Queen City Sounds and Art Best Albums of 2019

All Your Sisters | Trust Ruins

This best of list was intended for publication in 2020 and parts of the entries with comments were published in my year end best list for the print edition of Birdy magazine in Denver for the December 2019 issue. The full best of list is presented here with those short reviews included with the appropriate album and the rest included without comment and several album covers shared as well. The album of the year was All Your Sisters’ Trust Ruins (listed first) because it encapsulated the mood of the year and the band put on one of the best shows of 2019 and the record felt like a leap forward in style and execution for the band. Soon I’ll publish the full best of 2020 list too in a similar format with the commentary for those items that made it into the print edition of Birdy for December 2020.

All Your Sisters | Trust Ruins | The Flenser
A brutal, maximalist summation of the turmoil, conflict, sense of chaos and confusion, rage and frustration and overwhelming flood of negative input from world and societal events of the previous few years. In articulating those feelings and experiences and more alone as powerfully as it does, this album by All Your Sisters transcends genre by providing an example of how industrial and darkwave music can burst beyond established conventions with the sharp-edged and precise percussion framing and channeling the fiery energy at the core of the songwriting.

Adia Victoria | Silences | Atlantic

Adrianna Krikl | Celestial | Self-released

Aldous Harding | Designer | 4AD

Alex Cameron | Miami Memory | Secretly Canadian

Altas | All I Ever Wanted Was | Self-released
A lush deepening of the band’s sweeping, cinematic aesthetic.

Anamanaguchi | [USA] | Polyvinyl

Andre Cactus | Dune Juice | Multidim Records

Andy Stott | It Should Be Us | Modern Love

Angel Olsen | All Mirrors | Jagjaguwar
Poignantly dreamlike examination of identity in an age of universal scrutiny.

Bestial Mouths | INSHROUDSS | Rune & Ruin

Bellhoss | Geraniums | Self-released
Buoyant, lo-fi slowcore love songs for inner awkward nerd.

Bethlehem Steel | s/t | Exploding in Sound
The utter exorcism of oppression through bursts of melodic/atonal poetry.

Big Dopes | Crimes Against Gratitude | Self-released
Captivating indie pop earworm vingettes of American malaise and hope.

Big Thief | U.F.O.F. / Two Hands | 4AD

Bison Bone | Take Up the Trouble | Self-released

Black Belt Eagle Scout | At The Party With My Brown Friends | Saddle Creek

black midi | Schlagenheim | Rough Trade Records
A primer for the new avant-guitar rock revolution.

Black Mountain | Destroyer | Jagjaguwar

Blanck Mass | Animated Violence Mild | Sacred Bones

Blood Incantation | Hidden History of the Human Race | Dark Descent

Boy Scouts | Free Company | ANTI-

Briffaut | A Maritime Odyssey: Heaven is Only a Boat Race Away | GROUPHUG

Calexico and Iron and Wine | Years to Burn | Subpop

Cat Tyson Hughes | Gentle Encounters With Things | Self-released
Ambient, aural snapshots of memory fragments from the hypnogogic state.

Cau5er | The Tower | Self-released

Ceremony | In the Spirit World Now | Relapse Records

Chastity Belt | Chastity Belt | Hardly Art

Cheap Perfume | Burn It Down | Snappy Little Numbers

Chella and the Charm | Good Gal | Self-released

Chelsea Wolfe | Birth of Violence | Sargent House

Chimney Choir | (light shadow) | Self-released

Chromatics | Closer to Grey | Italians Do It Better

clipping. | There Existed an Addiction to Blood | Sub Pop

Consumer | In Computers | The Flenser

Control Top | Covert Contracts | Get Better Records

Cop Circles | Vacation for Hurt | Self-released
Subversive, Laurie Anderson-esque, New Age, No Wave send-up of corporate seminar jingles.

Cosey Fanni Tutti | Tutti | Conspiracy International
Heavy and hypnotic industrial rave autobiography through sound.

Curse | Metamorphism | Fake Crab Records
Eight, powerful, darkwave, prophetic warnings of our potential future.

Danny Brown | uknowhatimsayin¿ | Warp Records
Relentlessly inventive beats and tragicomedic, self-immolating swagger, sci-fi autobiography.

Davi Valois | Bátraquio | Space Cow Music

Deafkids | Metaprogramação | Neurot Recordings
Immersive, ambient-industrial death grind.

Doo Crowder | One For the Losers (& Other Pilgrims) | Self-released
The greatest art pop record since the death of Harry Nilsson.

Dog Basketball | s/t | Self-released

Drab Majesty | Modern Mirror | Dais Records
Moodily heartbreaking deep dive into the essence of love, memory and beauty.

Drowse | Light Mirror/Second Self | The Flenser

Dude York | Falling | Hardly Art

Earl Sweatshirt | FEET OF CLAY | Tan Cressida

Elizabeth Colour Wheel | Nocebo | The Flenser
Majestic, urban-tribal, noise-sludge dream psych.

Empath | Active Listening: Night On Earth | Get Better Records

Entrancer | Downgrade | Multidim Records

Ex Hex | It’s Real | Merge Records
Cosmic New Wave power pop gems beginning to end.

Facs | Lifelike | Trouble In Mind

FEELS / Shannon Lay | Post Earth / August | Wichita / Sub Pop

FM Cubgod | Handsome? | Self-released

Foxes in Fiction | Trillium Killer | Orchid Tapes

Frankie Cosmos | Close It Quietly | Sub Pop

French Kettle Station | Over X Millennia | Self-released
Retro-furturist, New Age pop shade jams on contemporary wack culture.

Future Sound of London | Yage | Fsol Digital

Gila Teen | Doesn’t | Self-released

Glissline | Digital Bipolarism | Multidim Records

Gold Trash | Quiet Violence | Glasss Records
Collage glitch industrial hip-hop daggers into misogynist culture.

Goon | Natural Evil | Convulse Records

Guerilla Toss | What Would The Odd Do? | DFA
Mind-altering, subtropical, disco punk dance pop.

Guidon Bear | Downwardly Mobile: Steel Accelerator | Antiquated Future Records

Gun Street Ghost | Battles | Self-released

Half Shadow | Dream Weather Its Electric Song | Illusion Florist

Haunted Horses | Dead Meat | SIXWIX

Have a Nice Life | Sea of Worry | The Flenser

HEALTH | Slaves of Fear Vol. 4 | Loma Vista Recordings

HIDE | Hell is Here | Dais Records

Holly Herndon | Proto | 4AD

HTRK | Venus In Leo | Ghostly International
Love songs from downtempo dance clubs in the future urban decay.

Jamila Woods | Legacy! Legacy! | Jagjaguwar

Jenny Hval | The Practice of Love | Sacred Bones

Kal Marks | Let the Shit House Burn Down | Exploding in Sound

Kid Mask | dead sore(s) | Self-released
Dispatches from the industrial glitch techno hard rave revolution.

Kim Gordon | No Home Record | Matador Records
Scathing jazz cool poetry set to hip-hop-inflected noise.

Kristin Hersh | Possible Dust Clouds | Fire Records

Kyle Emerson | Only Coming Down | Swoon City Music

Larians | Looming Boy EP | Self-released
Loneliness and isolation distilled as shimmering IDM nuggets.

Legendary Pink Dots | Angel in the Detail | Metropolis Records
A brilliant synthesis of classical sonic architecture, emotionally charged ambient and deep social critique.

Lightning Cult | EP 2: Ether Waves | Cloud Command Sound

Lingua Ignota | Caligula | Profound Lore
Caustic, industrial fusillade against patriarchal fragility.

Lisa Prank | Perfect Love Song | Father/Daughter Records

Little Fyodor | Pithy Romantic Ballads | Self-released
Arch punk cynic and curmudgeon begrudgingly admits affection and survives.

Lot Lizard | s/t | Different Folk Records

Lower Dens | The Competition | Ribbon Music

Malibu Ken | s/t | Rhymesayers

Mannequin Pussy | Patience | Epitaph

Mdou Moctar | Ilana: The Creator | Sahel Sounds
Intricate African prog suffused with the joy of the creative act.

Moon Pussy | Band Meating | Self-released
Eruptive, searing, angular, anti-pop exorcisms.

Muscle Beach | Charms | Sailor Records

Necropanther | The Doomed City | Self-released

New Standards Men | Field Recordings From Late Capitalism Vol. 10 | Self-released

No Gossip in Braille | Bend Toward Perfect Light | Cercle Social Records
The transmogrification of sorrow into transcendent melodies.

NoSwoon | s/t | Substitute Scene Records
Effervescent yet introspective dark wave synth pop.

Nots | 3 | Goner Records

Nuancer | I Hardly Know Her | Self-released

Obtuse | Who’s Askin’? | Self-released
Gloriously earnestly meaningful, off-the-cuff, utterly unpretentious pop punk.

Oh, Rose | While My Father Sleeps | Park The Van

Oko Tygra | Assistoma | Grey Market Records
Masterfully executed emotionally stirring downtempo dream pop.

Old Time Relijun | See Now And Know | K Records

Orbit Service | The Door to the Sky | Self-released

Pedestrian Deposit | Dyers’ Hands | Monorail Trespassing
The sonic analog of places we don’t want to visit but are drawn to anyway.

Pharmakon | Devour | Sacred Bones

Pinkish Black | Concept Unification | Relapse Records

Pile | Green and Gray | Exploding in Sound
Furiously poetic, orchestral and thoughtful blueprint for arty, noisy post-punk to come.

Plaid | Polymer | Warp Records

Pop. 1280 | Way Station | Weyrd Son Records

POW! | Shift | Castle Face Records

Priests | The Seduction of Kansas | Sister Polygon

Redwing Blackbird | Too Klaus For Comfort | Self-released

Rowboat | Birchwood Halls | Self-released

Secret Shame | Dark Synthetics | Portrayal of Guilt Records

Sheer Mag | A Distant Call | Wilsuns Recording Company
Modern blues punk’s equivalent of Judas Priest’s Stained Class.

She Past Away | Disko Anksiyete | Metropolis Records / Fabrika Records

ShitKid | DETENTION | PNKSLM Recordings

Silence in the Snow | Levitation Chamber | Prophecy Productions

Sleaford Mods | Eton Alive | Extreme Eating Records

Sleater-Kinney | The Center Won’t Hold | Mom + Pop

Slugger | Is Real | Self-released

Sole & DJ Pain 1 | No God Nor Country | Black Box Tapes

somesurprises | s/t | Drawing Room Records

Spirettes | Esoteria | Self-released
An ethereal distillation of deep yearning and determination.

SRSQ | Temporal Love/Unkept | Dais Records

Stonefield | Bent | Flightless

Strange Ranger | Remembering The Rockets | Tiny Engines

Studded Left | Popular Intuition | S/L INTNL.
Psychedelic post-punk portraits of life and love in our dystopic USA.

Summer Cannibals | Can’t Tell Me No | Tiny Engines

SunnO))) | Life Metal and Pyroclasts | Southern Lord

Swans | leaving meaning. | Young God

Tacocat | This Mess Is A Place | Sub Pop

Telefon Tel Aviv | Dreams Are Not Enough | Ghostly International

The Coathangers | The Devil You Know | Suicide Squeeze

The Hecks | My Star | Trouble In Mind Records

The Ocean Blue | Kings and Queens / Knaves and Thieves | Korda Records

The Paranoyds | Carnage Bargain | Suicide Squeeze

The Stargazer Lilies | Occabot | Rad Cult

The Twilight Sad | It Won/t Be Like This All the Time | Rock Action
The sound of a valiant struggle against existential failure.

The Vanilla Milkshakes | Punching Cows | Self-released
Humorous and heartfelt pop grunge odes to perpetual outsider status.

Total Trash | Field Guide | Self-released
Melancholic, post-psychedelic, slowcore, glitter jams.

Turvy Organ | The Ghost at the Feast | GROUPHUG

Tyler The Creator | Igor | Columbia
Dense, gritty, hazy beats and meta-exploration of identity as human and artist.

We Are Not a Glum Lot | The Price of Simply Existing | Self-released
Gripping, emo-inflected, math-y, post-punk bummercore.

Weeping Icon | s/t | Fire Talk
Cathartic, thorny, darkwave doom garage.

Whipporwill | The Nature of Storms | Self-released

Wreck and Reference | Absolute Still Life | The Flenser

Xeno & Oaklander | Hypnos | Dais Records
Heavy/heavenly techno for the dance club on Mount Olympus.

Xiu Xiu | Girl with Basket of Fruit | Polyvinyl

Zealot | The Book of Ramifications | Self-released

Best Shows in Denver 1/9/20 – 1/15/20

Oryx performs at Hi-Dive on January 9, 2020, photo by Alvino Salcedo

Thursday | January 9

The Milk Blossoms, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Oryx, Cthonic Deity and Zygrot
When: Thursday, 1.9, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: In the realm of Denver extreme metal it would be hard to find a more solid line-up this month than this. Oryx is perhaps rightfully considered a doom band but its wall of noise is a shifting, mind-altering experience that creatively uses drones and riffs to comment on the world in a way the reflects and exorcises the sense of despair at the way our economic and political system normalizes the ways in which our lives are eroded through the environment, the fake prosperity figures that hide the poverty and desperation that permeates much of society in America and elsewhere and a cultural climate that favors a cultural identity anchored to the fortunes of the world’s oligarchs. And yet it’s not a bummer, there are hopes and dreams in its grinding and harrowing aesthetic. Cthonic Deity released one of the most promising fusions of death metal and hardcore with 2019’s Reassembled in Pain. Zygrot is a crusty grindcore quartet that releases its self-titled debut in September 2019.

What: Billy the Poet, The Maykit and Chella and The Charm
When: Thursday, 1.9, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake

What: The Milk Blossoms w/Turvy Organ and Midwife
When: Thursday, 1.9, 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall

Friday | January 10

Don Chicharrón, photo by Spencer Higbee

What: Don Chicharrón, Roka Hueka, TúLips, DJ Charlie Continental, Dos Luces Brewery, benefit show for Casa de Paz & Metro Denver Sanctuary
When: Friday, 1.10, 8 p.m.
Where: 3 Kings Tavern
Why: As indicated above this is a benefit show for Casa de Paz & Metro Denver Sanctuary, organizations aiding the local immigrant populations. It features some of the the city’s best Latin music-inflected acts. Also for this show Don Chicharrón is releasing its new 7” “Valle b/w En La Gruta Del Rey De La Montaña” through Snappy Little Numbers the proceeds from the sales of which will benefit the same organizations.

What: Space in Time, The Honey Blazer Band and Star Garbage
When: Friday, 1.10, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive

What: Empty Caskets, Piss Poor, Moon Phase, Cagemates
When: Friday, 1.10, 7 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective

What: Daikaiju w/Lost Relics, Stone Deaf and Messiahvore
When: Friday, 1.10, 7 p.m.
Where: Tennyson’s Tap
Why: Daikaiju is a flame wielding, Kabuki/La Lucha Libre-looking, acrobatic, surf rock/punk spectacle of the highest order.

Saturday | January 11

I’m A Boy, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Origami Angel, Short Fictions, Flora De Luna and Obtuse
When: Saturday, 1.11, 7 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: Origami Angel is a band from the Washington, D.C. area that is mining a similar sonic territory as bands in the past half decade or more going beyond the neo-pop punk into a hybrid of math-y emo and indie pop. So a bit retro but at least not yet another band thinking it is discovering Laurel Canyon all over again and with earnest, heartfelt performances. Obtuse is a like-minded band from Denver whose 2019 album Who’s Askin’ is a gloriously raw and incisive examination of one’s insecurities as a normal reaction to a society and economic system seemingly designed to make everyone feel like an inadequate failure. Their songs are an acknowledgment of those anxieties and an attempt to not be completely sunk by them.

What: New Ben Franklins and I’m a Boy 7” split release
When: Saturday, 1.11, 10 p.m.
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Long running alt-country/American band New Ben Franklins and power pop sensations I’m A Boy are releasing their split 7” tonight at The Skylark.

What: Daikaiju w/TripLip and Today’s Paramount
When: Saturday, 1.11, 8 p.m.
Where: The Squire Lounge

What: Dressy Bessy w/Pout House, Television Generation
When: Saturday, 1.11, 7 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive

What: To Be Astronauts w/Too Many Humans, Decatur and Star Garbage
When: Saturday, 1.11, 8 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake

Sunday | January 12

The Vanilla Milkshakes with Frank Registrato on drums circa 2015, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Total 80s Live with Bow Wow Wow w/When in Rome and The Vanilla Milkshakes
When: Sunday, 1.12, 8 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Bow Wow Wow is an English New Wave band assembled by then Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren in 1980 when he convinced members of Adam Ant’s band to form a new group that was fronted by 13-year-old Annabella Lwin who McLaren had heard singing along to the radio at her laundromat job. The other singer of the band in the beginning was George O’Dowd who left the group early and became famous as Boy George of Culture Club and as a solo artist. Bow Wow Wow somehow managed to break into the mainstream with hit songs like “C·30 C·60 C·90 Go!” and a lively cover of The Strangeloves’ 1965 recording of “I Want Candy.” This current version of the band will not include Lwin who hasn’t been in this iteration of Bow Wow Wow since 2013, now performing as Annabella Lwin of the original Bow Wow Wow.” So while it won’t be the original line-up except for bassist Leigh Gorman, you can hear those hits as well as When in Rome whose 1987/1988 single “The Promise” has been a staple of 80s synth pop playlists for decades. The Vanilla Milkshakes are a pop punk band with attitude and an offbeat sense of humor that will probably make the nostalgia seekers wonder how they got on the bill but end up liking a lot of the songs in spite of themselves.

Wednesday | January 15

e-scapes, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Weird Wednesday: Yao Guai, Lady of Sorrows and e-scapes
When: Wednesday, 1.15, 9 p.m.
Where: Bowman’s Vinyl and Lounge
Why: Weird Wednesday this month includes ambient prog project Yao Guai, emotionally expressive darkwave solo act Lady of Sorrows and experimental synth pop composer e-scapes.

What: Miró Quarter
When: Wednesday, 1.15, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Newman Center (Denver University)

What: Ceasefire, Disowned, Barking Mad, Pontius Pilate and ASALT
When: Wednesday, 1.15, 7 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective

Best Shows in Denver 4/11/19 – 4/17/19

Earl Sweatshirt at Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom on April 11, photo by Steven Traylor

Thursday | April 11

Brother Saturn, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Earl Sweatshirt & Friends w/Bbymutha and Liv.e
When: Thursday, 04.11, 8 p.m.
Where: Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom
Why: Earl Sweatshirt released his first mixtape, Kitchen Cutlery, under the name Sly Tendencies in 2008 when he was just fourteen years old. Within a year he was contacted by Tyler, the Creator, who was a fan and changed his performance/musical moniker to what it is now. Born Thebe Neruda Kgositsile, the son of an American law professor and a South African poet and political activist, Sweatshirt has created some of the most sonically inventive and thought-provoking hip-hop of the past decade. He got a bump up early on due to his association and work with Odd Future but his solo albums from 2013’s Doris onward revealed an artist in touch with and non-judgmental toward the deeper regions of his psyche and whose imagination and musical instincts have never been narrowed down to how ideas and sounds fit into established channels of expression. The 2015 album I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside lives up to the suggestion of the title and probably won’t be played at many parties. But it’s a record that dives deep with an uncompromising search for something real and something that can cut through the haze of our world overstimulated by blandness broadcasted as exciting. 2018’s Some Rap Songs has brighter atmospheres but the words manage to plumb personal darkness further. The production, though, is reminiscent of Black Moth Super Rainbow in its sampling of sounds and music in a highly refined collage of feelings and imagery that fizz and fade out in perfect orchestration with the complimentary layers of rhythm and poetry.

Who: Life After Earth and Brother Saturn
When: Thursday, 04.11, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Hooked On Colfax
Why: Guess this edition of the Speakeasy Series hosted by Glasss Records could be called An Evening With Drew Miller. Life After Earth is Miller’s darker electro ambient project while Brother Saturn’s gorgeously gauzy, guitar-driven, ambient post-rock is decidedly brighter and more uplifting.

Who: Slow Magic w/Covex
When: Thursday, 04.11, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Fox Theatre

Who: Dead Characters, Obtuse, Bernie & The Wolf Rita Rita, Fragile Fires
When: Thursday, 04.11, 7 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective

Who: Great Falls w/False Cathedrals, Muscle Beach, Fathers
When: Thursday, 04.11, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive

Who: Blacc Rabbit w/Shark Dreams and Jeff Cormack
When: Thursday, 04.11, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge

Friday | April 12

Lusine, photo by Sarah M

What: Double-Ply Translucent Caterpillar #5
When: Friday, 04.12, 8 p.m.
Where: Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox
Why: The free jazz improv prog fusion all-star extravaganza is back (sans the late, great, Ikey Owens who was a regular back in the day) but rather than at DIY space Unit E, at Ophelia’s. Includes members of Rubedo, Holophrase, déCollage, Wheelchair Sports Camp, Kendrick Lamar’s band and The Other Black.

Who: Lusine w/Milky.wav and Snubluck
When: Friday, 04.12, 8 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Jeff McIlwain has produced a consistently interesting, evolving body of work as Lusine for twenty years. Combining samples that contain elements of physical sound (chains, chimes, bells, other objects truck for textural qualities) into his beats and soundscaping, McIlwain’s songs truly transport the listener to a place that is both unknown and yet ineffably tangible.

Who: Memorybell, Sine Mountain, Mosh
When: Friday, 04.12, 9 p.m.
Where: Tandem Bar
Why: With Memorybell, Grant Outerbridge is able to use his mastery of piano beyond his classical training to craft evocative, minimalist compositions that suggest an intimate familiarity with doubt, unease and the overwhelming demands of modern life and how to untangle that with songs that transcend such contexts by subtly coaxing you lateral thinking and feeling.

Saturday | April 13

Jane Siberry, photo courtesy the artist

Who: DBUK and Norman Westberg w/George Cessna
When: Saturday, 04.13, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Denver Broncos UK is basically the alter ego of Slim Cessna’s Auto Club but one that is moodier, less upbeat and post-punk in the sense as, say, Shriekback, Crime and the City Solution and New Model Army, all of whom incorporated elements of folk, a sense of brooding introspection and a broad array of musical ideas to tell stories that many of their contemporaries weren’t. In 2019 DBUK released Songs Nine Through Sixteen, the follow up to its fantastic 2015 album titled, what else, Songs One Through Eight. For this show the band is joined by Slim’s talented son and experimental singer-songwriter George Cessna as well as Norman Westberg, the legendary SWANS guitarist whose solo output while not sprawling is always worth a listen and where he is able to demonstrate his interest in crafting unique atmospheres with guitar, banjo and drum machine. It might be described as ambient but the kind one might have to compare to the likes of Marisa Anderson or Helen Money.

Who: Get Your Ears Swoll 5: Meet the Giant, Gata Negra, The Jinjas
When: Saturday, 04.13, 7:30 p.m.
Where: People’s Building
Why: Everyone should get to experience Meet the Giant’s powerfully evocative dream pop. Maybe “pop” isn’t the word for it as its music borders on hard rock but informed by the aesthetics of electronic music and post-punk. And the raw emotional honesty of Mic Naranjo’s vocals transcends genre. Gata Negra is probably an anomaly now in Denver in that its blues-tinged music would have been considered alternative rock in the early 90s because it’s using that musical vocabulary in offbeat ways that allow for nuanced and poetic expressions of inner space.

Who: Jane Siberry w/Antonio Lopez
When: Saturday, 04.13, 7 p.m.
Where: Swallow Hill/Quinlan Cafe
Why: Jane Siberry is a Toronto-based singer-songwriter whose prolific career should be more well-known in America outside college radio in the 80s and 90s. Her lilting and melodious vocals and use of space and dynamics give her sometimes minimal elements an unconventional versatility and inventiveness. She has worked with Michael Brook, Brian Eno and Peter Gabriel. Her song “It Can’t Rain All the Time” was featured prominently in the film The Crow and other songs have been part of the soundtracks of the Wim Wenders films Until the End of the World and Faraway, So Close. Though typically conceptual in nature, both musically and in terms of her subject matter, Siberry’s songs are accessible and relatable in a way music that is more obviously experimental isn’t.

Shana Cleveland, photo courtesy the artist

Who: Shana Cleveland (La Luz guitarist/singer) w/Down Time and Ryan Wong
When: Saturday, 04.13, 8 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Shana Cleveland’s sparkling and lush guitar work in La Luz is one of the reasons that band has never been stuck in some kind of throwback surf guitar thing. That and her introspective vocals that imbue her songs with an enviable mystique in modern music. Her debut solo album, 2019’s Worm Moon, is more ethereal than the music of La Luz but has the same entrancingly dusky quality that band exudes. Worm Moon may be more stripped down than what we’re used to hearing from Cleveland but it feels like we’re hearing her plumbing another layer of emotional depth in an already respectable musical career to date.

Who: Street Tombs (Santa Fe), Zygrot, Blood Loss and Secticide
When: Saturday, 04.13, 6 p.m.
Where: Chain Reaction Records
Why: It’s record store day and Chain Reaction Records, in Lakewood, is worth the trip particularly to get to see some of the best local and regional hardcore bands.

Sunday | April 14

Swervedriver, photo by Steve Gullick

Who: Swervedriver and Failure w/No Win
When: Sunday, 04.14, 6 p.m.
Where: Oriental Theater
Why: Before the word “alternative” was a clumsily and ubiquitously applied term for a broad swath of music that emerged out into mass public consciousness in the early 90s, a generation of bands inspired in part by underground music were already embodying music that seemed like a paradigm shift into something different from what was then most “commercially viable.” Swervedriver rumbled to life in Oxford, England in 1989 when sole original member and vocalist/guitarist Adam Franklin and some friends laid down the roots of the band based on songs Franklin had written after his former band Shake Appeal (a nod to the influence of the Stooges) disbanded. Perhaps the right place at the right time, the nascent Swervedriver knew Mark Gardner of Ride, also from Oxford, who gave their demo to Creation Records head Alan McGee who signed the group. Creation would become all but synonymous with “shoegaze.”

All the bands on Creation, pretty much, were sonically massive and shared similar influences but unlike brilliant, ethereal soundcapers Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine, Swervedriver had more traditionally hard rock underpinning to the songwriting and its sound seemed more gritty and distorted like some of its American counterparts in the USA who were already poised to turn the music industry on its head while cultural commentators and journalists struggled with an overarching term for that phenomenon. Swervedriver didn’t become a household name like Nirvana or Pearl Jam but its records have remained revered and influential. The group split in 1998 but reunited in 2008 and has since released two noteworthy records since in 2015 with I Wasn’t Born to Lose You and 2019’s Future Ruins. Like former labelmates Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine, Swervedriver wasn’t inclined to release a record that wasn’t worthy of its legacy.

Failure, photo by Priscilla C Scott

In Los Angeles, Failure formed a year after Swervedriver in 1990 at the peak of the popularity of glam metal. Drummer Kellii Scott had grown up a fan of Rush and Iron Maiden and had been an avid live music fan in Los Angeles’ diverse musical world including taking in the sorts of shows at Gazzari’s and The Troubadour as one might have seen in Penelope Spheeris’ 1988 documentary The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years. But Scott’s eclectic musical tastes meant he was open to whatever seemed interesting or exciting. He was once the drummer of alternative funk band Liquid Jesus whose cover of “Stand” by Sly & The Family Stone appeared on the soundtrack to the 1990 film Pump Up the Volume and through that band and other projects Scott established himself as a talented drummer in town. He was alerted to auditions for a little known group called Failure which was in the process of recording what would be its 1994 album Magnified. When he heard the demos future bandmates Ken Andrews and Greg Edwards had recorded and was immediately struck by the songwriting and how fresh and different its approach to making the music seemed that he wanted to be part of the band.

Failure’s 1992 debut Comfort as well as early Sunny Day Real Estate songs seem obvious influences on midwest emo and post-hardcore by mixing strong melodies with noisy, urgent songwriting and nuanced emotional colorings in the lyrics and Andrews’ vocal delivery. But Magnified put bass at the center of the the instrumentation allowing for guitar to gyre out out in plasmic bursts as the drums kept the dynamics corralled even as each song threatened to careen off into chaos. The new style gave the music a cinematic quality that the band expanded upon greatly with its 1996 then swan song Fantastic Planet. On the latter, Failure prominently introduced piano and acoustic guitar to give its urgent juggernaut of sound another layer of detail, giving the songs some space, no joke intended for a space rock record, to come down from the emotional heights and extremes present across the thrilling but sometimes harrowing record.

Even with a few critically acclaimed albums under its belt and having played on the 1997 Lollapalooza tour, Failure split in 1997 citing personal differences. Which is perhaps inevitable given the time, the pressure, knowing that you made some of the cooler records of the era but without that propelling one into the mainstream. After the break-up all the members of the band went on to different projects that helped each develop new musical skills and cultivate creative interests that would go on to help make Failure an even better band when it reunited in 2013. Edwards formed the fantastic, experimental post-punk band Autolux. Guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen (who had joined after Fantastic Planet was in the can) went on to play in A Perfect Circle and now plays in Queens of the Stone Age (and hasn’t returned to Failure). Scott played in various bands including Blinker the Star, Veruca Salt and Enemy but also did studio sessions for Linda Perry including performances on tracks by Christina Aguilera and Courtney Love. He also did work on a recent Dr. Dre album. Andrews has becoming an in-demand producer and engineer whose work can be heard on songs and albums by Paramore, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Chris Cornell.

After announcing a reunion with the classic lineup of Edwards, Andrews and Scott in late 2013, Failure played its first show in nearly 17 years in February 2014. Later that year Failure would tour the US including dates as part of Riot Fest. Fairly early on in that cycle of rehearsals and performances Failure wrote new material and released the Tree of Stars EP in May 2014 which included live tracks and the new song “Come Crashing.” But it wasn’t long before the band was preparing material for a new full-length, 2015’s sprawling The Heart is a Monster. The album demonstrated how far the band members had come individually as well as its chemistry as a collective. Arranged, produced and sequenced in an almost narrative fashion the albums songs work individually but taken as a whole like a collection of musical vignettes. While critical reception of the new Failure album was mixed it was obvious that there was still something there.

2018’s In the Future Your Body Will be The Furthest Thing From Your Mind was conceived and recorded in phases with three EPs released separately throughout that year and the complete album including the fourth EP released in November. Scott feels it’s the group’s best album and in terms of focus, utilizing the group’s complete skill set, sound palette and bringing to bear a mature, creative sensibility it’s hard to disagree unless one is burdened with the misguided, though often justified, conceit that a band does its best work on its first few albums. The new Failure album sounds like a band that has already been through the stage of discovering what it wants to be and rediscovered what it can be.

What: Kalyn4Mayor Battle of the Bands: Pay2Play Politics: Venus Cruz, Felix Ayodele, Church Fire, R A R E B Y R D $, Tammy Shine, Bolonium, Josh Blue, Chris Fonseca and Christine Buchele
When: Sunday, 04.14, 6 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Kalyn Heffernan is running to be mayor of Denver. As a producer and hip-hop MC with her band Wheelchair Sports Camp, Heffernan has demonstrated her imagination, talent and managerial skills. As an advocate for people with disabilities and queer youth, she has shown her ability to both reach out to and critique vested authority in a productive manner while not compromising her righteous mission. As mayor of Denver Heffernan will bring a much needed helping of good sense, pragmatism (you can’t navigate the world when you’re disabled without this quality), compassion, a knack for productive engagement, a knowledge of issues facing not just struggling populations and gentrification but the city as a whole as well as a love of the city and the people that make Denver a world class city. For this event Heffernan has brought together some friends to raise awareness of her candidacy and to raise funds for her campaign. All the bands are some of the most interesting acts in the Mile High City and the comedians among the town’s most talented.

Monday | April 15

Ex Hex, photo by Michael Lavine

Who: Ex Hex w/Moaning
When: Monday, 04.15, 7 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Ex Hex was probably not the kind of band anyone would have expected from Mary Timony. The wiry, noise post-punk of Autoclave, Helium’s evolving experiments in tone and concept, Timony’s widely different albums under her own name exposing different aspects of her talent as a musician and songwriter. Inventively angular, often utilizing lo-fi aesthetics to create a quality of mystery, Timony is one of the most interesting musicians of the past three decades. So with the second Ex Hex album, 2019’s It’s Real, Timony, Betsy Wright and Laura Harris have written songs that sound like they could have come out of a weird nexus of early 80s power pop, garage rock, new wave and hard rock. Huge, brash, riffs. Unabashedly bombastic hooks. Plenty of bands have drawn on that earlier era of rock for inspiration but too often it comes with embracing the regressive topics and sensibilities of that time as well. Not the case here. And none of the cheesy production. Just the unabashed joy but paired with a futuristic vision untethered from old school rock and roll cultural baggage. Also on the bill is Los Angeles-based noise rock band Moaning who sound, in the best way, like You’re Living All Over Me period Dinosaur Jr after immersing themselves in the Siltbreeze catalog. Meaning understated, emotionally demolished vocals and urgent, gritty melodies and an energetic live show.

Tuesday | April 16

Buke & Gase, self-portrait

Who: Yob w/Amenra and In the Company of Serpents
When: Tuesday, 04.16, 7 p.m.
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: Amenra is a Belgian metal band that has in its twenty year history helped to redefine what metal can be and sound like and embody the concept of heavy not just sonically but emotionally. Its blend of doom and ambient post-rock is well suited the dark, majestic outbursts threaded together with ethereal introductions, builds and interludes. Its full-length albums are titled Mass followed by a Roman Numeral indicating its sequence in the band’s catalog but also serves as a nod to chapters in the canonical works of a mystical sect. In The Company of Serpents recently overhauled its sound and while still well within the realm of extreme metal and doom, the songwriting bears some comparisons to artists that tap into a dark, forbidding blues. Like maybe Grant Netzorg listens to a bit of Nick Cave or later era Swans. Yob is the influential psych doom band from Eugene, Oregon. Influenced by, of course, Black Sabbath and imaginative art rock bands like King Crimson and Pink Floyd, Yob’s music is incredibly heavy but there’s a fluidity and playfulness to its songwriting and presentation that ultimately transforms that heaviness into something uplifting, like a purge of the detritus that plagues the mind due to the build-up of the unreasonable demands of everyday life in late capitalism America.

Who: Buke & Gase w/Like A Villain and Holophrase
When: Tuesday, 04.16, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Buke & Gase has always pushed boundaries in its exquisite use of unusual rhythms and otherworldly melodies. Its new album Scholars has the band absorbing mainstream and synth pop and transforming it to suit the group’s own sensibilities as only it can. And this whole bill is filled with vocalists who use their powerful voices as instuments in themselves. Holland Andrews of Like a Villain creates sound environments that recall the soundtracks to Michael Powell films or Diamanda Galas and Björk collaborating on music to accompany a Stanislaw Lem adaptation. Holophrase’s Malgorzata Stacha channels moods and modes seemingly directly from the unconscious and makes it work in the context of experimental downtempo music.

Who: Show Me The Body w/Euth, Law of the Night and TARGETS
When: Tuesday, 04.16, 7 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Show Me the Body from New York is technically a hardcore band but the vocal delivery sounds as much like what you’d expect as something from a weird hip-hop band. Fans of Sleaford Mods and IDLES will probably find a lot to like here though Show Me the Body is a bit darker than the aforementioned. The group recently released its 2019 sophomore album Dog Whistle.

Wednesday | April 17

HEALTH, photo by Faith Crawford

What: HEALTH w/Youth Code and French Kettle Station
When: Wednesday, 04.17, 7 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: With the 2019 release of Vol. 4 :: Slaves of Fear, its first since the departure of guitarist Jupiter Keyes, proves that the remaining trio still absorbs new musical ideas and applies them creatively in its sonic palette while experimenting with its own production and sound processing as it has since its inception. This time the 8-bit crushing, driving-yet-fluid noise rock and ghostly, pitch-shifted/autotuned vocals give the impression of being layers in a dance track. It’s even difficult to tell whether the drums are analog or not and if so processed or submixed to EQ in unconventional ways. Honestly, knowing either way is irrelevant to anyone but purists of any stripe and HEALTH is a band that ditched notions of purity in music as boring and perhaps quaint long ago. The element that separates this new album and its music from 2015’s Death Magic is an element of industrial beat making. Sure the group worked with French industrial synth phenom Perturbator but if that was an influence it’s been wholly absorbed and incorporated.

Considering HEALTH’s new sound it’s only fitting that it’s touring with Youth Code. Both from Los Angeles, Youth Code was one of the major bands that was part of the recent darkwave revival of the past decade. Its confrontational EBM had the sharp edges of a hardcore band but its emotional resonance has been much broader.

Opening the show is Denver’s French Kettle Station. Always an incredibly energetic and dynamic performer, some might think there’s something of an act to it all beyond it being a compelling element to a live show. But Luke Thinnes’ enthusiasm is sincere and his mixture of 80s adult contemporary, Talk Talk and Arthur Russell. Speaking of 80s adult contemporary, FKS has been on a bit of a Phil Collins kick of late and even sometimes covers one of his iconic songs live.

Best Shows in Denver 1/31/19 – 2/6/19

Bert Olsen performs at 3 Kings Tavern on February 1. Photo by Tom Murphy

Thursday | January 31, 2019

Denver Meatpacking Company, photo by Michelle Simutis

Who: Stereoshifter, Denver Meatpacking Company and I’m a Boy
When: Thursday, 01.31, 8 p.m.
Where: Syntax Physic Opera
Why: Alternative blues rock, second wave grunge and flamboyant, emotionally charged rock and roll with an ear for classic glam and the future.

Who: Starjammer – Empire of the Mantis
When: Thursday, 01.31, 8 p.m.
Where: 3 Kings Tavern
Why: Squidds Madden brings his visionary multi-media, multi-instrumental one-man band to 3 Kings to demonstrate that “Avant Garde/Dub-Reggae” is not some kooky gimmick but an evolving futuristic music that is truly a synthesis of deeply experimental improvisational music and the production style that enhances a broad spectrum of sonic frequency, textures and rhythm.

Who: Endless, Nameless, Honey and Salt, Obtuse, Admiral and more
When: Thursday, 01.31, 7 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: Kind of a math rock show with Obtuse who certainly draw on 90s and 2000s math rock for some of the inspiration but is thankfully more focused on the emotional possibilities when you don’t get tripped up on the time signatures and precision but use those as needed to express the raw nerves of a generation that late capitalism is trying to toss in the dumpster but not without some very articulate resistance.

Friday | February 1, 2019

Broncho, photo by Pooneh Ghana

Who: Maemyth, Galleries, Bert Olsen and matherial
When: Friday, 02.01, 9 p.m.
Where: 3 Kings Tavern
Why: All the other bands on the bill are worth your time. But Bert Olsen, not named after anyone in the band, makes the kind of punk that is atmospheric, probably inspired in part by The Cure and early Christian Death, noisy and vividly emotional and not trapped by the need to sound like another era of punk. Bert Olsen is charting its own path and Hunter Wood’s vocals are both melodic and demonstrating a willingness to crack and distort to fit the mood of the moment. More rock music in general would benefit from such instincts but a lot of it is self-tamed and conditioned, traditionalist stuff.

Who: Broncho w/Pinky Pinky
When: Friday, 02.01, 8 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Too many artists and “comedians” have ruined irony for probably another generation by abusing its possibilities and basically by not being ironic, just wannabe surrealistic and too much of a broken person’s public diary presented as entertainment. Broncho didn’t fail in its employment of irony by making sardonic yet sincere commentary on American culture and life. When singer/guitarist Ryan Lindsey was in The Starlight Mints he injected some color into the tail end of the wave of indiepop that emerged in the early 90s. With Broncho it’s more rock but out of step with the tendency of a lot of modern rock music to be trapped entirely too much in past decades. The band’s latest record is 2018’s Bad Behavior.

Who: King Eddie, Briffaut and BabyBaby
When: Friday, 02.01, 8 p.m.
Where: Syntax Physic Opera
Why: King Eddie began as something of a fairly predictable psychedelic rock band but by that time and the release of its 2017 album it completely refined and reinvented itself into one of the most interesting and creative bands in that realm of music. Briffaut is sort of freak folk, psychedelic indie rock but sounds like it was made by people who cut themselves off from outside influences for half a decade or more. Because of that, it’s music is always interesting and left-field.

Who: Dry Ice, Slugger, Satellite Pilot, Rose Variety and Ludoesmusic
When: Friday, 02.01, 8 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Apparently Dry Ice is from Highlands Ranch, Colorado. If it’s album 2018 Technicolor Yawning is any indication it sounds like the product of suburban boredom and thus this far into the band’s career means it’s sort of all over the place style-wise but that also means its not locked into being a particular genre and its eclectic quality yields some interesting material that might not have been possible had its members been channeled into a particular local scene. Slugger makes a case for garage and psychedelic rock inspired by classic rock not being totally played out.

Who: Boldtype, The Gamits, Reno Divorce and No Bueno
When: Friday, 02.01, 7 p.m.
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Manuel Lopez was the passionate and affable drummer of Boldtype who recently passed away. This is a benefit show for his daughters and will include performances by his band as well as some of the best local punk rock bands that came up at the same time his group was coming into its own.

Saturday | February 2, 2019

Mozes and the Firstborn, photo by Nick Helderman

Who: The Parrots + Mozes and The Firstborn, Billy Changer, Super Bummer
When: Saturday, 02.02, 8 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Mozes and The Firstborn from Eindhoven, The Netherlands came up during the peak of the 2010’s garage rock revival and toured internationally relatively early on its career. The band was always a little different from the other garage rock bands of that period because its sound was closer to power pop and its musicianship and songwriting had some uncommon refinement. In 2019 the group released its latest record Dadcore. To be fair, the band doesn’t sound like dadcore so much as its the typically Dutch dry, self-effacing and layered commentary on the cultural phenomenon and its own hearkening back to classic songwriting and what some may see as the quaint notion of guitar rock in the twenty-first century.

Sunk Cost, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: GNO, Calambre, Sunk Cost, Kid Mask, Flesh Buzzard, Corgi Commander
When: Saturday, 02.02, 8 p.m.
Where: Thought//Forms
Why: A kind of harsh noise and harsh sounds show with some of most interesting artists operating in that mode in Colorado right now.

Who: The Pamlico Sound, Queens of the Galaxy and The Jessicas
When: Saturday, 02.02, 8 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: The Pamlico Sound is a funk band lead by Will Baumgartner who went to Woodstock as a kid and who has been involved in the 80s No Wave movement as well as some of the more unexpectedly inventive and imaginative jam and funk bands from Colorado over the past two decades. It’s a spectacle and highly entertaining as Baumgartner is an engaging and unconventionally charismatic performer.

Monday | February 4, 2019

Ron Gallo, photo by Chiara Danzieri

Who: Ron Gallo w/Post Animal and Stuyedeyed
When: Monday, 02.04, 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Ron Gallo is from Philadelphia but his solo work sounds like he spent some time in 1970s New York in the early punk scene with a wiry energy. Of course if psychedelic garage rock hadn’t happened his 2018 record Stardust Birthday Party wouldn’t have sounded like a bit like a manic Sparks. Whatever the touchstones might be, Gallo is one of the most dynamic rock musicians of the current era. Perhaps co-headlining is the psychedelic prog band Post Animal whose own spirited performances transcend any specific genre of music.

Tuesday | February 5, 2019

Post Animal, photo by Pooneh Ghana

Who: Ron Gallo w/Post Animal and Stuyedeyed
When: Tuesday, 02.05, 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: See above on 02.04 for Ron Gallo and Post Animal.

Yoke Lore, photo by Wes and Alex

Who: Yoke Lore w/LP
When: Tuesday, 02.05, 7 p.m.
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Adrian Galvin was once a member of synth-heavy indie pop band Walk the Moon before going solo a few years back. His work under the name Yoke Lore is decidedly different from Walk the Moon in having softer edges while showcasing Galvin’s inventive use of layered sound in his songwriting with bright synths accenting his vocals with an evocative flair. He is currently touring in the wake of the release of his 2018 EP Goodpain as an opener for R&B-inflected indie pop songwriter LP.

Wednesday | February 6, 2019

The Drood circa 2015, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Weird Wednesday: The Diablo Montalban Experience, The Drood and Claudzilla
When: Wednesday, 02.06, 9 p.m.
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Weird Wednesday is as suggested by the name quite a bit this time around with keytar rock sorceress Claudzilla, experimental pop/psych band The Diablo Montalban Experience and The Drood. The latter often performs in costumes that look like a cross between anti-hero crusaders for cosmic justice and occult ritualists with music that fans of Legendary Pink Dots may find very much to their liking.

Who: P.O.S. w/Calm. and DJ Fundo
When: Wednesday, 02.06, 7 p.m.
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: P.O.S. is the Minneapolis-based rapper whose talents and range as an artist go far beyond including his masterful production on his own work as well as his musicianship in other bands including Gayngs, Marijuana Deathsquads and many others. He’s in good company with his sonically adventurous beats paired with Denver’s Calm., a duo comprised of Time and Awareness whose literate and incisive raps and deeply atmospheric production is always surprisingly impactful. Their latest release, 2018’s Things I Learned While Dying in Denver is one of the most sharply critical yet hopefully albums of the past few years.

Best Shows in Denver 9/6/18 to 9/12/18

Killing Joke performs Friday, September 7, 2018, at The Oriental Theater. Photo courtesy artist

Thursday | September 6, 2018

Midge Ure, photo courtesy the artist

Who: Midge Ure and Paul Young w/Kayla Marque
When: Thursday, 09.6, 7 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Midge Ure is perhaps know to most for his bright and ethereal vocals and guitar work for new wave/synth pop pioneers Ultravox. With hits like “Vienna” and “Dancing With Tears In My Eyes,” Ultravox was one of the defining bands of the era. But Ure’s career has been broad, varied, lengthy and distinguished as a participant in a particularly creative era of music with stints in Rich Kids with former Sex Pistol Glen Matlock and with influential but not oft-cited early synth pop band Visage. Ure was a touring guitarist and keyboard player with Thin Lizzy during its Black Rose era and his solo career has been quite respectable with collaborations with, among others, Kate Bush and Mick Ronson. For this tour, Ure is playing from across his discography including classic Ultravox cuts.

Friday | September 7, 2018

with Sasha Grey, photo by Allan Amato and Lawrence McCarthy

Who: Killing Joke and <PIG>
When: Friday, 09.7, 8 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Killing Joke’s stark apocalyptic death disco was basically the template for industrial rock. Its fervid and unblinking depiction of an international industrialized economy destroying the planet and our humanity in the process had a great deal of appeal when the band started in 1978 and seems even more relevant forty years hence when the proof of the destructive nature of late capitalism on the entire planet, including human society, is manifest. Depending on the era of the band in which you checked in or will check in, its live act is a tribal experience with frontman Jaz Coleman a figure channeling the fears and anxieties of the moment and transforming them into inspiration through a shamanic performance. The last time Killing Joke came to Denver in November 2003, Coleman took stage dressed in an outfit that looked like he’d crafted it after ekeing out a living on a remote tundra hunting wild bison with wooden spears, two large pieces of leather sewn together with thick thread made from sinew. He carried a wooden staff like some Celtic mystic, face smeared with dark ash to emphasize the whites of his eyes. When the music started it was like primeval human experiences and those borne of industrial civilization came together. Most bands can’t pull that off. This tour is likely to be just as gloriously weird and inspired.

Also on the bill is <PIG>, the project fronted by Raymond Watts. The latter’s résumé reads like a who’s who of industrial music history. Sure, he’s been an essential member/collaborator of KMFDM since that band’s easliest days. For example, he also worked with Psychic TV in the 80s, he was a touring soundman for Einstürzende Neubauten in the 80s, and he’s worked with Foetus. Watrs’ own music has explored realms of industrial music that expands what it is and what it can sound like. Watts somehow makes music that contains elements of ambient, noise, industrial beats and guitar without sounding like he’s trying to fit in with a trend or “genre” industrial music of any kind. As an artist he’s consistently explored different avenues of sound including Japanese experimental rock band Schwein. In recent years, Watts composed music for the fashion world, perhaps most notably for Alexander McQueen. In 2018 <PIG> released the “That’s The Way (I Like It)” EP which is a small collection of remixes and the cover of the K.C. And the Sunshine Band classic in collaboration with Sasha Grey who has been making a bit of a name for herself as a maker of music and an actress beyond the adult film world. Because of the latter, the song’s video debuted on Pornhub, a first for Watts.

The Juan Maclean, photo by Tonje Thielsen

Who: Option4 and Friends w/The Juan Maclean
When: Friday, 09.7, 9 p.m.
Where: Bar Standard
Why: Brennen Bryarly became one of the biggest independent promoters of electronic dance music in the country in the past decade. But when he’s had time to indulge making music of his own under the Option4 moniker it’s always been worth a listen. This night he shares the stage with associates as well as The Juan Maclean, the influential neo acid house/nü disco project started by John Maclean, the former guitarist for noise rock legends Six Finger Satellite. These days Maclean does his sets with collaborators Nancy Whang of LCD Soundsystem fame and Nicholas Millhiser of synth pop band Holy Ghost!

Who: Dead Kennedys w/T.S.O.L., The Dwarves, Runaway Kids and Reno Divorce
When: Friday, 09.7, 7 p.m.
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Don’t go expecting Jello Biafra fronting Dead Kennedys. Ron “Skip” Greer, formerly of East Bay punk and Wynona Riders, has been in the frontman role since 2008. Do go expecting to hear plenty Dead Kennedys classics performed by the classic lineup minus Biafra. Also on the bill are other punk greats like T.S.O.L., the band that refused to just stick with punk musical and sartorial orthodoxy when it dropped the usual hardcore imagery and sound and adopted glam and drag and moody post-punk. And whatever T.S.O.L. wanted, which is pretty punk.

The Dwarves spent a lot of years on the intentionally offensive tip in the vein of G.G. Allin minus the more unsanitary performance stunts. In 1993 the band announced that its guitarist HeWhoCannotBeNamed had been stabbed to death with a hoax that went so far as to list the HWCBN as The Dwarves’ “late” guitarist on the 1993 release of Sugarfix. That stunt lost the band its label signing with Sub Pop. Four years later the group reconvened and proved it was always more than a campaign to alienate everyone with pushing the extreme stunts envelope and has produced a solid body of garage punk including its 2018 album Take Back The Night on Burger Records. Not for everyone but if you have a wicked and irreverent sense of humor you have to appreciate a band willing to call its 1999 compilation Free Cocaine.

Who: Venus Cruz & Friends
When: Friday, 09.7, 9:30 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Venus Cruz is a multifaceted talent and multi-instrumentalist who on her own or in collaboration with other musicians or in an ensemble finds the sweet spot at the intersection of soulfulness, innovation and accessibility. As the host of Jazz Odyssey on KVUO on Wednesday nights 10 p.m. to 12 a.m., Cruz champions the most forward thinking artists under a broad umbrella of what jazz can be conceived of being.

Saturday | September 8, 2018

The Verve Pipe, photo by Derek Ketchum

Who: The Verve Pipe w/The Hollow and Citra
When: Saturday, 09.8, 6 p.m.
Where: Levitt Pavilion
Why: The Verve Pipe is most well-known for a handful of singles in the mid-90s with “Photograph” and “The Freshmen” and in 2001 with “Colorful,” which introduced them to an even wider audience on the soundtrack of Rock Star. Even though the band’s songs were uncommonly thoughtful and discussed topics like addiction, suicide, sexual abuse and issues of social justice in a sensitive way one might not expect from a rock band then with radio hits. But when The Verve Pipe didn’t score a big hit its excellent self-titled 1999 album and when its 2001 album Underneath, despite its having a hit song, didn’t move millions of units either the major label world lost interest. Fortunately, fan interest remained and when the possibility of crowdsourcing became an option for a band that had ably managed its own business affairs and marketing before ever signing to a big label, The Verve Pipe returned to having a viable music career again by simply picking up where it left off when the label was taking care of everything. The result has been a fruitful second, or even third, chapter for the band including its 2017 album Parachute, which is a fine example of how a band can reconcile the idealism of its early career with evolution into adulthood without getting boring.

Who: Wovenhand w/Echo Beds
When: Saturday, 09.8, 8 p.m.
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Wovenhand was a reincarnation of David Eugene Edwards as a songwriter from 16 Horsepower into originally more familiar, Gothic folk territory but in increasingly divergent directions including the adoption of Middle Eastern musical ideas with 2008’s Ten Stones and more immersion in Eastern European and Balkan musical forms. With 2012’s The Laughing Stalk, though, Wovenhand sound was harder, darker and more in the realm of fiery post-punk. Was it his new bandmates including former Planes Mistaken For Stars and current Git Some guitarist/vocalist Charles French bringing in that sensibility or a natural evolution of Edwards’s songwriting? Likely a combination as Edwards even covered the likes of Joy Division and The Gun Club while in 16 Horsepower. Whatever the catalyst for the change in sound, Wovenhand remains a haunting and powerful live band.

Denver’s Echo Beds came together out of the local punk and experimental music scene with principals Keith Curts and Tom Nelsen having put in their time make more conventional music and crafting music on the outer edge of accessibility. As Echo Beds the duo has worked with other collaborators over the years but the core of the band has been one to explore the possibilities of unconventional percussion (organic and electronic), harrowing textural noises as compositional elements and a charged emotional delivery it metes out in small, incredibly intense doses. This past summer the group released the nightmarishly beautiful full-length Buried Language through The Flenser.

Who: 1476 w/Alterity, Oblivion Her Majesty, Feigning, No Roses
When: Saturday, 09.8, 7 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: 1476 from Salem, Massachusetts is fairly impossible to pin down to any narrow genre as its body of work encompasses neo-folk, post-punk and black metal without its music sounding like a song-to-song exercise in either. Fans of Neurosis, Coliseum and Wipers will find something to like about 1476, especially its 2017 album Our Season Draws Near.

Monday | September 10, 2018

Mac Demarco, photo by Coley Brown

Who: Mac DeMarco w/Noname, Free Nationals, DJ Jonathan Toubin
When: Monday, 09.10, 6 p.m.
Where: Red Rocks Amphitheatre
Why: Mac DeMarco is a modern guitar hero to some, a retro indie punchline to others. What’s missed in the overblown fandom and uninspired dismissal of an artist one hasn’t taken the time to delve into is the fact that DeMarco has evolved significantly since his time in Makeout Videotape a decade ago. His songwriting has also been more than any easy genre designation, more sonically and emotionally rich than any movement with which he might be lumped. The songwriter has described his own music as “jizz jazz,” whatever that’s really supposed to men, but jazz is the underlying aesthetic and structure to his songwriting.

Demarco’s new album This Old Dog sounds like he spent some years brushing up on his Steely Dan-isms without ripping off the band. There is an introspective lushness to several of the songs not to mention the chutzpah of a twenty-six-year old (at the time of the songwriting anyway) writing a record filled with songs written from the perspective of looking back on what feels like a long life. And to be fair, with as much touring, songwriting, life experience and hustling that DeMarco had to have packed into his life thus far it probably does feel warranted to take stock through one’s art. This Old Dog bears that out and it’s often languid pace feels like he’s felt that in a way that only someone who is a bit world weary would know. Not that DeMarco’s been beaten up by the hammer blows that life deals you as you get toward double his age now but he’s managed to articulate the feelings of wondering what this is all signifies, the self-doubt, the realization of mortality and trying to cope with the loss of key people in your life as well as someone with a decade or more hence on him. Will this translate to a large format performance? One can hope and that Red Rocks is a place where people can take in some of this material with the thoughtfulness that went into its making.

Tuesday | September 11, 2018

Juliet Mission circa 2009, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Dark Tuesdays: Juliet Mission with DJs St. Evil and Fernando
When: Tuesday, 09.11, 9 p.m.
Where: Blue Ice
Why: Juliet Mission was born out of the early days of Denver post-punk/alternative rock band Sympathy F when Andre Lucero, Anthony Morales and Doug Seaman were weaving threads of inspiration from the pall of gloom over Denver’s sprawl of urban decay and post oil industry bust decades into darkly beautiful melodies. In the 2000s the band finally released a collection of songs but has more or less remained dormant, playing occasional shows, for the past decade. Now on the cusp of releasing its latest albums, Juliet Mission has been playing live including this rare appearance at Blue Ice for the Dark Tuesdays event that brings together some of Denver’s better darkwave, industrial, Goth and post-punk DJs.

Who: Acid King w/Love Gang and Keef Duster
When: Tuesday, 09.11, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Acid King emerged from San Francisco in the early 90s when its amalgam of heavy metal and psychedelic rock wasn’t exactly in vogue. That just meant the band could develop its sound and aesthetic without that being co-opted by any mainstream movement or corporate record labels looking to cash in on a then potentially commercial trend. The group, still fronted by guitarist Lori S., took its moniker from the nickname of a serial killer and its songs are not short on themes of the occult, and evil after the manner of a horror writer, of course, resulting in a body of work that would be a great companion to the comic art of Richard Corben and Erol Otus or a movie based on the story by Laird Barron. Long before “stoner rock” became a thing, Acid King was in there doing their own pioneering work in that realm alongside the likes of Sleep, Kyuss and St. Vitus. Yeah, all the creative descendents of Black Sabbath but also some of the best.

Wednesday | September 12, 2018

Who: Mike Krol (Merge) w/Shiii Whaaa and Super Bummer
When: Wednesday, 09.12, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Mike Krol’s new seven inch “An Ambulance” / “Never Know” out on Merge Records is an immediate no-brainer-love-it for fans of late 2000s lo-fi noise punk/pop stars like Times New Viking, The Reatards, No Age, Psychedelic Horseshit, Eat Skull and Pink Reason. The shitgazers, the bands that celebrated exuberance and coloring outside established lines even for punk and more consciously experimental rock with garbage distortion and pegging the needles on the recording console, the bands that found homes on forward thinking labels like, yes, Merge, and Siltbreeze. Mike Krol is from that lineage of sonics but charting his own flavor. More contemporaneously, if you’re a fan of Clarke & The Himselfs don’t sleep on Mike Krol.

Who: Warm Thoughts, Obtuse, Candy Apple, Old Haunts, Incontinuity
When: Wednesday, 09.12, 7 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: Warm Thoughts from Los Angeles used to be called Dad Punchers and who doesn’t love a name like that? But Warm Thoughts is probably a better long term name for a band you want to take places where “Dad Punchers” might not read too well. Or, you know, you find yourself being a dad and you’re in the band. At any rate, the emo-inflected pop punk band recently released its latest album I Went Swimming Alone and is making a stop in Denver playing with like-minded bands including Obtuse whose anthemic lo-fi pop punk might be described as defiantly self-loathing underlined with a spirit of accepting that for many of us life isn’t exactly overflowing with glamour and validation.

Best Shows in Denver 3/15/18 – 3/21/18

Mint Field performs at Lost Lake on March 21. Photo by Maria Fernanda Molins

 

Who: Protomartyr w/Ned Garthe Explosion
When: Thursday, 03.15, 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Protomartyr apparently didn’t get the memo on what post-punk bands in the current era are supposed to sound like. The vocal delivery hits at weird angles to the fluid rhythms and jagged yet expressive and atmospheric guitar work like Nick Cave singing for a hybrid of The Fall and Sleaford Mods. Its latest record is 2017’s Relatives in Descent. It’s a bit moodier than the group’s earlier albums yet has a headlong quality as though the band is embracing the chaos and disorientation of the world now to see where the broken machine ultimately lands. Ned Garthe Explosion is more of a psychedelic rock band but one of the most gloriously ragged around the edges and one for which you never quite know where the show will go in a way we need to see more often.

Who: Alonerly, R A R E B Y R D $, Claudzilla
When: Thursday, 03.15, 10 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: Alonerly is the solo project of Antonia Montoya from Albuquerque. Using upright bass, soulful vocals and beats, Montoya creates the kind of spacious yet intimate music that probably gets lumped, and not unjustifiably so, with jazz and hip-hop but is in the end its own thing, a rarity in a time when many musical artists are trying to tap a little too much into an established musical genre. She won’t be alone in bringing something not quite like anything else with keytar weirdo Claudzilla and hypnotic and highly evocative hip-hop/noise crew R A R E B Y R D $.

Friday | March 16, 2018

Bad Licks, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Bad Licks 7 inch release w/Vic ‘n’ the Narwhals, The Corner Girls and Soulfax DJs
When: Friday, 03.16, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Bad Licks includes former members of The Blue Rider so there’s plenty of the subtle weirdness to the undertones of its psychedelic garage rock. The group is celebrating the release of its latest seven inch of its excellent Lies EP. Because people in the band are very much into genuinely experimental music, the record is worth listening to beyond obvious genre trappings. Joined this night by pastel/surf punks The Corner Girls and surf/blues punk band Vic ‘n’ the Narwhals. All around a post-garage rock genre-bending extravaganza because all of these bands put on an energetic performance.

Who: Clan of Xymox w/Voicecoil and Radio Scarlet w/DJ Svipal
When: Friday, 03.16, 7 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Clan of Xymox formed in Amsterdam near the height of the first wave of post-punk in 1981. The band’s sound including more extensive use of synths was more in line with groups like Comsat Angels, The Sound, Killing Joke and The Chameleons. Clan of Xymox’s first three albums are considered foundational for what has come to be known as “darkwave” – the blending of early synth pop aesthetics with post-punk. Xymox and contemporaries like Anne Clark, Fad Gadget and Depeche Mode made what might have been considered weird and avant-garde accessible to a broad audience. By the early 90s, however, the band splintered and Ronnie Moorings continued in a direction inspired by the acid house music popular in dance clubs in the late 80s and early 90s. But apparently the project’s fanbase wasn’t into that sound and it didn’t translate well to the rave crowd. And yet Xymox hadn’t completely lost its darkwave cachet and throughout the 90s Moorings experimented with a return to that sort of sound while absorbing the industrial music of bands he had in part influenced. Over the past decade darkwave, industrial and gothic rock has been enjoying the most extensive genuine revival since the first time around and Xymox has enjoyed a little of its own renaissance being invited to festivals catering to the aforementioned genres and with its last eight albums, including 2017’s Days of Black, released or re-issued on Metropolis. Why did the music matter? As someone once said about Joy Division, despite and because of its sometimes gloomy, brooding, emotionally urgent and intense sounds, Xymox and its contemporaries had to come along to articulate complex and sometimes conflicting emotions with a clarity, power and poignancy that wasn’t happening with a lot of rock and roll.

Monday | March 19, 2018

Yardsss, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Screwtape, Wander, Young Lovers, Ridgeway, Yardsss, Brother Saturn
When: Monday, 03.19, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: One of the great things about shows at Seventh Circle is that even if it’s all supposed to be all one thing it never really is. Tonight proves that as local hardcore heroes Screwtape are performing alongside mostly post-rock/shoegaze bands. Brother Saturn’s collage of guitar sounds tracing the outsides of daydreams made up of soothingly hypnotic layers of atmosphere is a good fit with California based post-rock bands Wander, Young Lovers and Ridgeway to send them back home from SXSW in a welcoming show halfway through that journey. Yardsss from Portland, Oregon has a diverse sonic palette but broadly speaking, the band’s core sounds are rooted in droning atmospheres, noise and improvisational electronic composition. Fans of more experimental industrial music will find much to like in Yardsss’ darkly evocative aesthetic.

Who: Mimicking Birds, The Raven and the Writing Desk and Haley Heynderickx
When: Monday, 03.19, 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Indie rock band Mimicking Birds are making a stop in Denver on their way to Treefort Music Fest (we’ll be featuring some advance coverage in the next few days as well as post-fest coverage in the following weeks). The group recently released its new album, the gorgeously lush and pastoral Layers of Us. If you’re not making it out to Treefort for the 7:40 p.m. set at El Korah Shrine, catch the Portland, Oregon-based band tonight with the like-minded The Raven and the Writing Desk. The latter is one of Denver’s best kept secrets in music as a band that has really pushed itself to explore new vistas in its own sound and breaking with its own musical past in order to make something interesting and fresh. A rarity.

Tuesday | March 20, 2018

GGOOLLDD, photo by Kelly Bolter

Who: OMD w/GGOOLLDD
When: Tuesday, 03.20, 7 p.m.
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, often referred to as OMD, were, like fellow UK artists Gary Numan and Human League as well as Berlin in the USA, instrumental in establishing what became synth pop. After seeing an mid-70s Kraftwerk concert, bassist and vocalist Andy McCluskey started OMD with some friends and from early on the band separated itself from many other bands of the era in having no guitars and but a visceral live show. OMD enjoyed its share of commercial popularity in the UK and the US at various points in its career but artistically it’s arguably greatest achievement was the 1983 album Dazzle Ships. But the mainstream audience didn’t seem to be much into the truly boundary pushing pop compositions. Today the album is considered by many fans to be its best alongside its 1981 predecessor, Architecture & Morality. Now recognized as innovators as well talented masters of pop songcraft, OMD will be headlining a show at The Ogden Theatre with the Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based GGOOLLDD. The latter, fronted by the dynamic and talented Margaret Butler, recently released the TEETH EP in December 2017. Part synth pop, part theatrical glam band, GGOOLLDD has always put on a large theater show in small, even intimate venues, so catch a great, newer band opening for a group in a similar lineage of imaginative yet sincere music.

What: Faster Than Light Fest: Obtuse (1st), Blue Lane Frontier, Old Sport, Granddad (AK/MN), Closer is a Band (Brooklyn), Alien Boy (Portland), Runaway Brother (Cleveland)
When: Tuesday, 03.20, 5 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: This is a festival put together for bands on their way from SXSW or going through and happening to converge in Denver for one date. It’s also a good cross section of the modern punk/emo/math rock underground in America and naturally it’s at Seventh Circle where a lot of touring if that stripe often plays in Denver these days. Locals Obtuse, Old Sport and Blue Lane Frontier represent a rebirth for the kind of punk that both embraces pop punk, screamo, indie rock and math rock but also advances where that music could have gone had it converged and evolved. Portland’s Alien Boy gets points for naming itself after a Wipers song but also for embodying the kind of moody punk with thoughtful, sometimes wryly humorous, lyrics and the kind of darkness and intensity, not to say anger, that a lot of punk frankly lacks.

Wednesday | March 21, 2018

Kelly Lee Owens, photo by Kim Hiorthøy

Who: Kelly Lee Owens
When: Wednesday, 03.21, 9 p.m.
Where: Bar Standard
Why: With her 2017 self-titled full-length, Kelly Lee Owens displayed a keen ear for electronic composition and a knack for translating that into accessible dance tracks. Her mastery of mixing hypnotic and deep low end with melodic drones interweaving with her ethereal vocals across the record was stunning. Fans of IDM, dub techno and deep house, do yourself a favor and at a minimum pick up the album. Also, fans of dream pop/shoegaze acts unafraid of jumping straight into abstract atmospheres such as Slowdive, Seefeel and Sound of Ceres will find much to like with Owens’ output as well. Owens performs tonight at Bar Standard before setting off for Treefort Music Fest in Boise, Idaho where she performs Thursday night 3.22 at 12:30 a.m. at Neurolux

Who: Mint Field w/Neighbor Lady and American Grandma
When: Wednesday, 03.21, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Mint Field’s 2018 debut album Pasar De Las Luces is being touted as a great modern shoegaze album. And it is, but it is one that isn’t particularly beholden to an older sound. The minimalist aesthetic of the music bears a stronger resemblance to ambient and downtempo dance music than to rock. At its most “rock” the band comes off as more post-punk and Krautrock like Neu! or Faust than worshippers of Lush or My Bloody Valentine. Although the band is from Tijuana its gauzy layers and swirling melodies are a far cry from that city’s reputation as one of the party capitals of the world. Mint Field also performs at Treefort Music Fest in Boise, Idaho on Saturday, March 24 at 6:30 p.m. at Boise All Ages Movement.

Who: U.S. Girls w/Rubedo and Michael Rault
When: Wednesday, 03.21, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Meghan Remy’s U.S. Girls has thankfully been pretty much impossible to chalk up to a single genre of music since the project’s inception. It’s always pop songs whether those have a leg in noise, punk, garage rock or whatever. Her latest album, 2018’s In a Poem Unlimited, sounds, interestingly enough, like a reinvention of 90s hip-hop as a funk and soul record. It has that lush production with grit and a melancholic undertone. “Pearly Gates” in particular is reminiscent of Warren G’s 1994 hit “Regulate.” Which, considering the themes of the album, is an interesting allusion. But whatever ideas and sounds informed the record, it is a literate and insightful exploration the various manifestations of toxic masculinity, its effects throughout culture and society and what life might be like without it’s wearying, destructive influence.

Who: Ed Schrader’s Music Beat w/Naked Giants and Hairclub
When: Wednesday, 03.21, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: If you listened to Ed Schrader’s Music Beat’s albums and other recorded releases prior to 2018 and didn’t see live, the appeal can be a bit of a head scratcher. A floor tom, scream-ish vocals and bass? Live it all made sense and the records relatable. But the band put out its most accessible album to date with Riddles. Having worked with Dan Deacon didn’t hurt and as the band’s producer, Deacon helped to shape a sound that took the duo’s avant-garde urban tribal contradictions and into the level of recorded coherence the project has always warranted. Ed Schrader’s Music Beat also performs at Treefort Music Fest in Boise, Idaho at 10:30 p.m. at Boise All-ages Movement Project.

Best Shows in Denver 10/12/17 – 10/18/17

Palehorse/Palerider, photo by Tom Murphy

With disaster and political malfeasance plagueing the world, not helped by an American president filled with the insufferable hubris to troll not just a dictator with nuclear capabilities and a proven delivery system as well as an American territory hit hard by a hurricane it’s difficult to think how anything less serious matters much. But getting no enjoyment out of life won’t make things better for anyone so what follows are a list of some of the best shows happening in Denver this coming week.

Who: Atriarch, Fotocrime, Echo Beds and Palehorse/Palerider
When: Thursday, 10.12, 9 p.m.
Where: Meadowlark Lounge
Why: Portland’s Atriarch creates the kind of ominous, bluntly forceful yet elegant music that shows you where noise, deathrock and black metal intersect to create the soundtrack to an epic post-apocalyptic horror film soundtrack. It’s new record, Dead As Truth, should appeal to fans of Neurosis, Swans and Wolves in the Throne Room. Fotocrime includes members of Coliseum and Young Widows. Not too surprising considering Coliseum’s latest, and best, material is a reinvention of dark post-punk. Fotocrime is even more in that vein but with the forcefulness of a post-hardcore band. And that would be reason enough for going to this show but you’ll also get to see Denver’s great industrial/noise band Echo Beds and Palehorse/Palerider who are on that post-punk vibe but more in the vein of colossal, atmospheric doom metal. That is if Kevin Shields got into that game. It’s 2017 album, Burial Songs, is a sprawling science fiction and fantasy epic in its own right.

Who: We Should Have Been DJs (WI), Once A Month (WI), Guts and Obtuse 
When: Thursday, 10.12, 9 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Cafe
Why: Madison, Wisconsin’s We Should Have Been DJs are that kind of noisy, sloppy and relentless weirdo punk brings their show to Mutiny with fellow Wisconsinites Once a Month, a lo-fi, fuzzy punk trio that is so bratty and irreverent it’s worth listening to for that alone. “Ghosting” and “Boys Oughta” from their new split with We Should Have Been DJs are brilliantly pointed pieces of commentary. Denver emo punks Guts and Obtuse put out two of the best EPs/splits of the year out of that world that has been re-emerging over the past half decade or so. Flavorwise, Guts is more DC-esque emo and Obtuse more midwest/Chicago/Champagne-Urbana style.

Who: Candace w/Eyebeams and Boat Drinks
When: Thursday, 10.12, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Candace is “country shoegaze”? Maybe the shimmer from certain kinds of country and the solid songwriting. But the Portland band’s music could have come out 26 years ago of at the height of slowcore in the 90s or today with a fresh take on all of that. Opening are Denver dream pop band Eyebeams and Boat Drinks, a band whose melancholic pop songs suggest maybe the songwriters listened to a lot of Chisel (though probably Ted Leo & The Pharmacists) and Wilco but that is no knock on the excellent songwriting.

Who: The Colorado For Puerto Rico & Mexico Benefit Concert at McNichols Building 4-11 p.m.: Barrio E (Puerto Rican Bomba), Colombian dance troupe by Julio A. Martinez Latin Explosive Movement (LEM), Los Hijos de Tuta (Latin Rock), Son Moreno by Juan Moreno (Cuban Son, Cumbias), Roka Hueka (Latin ska), Mono Verdecollective Monoverdecollective (Latin Reggae) and Orquesta La Brava (Salsa) 
When: Thursday, 10.12, 4-11 p.m.
Where: McNichols Building
Why: Since the Trump administration seems to be dropping the ball on aiding Puerto Rico and Mexico at a time of natural disasters devastating a U.S. territory and one of our neighboring countries, it seems as though gestures like this will be necessary to help provide any meaningful relief. By the time this posts the show will have got off the ground but you can probably still catch some of the best Latin artists playing live music in Denver right now and help out with a great cause.

Who: Battalion of Saints, The Nobodys and The Cryptics 
When: Thursday, 10.12, 7 p.m.
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Battalion of Saints was part of the first wave of hardcore when it launched in San Diego in 1980. Sure it had the edgy furiousness of other hardcore bands and thus part of the appeal. But Battalion of Saints always had a melodic quality to even its heavier songs that has aged better than some of the music of its contemporaries. Colorado Springs-based melodic hardcore veterans The Nobodys opens the show alongside Dover, New Hampshire’s The Cryptics.

Who: Jonwayne w/Danny Watts and Grigsby
When: Saturday, 10.14, 8 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Jonwayne was one of the youngest performers at Low End Theory when he started performing at the legendary hip-hop showcase in 2010. He started attending the night when he was still a teenager in 2009 and he became friendly with Diaba$e and later Peanut Butter Wolf who has since signed the rapper and beatmaker to his Stones Throw label. Jonwayne garnered early attention for his mixtapes including 2011’s I Don’t Care and Cassette and Cassette 2 from 2012 and 2013 respectively. His lyrical deftness was reminiscent of Aesop Rock but his beatmaking has always been creative in his use of musical samples in synch with unusual field recordings to craft truly unique rhythms. 2017’s Rap Album Two further confirms Jonwayne’s gift for storytelling and imaginative soundscapes. Jonwayne discovered Danny Watts when the latter contacted him through Soundcloud. Watts, originally from Houston, had been working at a Costco optical department with no realistic prospect of taking his music to the professional level but there was a creative connection between the two artists and Jonwayne was very involved in making the music for Danny Watts’ 2017 release Black Boy Meets World, a powerfully vulnerable and honest set of songs that spell out some of the downbeats of modern life with a rare sensitivity.

Who: D.I., Redbush, The Hacks and Amuse
When: Saturday, 10.14, 8 p.m.
Where: Streets of London
Why: D.I. is indeed the hardcore band that was in Penelope Spheeris’ Suburbia. Or at least vocalist Casey Royer is still in the band. The group had a memorable scene in the film where they perform “Richard Hung Himself,” which was originally written when Royer was in The Adolescents. But D.I. Had plenty of other material and its sing-along, poppy punk sure seemed to have an influence a generation or more of punk bands to follow. Denver’s The Hacks are cut from a similar cloth including an irreverently self-deprecating sense of humor as evidenced by the title of its 2017 album: Three Chord Cliché.

Who: Black Out—Solar Powered Show w/Ned Garthe Explosion, The Amphibious Man and Colfax Speed Queen
When: Saturday, 10.14, 7 p.m.
Where: 7th Circle Music Collective
Why: This show is going to be drawing on solar power, presumably stored in the kind of battery that can provide ample power for three rock bands to play at least partial sets. For this show Ned Garthe Explosion and Colfax Speed Queen will demonstrate how bands that in some ways came out of the garage rock and psychedelic resurgence of the past 8 years or so can take the threads of the music that informed a lot of other bands and do something genuinely interesting with it. Ned Garthe and Stuart Confer playing off each other and the crowd provide some hilarious stage banter.

Who: The Bronx w/Plague Vendor and ’68
When: Saturday, 10.14, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: The Bronx is often referred to as hardcore but its sound is like someone found a way to inject Aerosmith by way of L.A. glam metal into a punk band. Somehow it works. But if you’re not at all into Turbonegro or the the glammy end of The Refused, you probably won’t like The Bronx. Plague Vendor is in a similar vein and apparently calls its sound “voodoo punk.” Which is fitting since there seems to be some trippy-ish surf rock in its aesthetic that makes you think these guys listen to a lot of The Cramps and, in its noisier more hectic moments, At The Drive-In.

Who: The Bronx w/Plague Vendor and ’68
When: Sunday, 10.15, 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: See above.

Who: Listener w/Levi the Poet and Comrades
When: Sunday, 10.15, 7 p.m.
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: When Listener first started touring through Denver over a decade ago, it was the spoken word/hip-hop project of Dan Smith. His rapping and beats was in a similar vein to that of artists on the Rhymesayers and Anticon labels meaning sharply observed lyrics and a mastery of delivery. These days, Listener hasn’t ditched his poetic sensibilities but the music is provided by a live band whose introspective music has more in common with post-rock and Daniel Lanois than Smith’s organic and electric beatmaking of old and in many ways the better for it. 2017’s Being Empty: Being Filled finds Smith in an especially emotionally vibrant and impassioned mode.

Who: Imelda Marcos (Chicago) w/Body Meat and Club Soda 
When: Sunday, 10.15, 9 p.m.
Where: 3 Kings Tavern
Why: Imelda Marcos is a math rock/avant-garde noise rock band from Chicago whose 2017 album Dalawa might be compared to the likes of This Heat, Laddio Bolocko or Don Caballero. At least in its use of space in the songs and willingness to employ unorthodox rhythms and methods of playing guitar strings. Denver’s Body Meat might be similarly described except there seems to be more of a jazz component to Body Meat otherwise maybe its disorienting and angular flow of rhythms would be difficult to pull off.

Who: Boris w/SubRosa at Endon
When: Tuesday, 10.17, 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Boris is the long-running metal/avant-guitar rock band from Japan. Its music helped to define stoner and doom rock for the past 25 years. While influenced heavily by Melvins (the band took its name from a Melvins song), Boris seems to just explore whatever realm of sound and rock and roll suggests itself to the band. Whether it’s broad vistas of sound with 2000’s Flood, crushing fuzz sculpting with 1998’s appropriately titled Amplifier Worship, the heaviest of heavy shoegaze and psychedelia with 2005’s classic album Pink or 2017’s eclectic Dear, Boris always seems to be reaching in different directions for inspiration. Live, Boris will remind you why so many other guitar bands are playing it safe in terms of both the sounds employed and the level of energy put into the show. Opening is SubRosa, the mystical/atmospheric doom band from Salt Lake City. Since its inception, SubRosa’s imagery and music has seemingly drawn upon primal, earth energies to put into its whole aesthetic. 2016’s For This We Fought the Battle of Ages is classic SubRosa in its weaving together organic, almost folk elements with epic, heavy, densely atmospheric guitar work and pummeling tribal rhythms that carry your imagination into the mythological realms that are at the heart of the music.

Who: Chromadrift and Victoria Lundy
When: Tuesday, 10.17, 7 p.m.
Where: Hooked On Colfax
Why: This latest installment of the Speakeasy Series hosted by Glasss Records in the basement of Hooked on Colfax features two of Denver’s most accomplished ambient/experimental electronic artists. With Chromadrift, Drew Miller has found a way to tap into the same well of transcendent and transporting sound and rhythm that seems to inform the work of Boards of Canada. Except that Miller’s song titles seem more grounded in immediately relatable themes rather than the suggestive mysteriousness of BOC. And this cozy setting would be the perfect place to experience his music live. Victoria Lundy has been a veteran of various facets of the Denver expermental music scene since at least the 90s. She uses the theramin the way other musicians play their classical instruments and she has in fact adapted classical pieces for her performance. Ultimately, though, Lundy is a nerd and that finds its way into her elegant way of expressing those impulses such as her 2015 electro/ambient album Miss American Vampire. Every Victoria Lundy show is different so expect something well-composed but leaving room for intuition to guide the sound where it may go this evening.

Who: Dälek w/Street Sects, Echo Beds and It’s Just Bugs 
When: Tuesday, 10.17, 8 p.m.
Where: The Marquis
Why: Dälek formed in the late 90s and from the beginning its use of sound and samples was markedly different from most other hip-hop acts. In retrospect the group’s most obvious peers in beatmaking and soundsculpting (i.e. Sole, cLOUDDEAD, Cannibal Ox, Aesop Rock, El-P) started getting off the ground to a national audience around the same time. But it was Dälek that seemed to be embraced by more open-minded fans of heavy music who could appreciate what one might call the My Bloody Valentine meets Godflesh sound of the group. In 2011 the project went on hiatus for a few years before reuniting to write and record 2016’s Asphalt for Eden on Profound Lore, a label that generally releases metal in a more experimental vein. In 2017 Dälek released Endangered Philosophies on Ipecac, an imprint also well known for its catalog of arty, innovative heavy music. Austin’s Street Sects is one of the opening acts and its gritty, dark and aggressive industrial punk has garnered it an international audience. The 2016 album End Position blurred all lines between hardcore, industrial and breakcore. 2017’s Rat Jacket takes the band into even darker thematic territory. Apparently hard political and economic times is a good time for music that gives no fucks about peeling back the scab of society’s sins. Speaking of which, two Denver bands are also on the bill. Echo Beds has been developing its own synthesis of punk, industrial and noise since 2010 and these days have honed strong ideas into sharp songs that articulate and embody the desperation of the current era. With its visceral live show, Echo Beds is pretty unforgettable. It’s Just Bugs is an industrial rap band whose forays into noise are a refreshingly developed use of sounds as samples.

Who: Pixies w/Mitski 
When: Wednesday, 10.18, 7 p.m.
Where: The Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Pixies probably got its greatest boost into mainstream popularity oddly with the release of the 1999 film Fight Club. Because if you went to see the band during its 2003-2004 reunion tour cycle a lot of the crowd seemed largely lukewarm to and confused by the band’s other classic material but when “Where is My Mind?” came on the crowd went wild. Some of us got to be confused by Pixies during its earlier era when the 1988 album Doolittle was offered in the metal section of tape/CD clubs and when it turned out that it wasn’t metal didn’t know what to think of it. But once everything clicked the genius of the band’s unusual and imaginative lyrics and its willingness to go off the standard time signatures and roll with the moment became something to be cherished rather than dismissed. This version of the band is without founding bassist Kim Deal but Joe Santiago’s truly eccentric and brilliant guitar work will be there along with Black Francis’ alien yet melodious and intense vocals and David Lovering’s expressive and propulsive drumming. Also, if you’re going to get a bass player Paz Lenchantin is no slouch and her talent has elevated other artists like Jarboe, A Perfect Circle, Jenny Lewis, Queens of the Stone Age and Silver Jews. Opening the show is Mitski whose emotionally charged rock songs are cathartically confessional and some of the most strikingly honest music of the past few years.

Who: Girlpool w/Palm and Sweater Belly 
When: Wednesday, 10.18, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Seems like any guitar band that has a tinge of distortion and any whiff of DIY credibility is called “punk” like a sound rather than an attitude. Or, worse, when said music isn’t particularly aggressive and the band is all or mostly women, “pastel punk.” Girlpool probably gets painted in that light often and if the band chooses to embrace that sort of thing, it’s certainly entitled to because who gets to tell a band whether or not it’s really punk. But fans of dream or indie pop will find much to like in Girlpool’s expansive melodies and fluid song dynamics, particularly on its excellent 2017 album Powerplant. Philadelphia’s Palm toured with LVL UP earlier in 2017 and its precise, spidery guitar interplay was reminiscent of a band like Young Marble Giants had the members gone on to be members of 90s math rock bands and then ditched the sound but not the musical skill and ended up like some weirdo neo-No Wave jazz band. Its 2017 album (EP?) Shadow Expert is a nice reminder that a band can be completely weird and completely accessible at the same time.