spacious melodies and melancholic yet summery moods. At another time some critic might have lumped Bayonne in with the “hypnogogic pop” of John Maus or even Dean Blunt but his style is more in the vein of downtempo ambient of Tycho but more grounded in texture and strong, organic rhythms.
Monday | 06.12
What: Drowse w/Agriculture, Sprain and Palehorse Palerider
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Kyle Bates is a composer and multi-instrumentalist whose work has most often been heard as his musical project Drowse. Founded in 2013 in Portland, Oregon, Drowse has released a few albums and numerous EPs and split releases. The music could be considered in part ambient, slowcore, shoegaze, drone, experimental folk and perhaps even transcendental black metal. But all categories aside, each Drowse recording is a journey into unique and nuanced emotional spaces exploring and living within a flow of emotions and thoughts that open the mind to new ideas and interpretations. And more so the moods, frequencies and textures on a Drowse recording, or really any of the releases in which Bates is involved, express a state of mind that one enters after having moved past a peak of anxiety or personal darkness and contain that tenderness and rawness one often needs to pull oneself out of a place of acute pain and psychological paralysis. The gentleness of the music is part of its power and appeal as Bates seems keenly aware of what it’s like to experience that period in life where you don’t feel like you can push or strive any further and you need an experience that is the opposite of that very modern and American internalized urge to keep at things to the extreme and prove yourself endlessly more and more. The core sound of Drowse is that of the musical equivalent of acceptance of one’s human limitations and of being open to what will nurture your well being and spark your imagination into nudging you toward fulfilling experiences.
Throughout his work as Drowse Bates has collaborated with Maya Stoner (Floating Room), Thom Wasluck (Planning for Burial), Madeline Johnston (Midwife), Taylor Malsey, Amulets, Daniel Schmidt and others. In 2023 Bates released an album as Kyle Bates and Lula Asplund called A Matinee that expands upon the format of his songwriting and production with two extended tracks that sound like an improv session one might have stumbled into in cutting room floor recordings of Alan Hankshaw and/or Brian Bennett had they been asked to provide music for a forgotten and mystical place. While it may sound like Bates’ work sets your mind into a different place than where it began upon listening to it, it does, but it is not escapist. Like the work of Grouper or Tim Hecker, Bates’ music has delicate immediacy that engages as it soothes and it stirs the emotions and the imagination.
And you’ll get to see the great Los Angeles black metal band Agriculture which will release its feral self-titled album on The Flenser on July 21, the Unwound-esque noise rock/post-punk group Sprain on its first time in Denver and the Mile High City’s own Palehorse/Palerider whose desert drone and cosmic shoegaze will add more than a touch of the epic and mysterious to the evening.
Tuesday | 06.13
What: Earth w/Burning Sister
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: It is indeed the foundational doom and post-rock doom legends Earth bringing their extended mystical blues to Globe Hall which mostly gets more indie and Americana fare most nights. Its languorous psychedelia somehow manages to be dreamlike and weighty at once for a contrast that allows for a wide-ranging dynamic driven by a sense of wonder and self-discovery.
Wednesday | 06.14
What: Joan w/Harriette
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Brooklyn based pop artist Harriette recently released her debut EP i heart the internet and a music video for the title track that features a bevy of older computer technology (including a flip phone of all things as well as old CRTs and is that an iMac in there?) as a celebration and send-up of internet culture for a song that takes a whimsical and self-aware approach to the phenomenon of people living perpetually online. The EP of upbeat and gentle melodies is a collection of songs as snapshots of modern life with free association of cultural signifiers and artifacts like mentioning listening to an “Folsom Prison Blues” on the appropriately titled “Johnny got it right.” Its genre-bending songwriting in the realm of indie pop and sharply and poetically observed descriptions of everyday life. Joan is a pop duo from Little Rock, Arkansas whose EPs over the past six years have established it as band that is gifted at crafting the heartfelt, expansive pop song as manifested most fully on its 2023 debut album superglue.
Thursday | 06.15
What: Garbage w/Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds and Metric
When: 5:30
Where: Levitt Pavilion
Why: Metric’s 2022 album Formentera has all the creative ambition, dream-like atmospherics and lush soulfulness that has has been the hallmark of the band from the beginning. But this time around Metric takes aim at some of the serious facing the human species as a collective and on the personal level. Also in 2022 the group headlined what it called the “Doomscroller Tour” after the song on the album about the habit of scrolling through social media and online taking in the news as a steady feed of the host of terrible things seeming to occurring every day and at a seemingly more rapid and dense pace than at any point in historical memory. And taking in this horror as a kind of act of soporific disassociation that Metric has sought to disrupt with its music and performance even if for just a little while and to get people to reconsider this habit and perhaps do something about these issues rather than be a passive actor in the human experiment. Metric is in good musical company with legendary alternative rock band Garbage whose own advocacy for social causes is obvious from its own social media presence and its way of discussing its work in the context of living as a human connected with the world. And Noel Gallagher is the former songwriter, singer and guitarist of Oasis and his new band High Flying Birds has been his musical outlet since 2010 following the 2009 final split of his old group. In 2023 the project released its latest album Council Skies perhaps as a reference to Gallagher’s having come up poor in Manchester and his own aspirational daydreaming as a youth, imbuing an album out in his mid-50s with some of that sense of wonder and looking forward.
Thursday | 06.15
What: Legs. The Band EP release w/Hen & The Cocks, The Ephinjis and Gila Teen
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Legs. The Band is releasing its new EP. The group that combines rockabilly blues with proto-punk sounds has been one of the more charismatic rock bands out of the Denver scene of the past couple of years and really sounds like no one else with a commanding and raw stage presence. The Ephinjis are a Boulder-based punk band whose own sound seems to borrow liberally across decades and manages to make a kind of pop-punk that manages not to sound stale because the band’s songwriting is steeped in a diverse sound with eclectic roots. Gila Teen is the Goth emo band everyone should get to experience at least once in their lives because their music is heartfelt and mysterious at the same time informed by a playful and surreal sense of humor but not one that distracts from the poignant emotional moments that clearly inspired so much of the songwriting.
Friday | 06.16
What: Dirty Heads & Atmosphere & Stick Figure w/DENM, The Grouch and Mike Love
When: 4:20
Where: Fiddler’s Green Amphitheater
Why: Atmosphere is a hip-hop duo from Minneapolis, Minnesota comprised of rapper Slug aka Sean Daley and DJ/producer Ant aka Anthony Davis. Slug and Ant have been influential well beyond their own remarkable work as artists as co-founders of the respected Rhymesayers Entertainment imprint which has long been one of the torchbearers of underground and alternative hip-hop going back to the mid-90s and releasing not just the work of Atmosphere but that of Aesop Rock, Brother Ali, Eyedea & Abilities, Dilated Peoples, Grayskul and others. Including its debut album Overcast! (1997), Atmosphere has released thirteen full albums and ten EPs up through the new record So Many Other Realities Exist Simultaneously (2023) making the project one of the more prolific acts in hip-hop. In its various lineups and incarnations Atmosphere has consistently paired sensitive and thought-provoking lyrics with a sonically rich and diverse production ranging from some more classic hip-hop sounds to the clearly experimental and avant-garde all to deliver powerfully evocative music that engages the imagination and the heart. In the live setting Atmosphere create an intimate and inviting energy that creates an environment of the shared experience as Daley’s lyrics aim to not just tell relatable stories with roots in his own direct experiences but with resonances for common experiences and emotional spaces we’ve all known. On the new record the songs take us through a journey through un rest and hope, the latter the primary feeling Daley hopes to convey to everyone that shows up to an Atmosphere show because it is hope that lingers and can carry you through trying times into those that are better.
Friday | 06.16
What: Allison Lorenzen, Openly Weep and Bell Mine
When: 7:30
Where: Leon Gallery
Why: Allison Lorenzen has for several years made the kind of transcendent indie folk that seems to combine a mystical sensibility with ambient soundscapes and tender yet emotionally powerful songwriting and performances. Openly Weep is the debut musical project of Ryan Hall who is one of the founders of the Whited Sepulchre imprint which releases some of the most fascinating experimental music out of the underground on physical and digital formats. His own music is the kind of ambient music that combines beats and the sensibilities of house music. One might call it IDM but it bridges various electronic musical worlds for a sound that feels tribal, primal and completely modern. Listen to his 2021 EP Overpass here. Bell Mine is a Denver-based avant-electronic pop artist whose entrancing and darkly downtempo music is reminiscent of the work of Laurel Halo and Jenny Hval.
Friday | 06.16
What: Dirty Few 10 Year Anniversary of Get Loose, Have Fun w/White Lightning Co., The Sickly Hecks and host Matt Cobos
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Dirty Few were stars of the local garage punk scene in Denver in the early 2010s with a rightfully earned reputation for raucous shows that for better or for worse depending on your perspective and the show you caught embodied the so-called “Denver party rock” attitude. What was perhaps less obvious from the revelry is that Seth and Spencer Stone were talented songwriters whose music had real heart and undeniable hooks as perhaps best heard on the 2013 album Get Loose, Have Fun which the group is reuniting to celebrate with this show.
Friday | 06.16
What: Sour Magic album release of Forbidden Fruit w/The Crooked Rugs, Fly Amanita and Chaarm
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Sour Magic is a psychedelic rock and pop band from Denver that’s releasing its debut album Forbidden Fruit. At first listen maybe you’ll think you’re in for the kind of post-Tame Impala and Temples music but Sour Magic takes that sound into different directions with inventive tempo changes perfectly synced in with the way the melodies flow and unfold. The shimmery sound alongside that more gritty and the way the music allows all elements to shine immediately sets the band apart from much of the psych rock that came out of Denver in the 2010s. Fans of Beach Fossils’ shoegaze pop will appreciate the way Sour Magic often lets the rhythm section lead the music and how that lends the songwriting a weight even as its midnight hued atmospheric elements indulge in blissing out into the moonset. Also, not since Sunboy has a Denver psych band seemed to have such a strong command of the aesthetics of electronic music and rock fused as a unified whole.
Saturday | 06.17
What: The Blue Stones w/Compass & Cavern and JACK
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Canadian blues rock band The Blue Stones has turned its musical roots into an expansion of the sound especially on its 2022 album Pretty Monster. Even a cursory listen through the album reveals a band that takes solid melodic lines and strong rhythms and employs modern production methods that give a tried and true formula and gave it some expansive mood in a psychedelic sheen and modern pop accessibility. It’s a shift in direction for The Blue Stones but Tarek Jafar and Justin Tessler seem to realize that taking chances and not being defined completely by one’s artistic past is more key to longevity than getting stuck doing the exact same thing for an entire career.
Sunday | 06.18
What: Child of Night w/Dream of Industry, Teller and Kill You Club DJs
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Child of Night is a darkwave dance band from Columbus, Ohio whose ethereal duskiness is driven by strong rhythms and robust low end. Its 2021 album The Walls at Dawn has an alluring moodiness like the soundtrack to a near future, urban techno thriller that is the missing link between TR/ST and Actors.
Monday | 06.19
What: Temples w/Post Animal
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: UK psychedelic rock band Temples has been one of the leading lights of the modern manifestation of that music. And its own sound informed by the aesthetics of synth pop has given its music a different trajectory and greater longevity than some of the bandwagon artists of the 2010s. Its music flows with layers of luminous melody and hits with a dream-like resonance that sounds like a quick trip to a sun dappled vacation destination in a beautiful and exotic place. Thus the title of its 2023 album Exotico seems entirely appropriate as each of its sixteen songs is like an immersive sampling of a place you’d like to visit long enough to soak in its uniquely affecting environment. Post Animal are like the younger creative cousin to Temples and its 2022 album Love Gibberish is nine transporting meditations on the glories and foibles of love and a myriad of perspectives on a perennial theme of rock music with the band moving a bit beyond its more hard rock early era into what is often lush 1970s pop-flavored, hazy psychedelia.
Tuesday | 06.20
What: Oliver Tree w/UPSAHL, Tai Verdes and Little Ricky ZR3
When: 6
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Oliver Tree got his break in the music industry proper making presentations for the likes of Skrillex and Zeds Dead though he’d long been a musician and songwriter who has pursued a variety of styles before finding his greatest success making the kind of pop music that is eclectic and informed by the kind of irony that serves to express the sincerity of feeling that is the core content of his songwriting. The eccentric stage performance style and drily and absurdly humorous music videos might give the impression of his music being a put on but songs aren’t. UPSAHL is an up-and-coming pop artist whose spirited and eclectic sound borrows liberally from various genres of music and fuses them into music that is somehow both deeply witty and amusing and thought-provoking. At least if her 2021 album Lady Jesus is any indication not to mention her 2022 EP Sagittarius (Taylor Upsahl being a Sagittarian herself). In 2023 the singer/songwriter announced the release of THE PHX (Phoenix) TAPES which will pair two songs as (SIDE A/SIDE B) to showcase her evolving interests as an artist and producer and so far singles like “GOOD GIRL ERA” (SIDE A) and “CONDOMS” (SIDE B) as well as “WET WHITE TEE SHIRT” (SIDE A) have demonstrated Upsahl’s range as a vocalist and gift for genre-morphing into whatever style suits her always sharp and sassy yet sensitive observations.
Tuesday | 06.20
What: Moon Walker w/Annabel Lee
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Moon Walker is a duo from Denver comprised of Harry Springer and Sean McCarthy whose music is a mix of ’70s glam rock and power pop in a modern flavor. The project came out of the early pandemic when Springer’s and McCarthy’s band The Midnight Club couldn’t play out and Springer started writing music for song libraries until he wrote stuff he didn’t want to give away that way and the new band had its roots. It’s a little kitsch, it’s a lot boogie rock but at least the theatrical element is real and it’s not merely yet another couple of people re-re-re-re-discovering classic rock. Opening act Annabel Lee released her debut album Mother’s Hammer on March 8, 2023 and though housed in acoustic guitar, piano, minimal percussion and other traditionally more folk or pop elements, Lee’s vocals are commanding and intense in her expression and at times one is reminded of a peer like Grace Cummings or obvious touchstones like PJ Harvey in the orchestral arrangements and willingness to unmoor the emotional expression from the tethers of pop convention.
Wednesday | 06.21
What: Elf Power w/The Tammy Shine
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Elf Power was one of the early Athens, GA bands affiliated with the Elephant 6 collective and thus one of the bands that helped to chart the musical direction of modern indie rock. The prolific group has reliably put out thoughtful and inventive psychedelic pop up through its most recent record, 2022’s Artificial Countrysides and its dreamlike, fuzzy melodies and transporting electronic shimmer. Sharing the bill is The Tammy Shine, the charismatic and powerful lead singer of Denver indie pop legends Dressy Bessy doing her no less lively and heartfelt solo material.
Wednesday and Thursday | 06.21 and 06.22
What: Bestial Mouths w/WitchHands and eHpH on 06.21 and w/Church Fire and DJ Shannon Von Kelly on 06.22
When: 7 (06.21) 8 (06.22)
Where: Vulture’s (06.21) and Hi-Dive (06.22)
Why: Bestial Mouths began in 2009 as a band that early on might be considered post-punk but even its debut EP, 2009’s Stabile Vices, had elements of noise and industrial set to ritualistic rhythms with tribal percussion. All along, vocalist Lynette Cerezo who has a background in fashion and design brought to performances a striking visual presentation that drew upon the imagery of mythology and dreams in a creative interplay with the music. Cerezo’s lyrics have always explored issues of gender, identity and personal liberation and whether combined with the performance or not, certainly enhanced by the live experience, meant as a conduit for mutual inspiration and uplift by challenging arbitrary societal notions of “proper” social roles and behavior and aesthetics. A Bestial Mouths show and the music embodies aspects of the subconscious and what has traditionally been relegated to artistic darkness and the feminine, the intuitive and the supernatural. Cerezo through the practice of her art reclaims all of that as a source of power and dignity by demonstrating how it isn’t negative, that it is a part of a complete human life and that such things can be harnessed to the benefit of the self and all.
More recent Bestial Mouths records starting with the new arc of music since the project has been mainly headed by Cerezo since 2018 has reconciled the early post-punk and Goth sound and noise completely with the more mystical and non-Western experimental sonic ideas and rhythms that have been a feature if not the focus of the music since the beginning. But in 2020’s RESURRECTEDINBLACK, the first Bestial Mouths record crafted with Cerezo at the creative helm it’s all there for a listening experience not unlike the psycho-mystical depths of a Dead Can Dance album but darker and more harrowing and cathartic. The new album R.O.T.T. (inmyskin), with the acronym standing for Road of Thousand Tears drops on August 11, 2023 and continues the path of its predecessor but with the songs seemingly emerging from the murk that seemed entirely appropriate for a set of songs from a time of great uncertainty and treading new musical paths. Those appreciate Diamanda Galás’ elemental catharsis, psychic fearlessness and avant-garde sensibilities might find a great deal to appreciate about Bestial Mouths as will those with a taste for the political industrial punk of ADULT. and Jarboe’s deeply emotional and unfettered vocal performances but while in Swans and since. Listen to our interview with Bestial Mouths on Bandcamp linked below.
Saturday | 06.24
What: FACS w/Wave Decay and Replica City
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: FACS is a post-punk from Chicago that includes former 90 Day Men and Disappears singer/guitarist Brian Case. Its angular, menacing songs create a brooding soundscape of stark moods like the hollowed out facade of modern industrial culture. Its 2023 album Still Life In Decay is perhaps its most focused effort in articulating the telltale signs of a civilization in decay neglectful of itself and detrimental to all life within its sphere of influence.
Saturday and Sunday | 06.24 and 06.25
What: Graham Nash
When: 6:30 (06.24) and 6 (06.25)
Where: Chautauqua Auditorium (06.24) and Washington’s (6.25)
Why: Graham Nash is a singer/songwriter who established for himself a rich and influential legacy in music and culture as a member of The Hollies in the 1960s and later that decade going forward with Crosby, Stills & Nash (and for a time CSN&Y with Neil Young). The socially conscious and poetically resonant rock proved a touchstone for a generation with an iconic body of work that’s still worth exploring and finding some of the classic rock era’s finest material. On May 19, 2023, Nash released his latest solo record Now and at 81 he is still crafting exquisite melodies and imaginative stories that have something to say and the forward looking perspective that has always been the hallmark of his art. He’s playing two shows in Colorado in celebration of the record.
Saturday | 06.24
What: Godflesh w/Sumerlands, Stormkeep, Spectral Voice and Street Tombs
When: 5
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Maybe the extreme metal even of the summer with headliners Godflesh, the influential and always unforgettable industrial grindcore pioneers whose grinding, scorching menace always hits hard and not without a sense of mystique. And Denver, thorny grindcore legends Spectral Voice make a very rare appearance these days.
Sunday | 06.25
What: JK Flesh w/Terravault, Corpsewhale, CXCXCX, Vox Mnemonic
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: JK Flesh is the pseudonym of Justin K. Broadrick of Godflesh who fresh off performing at the Gothic the night before with the latter will treat an audience at the Hi-Dive to a set of some of his more experimental work in the realm of noise, power electronics, dub and industrial along with some local noise scene luminaries.
Tuesday | 06.27
What: Moon Pussy w/Porcelain, Quits and Messiahvore
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: This is probably the noise rock show of the month with Denver-based greats Moon Pussy whose borderline unhinged and visceral live show is always a cathartic experience informed by a surreal sense of humor. Porcelain visits from Austin with its own fusion of atmospheric rock and its noisy cousin. Quits reconciles dissonant art rock with post-hardcore intensity. Messiahvore might otherwise be considered a metal band but a little too weird and disregarding of clear tonal sight lines to be that.
Thursday | 06.29
What: The Head and the Heart w/Rayland Baxter and Sera Cahoone
When: 6:30
Where: Red Rocks
Why: The Head and the Heart has since its 2009 inception become one of the most popular and creatively vital bands under the umbrella of indie folk. The group came together organically through the open mic nights at Conor Byrne pub in Seattle and not long after its 2011 debut album on Sub Pop became a bit of an instant classic of modern folk rock with “Rivers and Roads” becoming a major hit with fans as a typical concert closer. In 2019 “Honeybee” was a bit ubiquitous and may have given the impression that the band was being marketed beyond its ability to deliver but fortunately the group’s earnest performances and orchestral and ambitious songwriting made it obvious that even that song was not just hype. In 2023 The Head and the Heart announced its inaugural festival Down In The Valley to take place at Oxbow Riverstage in Napa, CA on September 2 and 3 to feature not just its own performances but those of Waxahatchee, Faye Webster, Rayland Baxter, Miya Folick, Dawes, Madison Cunningham, Mitch & The Coal Miners, Shaina Shepherd and Josiah Johnson.
Friday | 06.30
What: Remember Sports w/Goon and Dry Ice
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Remember Sports isn’t the typical pop punk band if it can truly be considered that at all. But it has that scrappy spirit and emotional openness that makes for the best of that genre. But the group uses a drum machine rather than a more traditional musician in the role. Its songs unabashedly incorporate left field sounds in the mix and its vocals sound like a childhood subjected to the likes of a now more obscure alternative pop artist like Jane Jensen and the much more famous Alanis Morissette by Gen X parents but the members of the band took a foundation like that and took it in a different direction. The band’s 2022 EP Leap Day is four tracks of lo-fi bedroom punk experiments of undeniable charm.
To Be Continued…
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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