Voight – Queen City Sounds and Art

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond June 2023

Yeah Yeah Yeahs perform at Red Rocks on 6/5/23, photo by Jason Al Taan

Thursday | 06.01
What: Kiltro w/Nina De Freitas
When: 7
Where: Mercury Café
Why: Kiltro started as the solo acoustic project of Chris Bowers Castillo who as a Chilean-American, had moved to the port city of Valparaíso where he worked as a walking tour guide. And that job not only afforded him the time to learn the city and take in its richly diverse cultural influences but also the opportunity to write a body of work as a songwriter. After returning to Denver Kiltro formally came to life in 2017 and Bowers Castillo developed his acoustic songs with loops, pedals and percussion elements. But in 2018 the project expanded into a trio with Will Parkhill on bass and drummer Michael Devincenzi and later with Fez Garcia on board as a percussionist for live shows.

Kiltro’s 2019 debut album Creatures of Habit had been recorded after the material had been performed live and getting feedback from audiences and friends before being committed to an easily transmitted and shareable form. But the group’s new album, 2023’s Underbelly, is the product of crafting music in quarantine and working in the studio, following whatever creative paths sparked the most inspiration in the moment resulting in a more experimental set of songs which incorporates aspects of shoegaze, ambient, South American folk, psychedelia and a literary yet spontaneous form of storytelling that feels like a deeply personal experience in the listening. The record is a hypnotic and transcendent work of surprising immediacy that one might compare with the likes of Devendra Banhart, Hermanos Guitérrez and more locally to the work of artists like Midwife American Grandma. It fuses the aesthetics of electronic music with the intimacy of mythical folk music around the campfire for a truly unique record refreshing in its originality.

Kiltro is following up the release with a tour throughout the USA in June and July with other live dates in support of the album in August and September with an appearance at VORTEX festival at The JunkYard at Meow Wolf on August 25. Listen to our interview with Bowers Castillo on Bandcamp linked below.

Thursday | 06.01
What: Reptoid w/Quits and Endless, Nameless
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Reptoid is a one man, industrial noise rock freakout from Oakland. His most recent album WORSHIP FALSE GODS (2020) is a borderline, or not so borderline, nihilistic set of songs like a series of trainwrecks about how we’re all pretty much screwed in face of likely developments in the history of our species and its impact on the environment. If you’ve been into Buck Gooter or Author and Punisher this is your thing. Quits is a crushing noise rock juggernaut of a four piece from Denver whose incisive songs and eruptive energy can be startlingly scathing and heavy at once. Endless, Nameless erases the line between progressive metal, post-rock, post-hardcore, black metal and shoegaze with a forceful elegance. Its 2023 album Living Without should end up on the more discerning year end best lists.

Thursday | 06.01
What: Sorted: Surgeon & John Templeton
When: 9
Where: Black Box
Why: Surgeon is a DJ and electronic music composer from England whose labels Counterbalance and Dynamic Tension has been issuing some fine techno records for over 20 years. John Templeton is based in Denver whose own techno music has made a bit of a splash in the Mile High City and his Great American Techno Festival brought some of the most innovative practioners of that style of music to town for several years.

Friday | 06.02
What: ACxDC w/No/Más and Berated
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: ACxDC is the infamous powerviolence/grindcore band from Los Angeles whose 2020 album Satan Is King is a seethingly uncompromising run of anarchistic political sentiment set to blast beats and oddly anthemic antiestablishment shout along songs.

Saturday | 06.03
What: M. Sage Paradise Crick release show w/Zander Raymond
When: 3 p.m.
Where: TBA in Boulder
Why: M. Sage has been a prolific and evolving songwriter and composer going back to at least far back as when he was based out of Fort Collins and doing early indiepop groups. But when he started writing and releasing music as M. Sage and often through his now defunct label Patient Sounds (2009-2019) it became obvious that Sage was thinking beyond standard songwriting even in the more experimental folk vein. His latest release, and first for RVNG Intl., is Paradise Crick, a collection of meditations on communing with nature as a route to a sustainable relationship with the world we all share. The pure fusion of acoustic and electronic aesthetics resonates with some of the more avant releases on the ECM label and its intuitive rhythms and informal structures ease the mind out of the standard pathways of being within one’s own mindset. This show is at unique venue and one must purchase a ticket at the link provided to get the address.

Saturday | 06.03
What: Danceportation – Justin Jay and others
When: 9:30
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station
Why: Danceportation is an immersive dance party pulsing through the worlds of Convergence Station. Be immersed in the full exhibition while stunning live performances on several stages with psychedelic projections and sentient universes welcome you. Danceportation on June 3rd will feature a takeover from Justin Jay’s Fantastic Voyage, the Los Angeles-based electronic dance music imprint now celebrating its seventh year of exisence.

This lineup features multiple sets from Justin Jay, along with performances from Ardalan, DJ Swisha, Juliet Mendoza, Todd Edwards, Adrian More, B Goody, Blake, Coldsweat, Danny Goliger, DJ Parqués, Don Jamal, Ed Hoffman, Gusted, Keefe, Lipgloss, Massii, Mick Jeets, Mizzmegan, The Other Jon, Planet Bloop, and Taylor Bratches.

Sunday | 06.04
What: Korine w/CD Ghost, Voight and DJ Niq V
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Philadelphia-based dream pop band Korine plays a headlining show in Denver for the first time in support of the release of its 2023 album Tear. The group’s sound is somewhere between 80s New Wave groups like, yes, Tears For Fears, late 90s emo’s earnest emotional release and punk attitude. Voight will bring the dark industrial intensity with its scorching shoegaze/techno concoctions CD Ghost from Los Angeles released a set of lush pop songs called Night Music in 2022 that sounds like a a more synth driven and more ethereal Black Marble.

Monday | 06.05
What: Yeah Yeah Yeahs w/Perfume Genius
When: 7
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Yeah Yeah Yeahs have been delivering scrappy, uplifting pop music with punk attitude since forming in 2000 and as first put into recorded form with its 2001 self-titled EP. But the band comprised of three art school kids from New York never rested on its laurels and immediately its creative ambitions drove the band to explore new sounds and expressions to match its emotional growth as well. Its spirited live shows turn even its more melancholic songs into epic anthems that sweep you up in its always deep mood. In 2022 the band released its first album in 9 years, Cool It Down, a record that showcases the group’s gift for richly evocative songwriting and ability to surprise with its willingness to explore new directions in sound and subverting the tropes of pop lyrics while offering new ways of thinking about and feeling timeless themes of human experience with a thrilling immediacy. You also get to see Perfume Genius whose own career in crafting meaningful and engrossing synth pop isn’t short on reinvention and re-envisioning core artistic impulses.

Clan of Xymox in 2018, photo by Tom Murphy

Monday | 06.05
What: Clan of Xymox w/Curse Mackey, A Cloud of Ravens and The Siren Project
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Clan of Xymox is the pioneering dutch darkwave band whose early post-punk songs has been foundational to the modern version of that music with its icily melodic synths and deep, mysterious yet emotionally resonant vocals from Ronny Moorings. Curse Mackey has been involved in a variety of electronic industrial bands of the past few decades including My Life With The Thrill Kill Cult and Pigface and the music under his own name has been more in the vein of synth pop end of darkwave. The Siren Project is a Denver band that has persisted since the old local Goth scene of the 1990s but has never been a fashion victim group in sound or appearance. Its downtempo music and dream pop guitar sound with Malgorzata Wacht’s soaring vocals and emotional power has set it apart from most bands in the Denver Goth scene so its music has aged well and its excellent and so far only official album Denouement should appeal to fans of Dead Can Dance and Faith & The Muse.

The Cure at Riot Fest in Denver, September 20, 2014, photo by Tom Murphy

Tuesday | 06.06
What: The Cure w/The Twilight Sad
When: 5:30
Where: Fiddler’s Green
Why: The Cure is of course the foundational post-punk band whose gloomy, darkly melodic songs has exerted a lasting influence not just on what one might presume in the realms of Goth and darkwave but also shoegaze, pop music and even certain corners of hip-hop. Singer Robert Smith’s sensitively and sharply observed lyrics embody poetically a sensibility that takes in the possibilities and harsh realities of the world and casts dreams for the best against the odds. Though the band’s music has a reputation for melancholy sounds and sad songs its rich body of work is quite varied and not short on expressions of joy, amusement, romance and hope. Its music conveys the broad human experience like few popular bands get to with the level of power and nuance The Cure has brought to bear across decades and as a live band there is an uplifting warmth and sense of human solidarity to the performances. Scottish post-punk band The Twilight Sad is cut from a similar artistic cloth with songs that are both vulnerable and ferocious.

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, photo by Jason Galea

Wednesday and Thursday | 06.07 and 06.08
What: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard w/Kamikaze Palm Tree
When: 6 p.m (06.07) and 12 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. (06.08)
Where: Red Rocks
Why: With a name like King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard you might imagine some acid head RPG nerds making psychedelic metal with lyrics based on an epic fantasy story arc. And other than maybe the RPG part and maybe the doing LSD bit you wouldn’t be wrong in essence. The group from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia has steadily built a large cult following with a prolific career (in both 2017 and 2022 King Gizz released five albums each year with other years yielding at least one if not two records) with sounds from psychedelic pop to prog, to synth pop and groove metal, thrash and psych power metal. With album titles like Flying Microtonal Banana, Nonagon Infinity, Butterfly 3000, Fishing for Fishes and the 2023 album so far PetroDragonic Apocalyp; or Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation you’d expect bizarre concept albums worthy of Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s Tarkus or Genesis’ The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway or at least unclassifiable songs like Pink Floyd’s “Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict.” And King Gizz delivers just that. The kinds of albums and songs and shows that take you on a mind-bending, genre-bursting musical journey worthy of Hawkwind or Gong at their self-indulgent best.

Thursday | 06.08
What: Alphabet Soup #61: Machu Linea, Dub FX, Savage Bass Goat, Yung Lurch, Furbie Cakes and Skyfloor
When: 9
Where: Black Box
Why: This monthly showcase of some of the most forward thinking/experimental producers in Denver includes some of the usual suspects like Furbie Cakes and Skyfloor and their brand of glitch and melodic ambient but this time out also Machu Linea whose avant-pop R&B/techno fusion has long crossed over into the realm of the indie scene.

Friday | 06.09
What: Endless, Nameless and Antibroth tour kickoff w/Rose Variety and Polly Urethane
When: 7
Where: D3 Arts
Why: Antibroth and Endless, Nameless are embarking on a tour to the East Coast and back through the Midwest after which Antibroth and its weirdo, experimental, angular form of post-punk and confrontational surrealism will effectively come to an end though during the tour the trio will release its final EP, Satan and the Dying Baby. This is the band’s final show so don’t miss it. Endless, Nameless is a multi-genre band crossing the boundaries of post-hardcore, death metal, math rock and shoegaze. Rose Variety from Boulder came out of a time in local music that had recovered from that wave of really cookie cutter psychedelic and garage rock but took that raw material and made a pop band out of it with some real punk kick. Polly Urethane always reinvents her show with every performance so maybe you’ll get a gorgeously classical vocal show with some vinyl sampling or backing track or raw noise and signal processing or a pure performance art piece or all of it. Always worth coming to check out.

The Sisters of Mercy, photo by Lara Aimee

Friday | 06.09
What: The Sisters of Mercy w/A Primitive Evolution
When: 7
Where: Fillmore Auditorium
Why: The Sisters of Mercy will probably fill the venue with a thick fog and you’ll get some colored murk in which to experience its foundational political post-punk but maybe this time the fog won’t be so thick and you’ll get to see Andrew Eldtrich and his band clearly delivering the kind anthemic, dark rock that launched a thousand Goth bands without directly being that music itself.

Elizabeth Colour Wheel, photo from Bandcamp

Saturday | 06.10
What: Jerome’s Dream and Elizabeth Colour Wheel and Only Echoes
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Jerome’s Dream is the influential screamo/powerviolence band from Sacramento that started out in the early heyday of that music in the late 90s and early 2000s and during its first run of 1997-2001 the trio made a major impact on the kind of music that would later be associated with modern hardcore and extreme metal and where those two fuse. The band has been reunited since 2018 and its latest album The Gray In Between is a fine example of the kind of cathartic extreme music that is has had a popular resurgence in the last handful of years. Elizabeth Colour Wheel is of similar sound but its fusion of noise rock and shoegaze but delivered like a hardcore band has made it a wonderful musical mutant of the past several years. Only Echoes is an instrumental post-metal band from Denver that has been honing its imaginative soundscapes on the road and around Denver whose 2022 album Sunsickness is both melancholic and fiery, reconciling both musical impulses.

Saturday | 06.10
What: Bayonne w/Mmeadows
When: 8
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Bayonne is the project of producer and composer Roger Sellers who started off releasing music under his given name but beginning with 2016’s Primitives he adopted his current moniker. The latest Bayonne record Temporary Time (2023) is an entrancing, orchestral electronic pop record of spacious melodies and melancholic yet summery moods. At another time some critic might have lumped Bayonne in with the “hypnogogic pop” of John Maus or even Dean Blunt but his style is more in the vein of downtempo ambient of Tycho but more grounded in texture and strong, organic rhythms.

To Be Continued…

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond March 2023

The Church perform at Gothic Theatre on March 21, 2023, photo by Hugh Stewart

Wednesday | 03.01
What: Vinyl Williams w/Presentable Corpse and Aaron Dooley https://lost-lake.com/event/vinyl-williams-w-presentable-corpse-jorge-elbrecht-aaron-dooley-dj-reed-fox/lost-lake/denver-colorado/
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Vinyl Williams is the creative moniker of Lionel Williams based out of Los Angeles whose ethereal “celestial pop” is rooted in a multimedia presentation of the music with the artist often bathed in cinematic, psychedelic visual collage. Opening the show is Presentable Corpse whose lineup will include founder, producer and record mixer of choice in a certain subset of the more hip indie music of recent years Jorge Elbrecht along with Jenna Balfe (Donzii), Bobby Amulet, James Barone (Tennis, Tjutjuna, Beach House) for a unique and certainly unusual performance.

Thursday | 03.02
What: White Reaper w/Militarie Gun and Mamalarky
When: 6:30
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Louisville, Kentucky-based garage punk band White Reaper is touring in support of its 2023 album Asking for a Ride. In addition to its more raw sound showcases the band’s knack for pop hooks without quite crossing over into pop-punk and when it does it’s in the manner of pop-punk as it re-emerged in the 2010s with its emphasis on earnest and vulnerable lyrics in its storytelling. Militarie Gun has been making waves in the modern hardcore scene with its own angular post-punk style akin to the kind of band you’d hear on Dischord in the late 80s and 90s. Mamalarky is a psychedelic pop band whose sound is reminiscent of Deerhoof in its more pop moments and with a similar proclivity for intricate yet playful and loose, layered songwriting.

Thursday | 03.02
What: Paul Cherry w/The Mattson 2 and Donzii
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Paul Cherry’s 2022 album Back on the the Music brings a quirky and whimsical energy to songs about finding fulfillment in the endeavors we think should bring them and in this case art and music but with which we often find out there’s a great deal of quixotic endeavors, repetition, disappointments, mundane necessities, social politics and certainly no guarantee of the traditional trappings of success for your efforts regardless of your talent. Cherry across the albums ten tracks finds glimmerings of hope and the core meaningfulness of the creative life in songs that sound like they wouldn’t be out of place on a weird, feel good comedy from the 80s that was allowed to happen despite its unusual and imaginative script. The Mattson 2 are a surprisingly enjoyable example of what happens when two musicians with jazz chops create chill indie rock like they took in a bit of Beach Fossils and Foxygen and created their own kind of summery vibes. The odd band on this bill is Donzii from Miami who released one of the most focused yet danceable No Wave funk post-punk disco deconstructions of the modern social and political landscape with their new album Fishbowl. Last time Donzii came to Denver was 2021 shortly after shows started happening again and turned the back room at Pon Pon into an inspired performance art zone for the duration of its set. Think Lithics, Pylon and Bush Tetras for touchstones but expect something unusual and ferocious.

Friday | 03.03
What: Otoboke Beaver w/Cheap Perfume
When: 8
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Otoboke Beaver from Kyoto, Japan takes cultural references, tropes and frustrations and shreds them and reassembles them in a surrealistic yet cathartic bursts of mutant punk rock fury. That this process is set to hypermanic melodies that are undeniably catchy and even infectious is a testament to their deep resonance with anyone that has had to tangle with the alienation of modern hypercapitalism and the way it warps culture and consciousness unless you make a break with it and turn it in on itself the way Otoboke Beaver has done not just with that particular brand of psychological conditioning but also with the baked in misogyny of Japanese and Western culture. But this band makes it seem fun and revolutionary by virtue of making that critique seem exciting. None more so than on its 2022 album Super Champon. It’ll be in good company with the radical yet immediately relatable subject matter and the energy of Colorado Springs punk band Cheap Perfume who mince no words in their deconstruction and dismantling of sexist tropes.

Duck Turnstone in 2023, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 03.03
What: Duck Turnstone album release w/American Culture, Bobby Amulet and Bloodsports
When: 7
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: Duck Turnstone seems to have helped resurrect a 90s indiepop vibe in its songwriting with no apparent connection to that musical world or scene and is celebrating the release of its debut album Duck Tells A Story. Also on the bill are indiepop legends American Culture who lately seem to be exploring far afield of its roots in indiepop and post-punk so who can say what this show will sound like now that Chris Adolf has also been playing with Easy Ease and former lead guitarist Michael Stein had to take a sabbatical. Or has he? You’ll have to go to find out.

Saturday | 03.04
What: Street Fever w/Polly Urethane, Ani Christ and K129
When: 9
Where: Glob
Why: Street Fever has been an acclaimed artist for years from Boise, Idaho for his visually arresting performances and inventive industrial dance style that isn’t really much like anyone else. Polly Urethane always brings an unpredictable element to her performances that completely blur the line between performance art, classical music, art pop and noise. Difficult to say what this show will be like at Glob but there will probably be some element of the confrontational or at least breaking the barrier between performer and audience.

Sunday | 03.05
What: Munly & The Lupercalians w/Ryan Wong & His Country Sounds and Voight
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Jaysun Munley is perhaps best known for his membership in Slim Cessna’s Auto Club. But as an advanced practitioner of unusual folk music he has created a rich body of work under his own name and in various projects including that with The Lupercalians, named after an ancient Roman fertility festival. Imagine if The Wicker Man or Kill List were bands but no one had to die, just the drawing on primal, ancient folk imagery that perhaps goes beyond the Americana mythology invoked by the Auto Club. This will be the debut performance of Supreme Joy’s Ryan Wong & His Country Sounds. Voight will probably confuse people with their mashup of noisy shoegaze and techno and the show will be all the better for it.

Tuesday | 03.07
What: PUP & Joyce Manor w/Pool Kids
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: If you were to pick two bands that really helped put pop-punk back into vogue in the underground but in a way that wasn’t corny but retained all the fun and anthemic music with words that come right from the heart with actual persona insight, PUP and Joyce Manor both really helped to pave that road. PUP’s 2022 album, The Unraveling of PUPTheBand was so self-aware it was almost a try hard gimmick but PUP made the concept work and offered a new vista for bands to creatively work earnestness and self-deprecating humor into songwriting without feeling like a retread of what has already been way beyond done. Joyce Manor’s own 2022 record 40 oz. To Fresno is a succinct modern power pop classic that begins with a cover of O.M.D.’s “Souvenir” and then cuts to the chase with a distilled run of songs that waste no time in delivering with great energy poignant sentiments and incredible economy of songwriting.

Wednesday | 03.08
What: Chiiild w/Isaiah Huron
When: 7
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Yonatan Ayal aka Chiiild is touring in support of his new record Better Luck in the Next Life. Early singles from the record solidify Ayal’s reputation for genre bending pop songcraft. His vocal processing borders on the realm of hyperpop at times but that serves to reinforce a sense of hazy introspection that seems to run through the album. There is a great sense of space one hears in the music like you’re invited into Ayal’s private space to contemplate and feel the moods as gentle percussion and sweeps of textural atmospherics swirl and spare guitar melodies trace the songwriter’s soulful singing.

Saturday | 03.11
What: King Tuff w/Tchotchke and The Savage Blush
When: 8
Where: Globe Hall
Why: King Tuff is the creaive moniker of Kyle Thomas who has established himself as an artist whose imaginative and eclectic songwriting has evolved over the course of several imaginative albums. His style might be traced to some roots in psychedelic and garage rock but what shines in his recorded output and performances is Thomas’ craft as a storyteller whose lyrics illuminate aspects of American life and culture through the lens of his own experiences and their grounding details. With his latest record Smalltown Stardust, Thomas reflects on the small town life hailing from Brattleboro, Vermont that shaped him and drawing on warm memories to inform a set of songs that sound like an affectionate exploration of how reconnecting with a past one left behind in pursuit of one’s life goals can enrich an appreciation of where you are now and where you’ve been. Beginning to end it’s an album of uncommonly well crafted pop melodies that feel grounding and comforting after a time of some of the greatest chaos and uncertainty for any musician hoping to share their music with a public in living memory. The record is also a celebration of the community and context of Thomas’ musical life and conceived and recorded while his housemantes Meg Duffy (Hand Habits) and Sasami Ashworth (Sasami) were putting together their own extraordinary records of the past couple of years (Fun House from 2021 and Squeeze from 2022 respectively). Some of that spirit creative spirit and good will seems to have intermingled into Smalltown Stardust as well.

Saturday | 03.11
What: Down Time with The Mañanas and Barbara
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Down Time now calls Los Angeles home but the indie pop trio has its origins in Denver where it honed its tender and vulnerable songwriting including the tracks on its 2022 album Spirit. That latest record revealed that the group had developed its electronic component to new heights and lent the songs brewed and recorded during the phase of the pandemic when no one was touring and not many playing actual live shows. So the songs have an uncommonly introspective mood but buoyed by the group’s warmth of expression. The band recorded and produced the album itself but got a mix done by Patrick Riley of Tennis fame. Across the arc of the album it sounds like we’re getting a peak into hopes and dreams that spent some time incubating and set adrift on their own in the subconscious before being reclaimed and re-examined and given musical form and interconnected with beautifully hazy edges.

Sunday | 03.12
What: Show Me The Body w/Jesus Piece, Scowl and ZULU https://www.gothictheatre.com/events/detail/?event_id=453875
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Clearly the big show of the year featuring artists pushing the boundaries of punk. Show Me The Body from NYC through its thorough fusion of noise rock, hardcore and hip-hop production and lyricism has produced a body of work that doesn’t just challenge genre convention but also provides a poignant and insightful critique of society and culture through personal narratives that hit hard even when the band is employing its acoustic side. Philly’s Jesus Piece likewise bucks expectation in its own metalcore-esque sound that threads in hardcore intensity and conviction but there is something so caustic and focused in its bursts of sound that recall artists that blur the line between death metal and grindcore like Napalm Death and Ethan McCarthy’s old band Clinging to the Trees of a Forest Fire. It’s new album …So Unknown is filled with concise exorcisms of modern angst and anxiety through amplifying those feelings to burn them out. Scowl from Santa Cruz, California sound a little like Betty Blowtorch if that band had come up through hardcore with magnetic frontwoman Kat Moss channeling the music’s aggression. And Zulu the self-styled “soul-infused power violence” band toured with OFF! This past fall and garnered a widening fanbase for its caustic and relentless style of noisy hardcore informed by a decidedly anti-racist messaging and a presentation of the music that challenges hardcore orthodoxy.

Tuesday | 03.14
What: Wallice w/Jawny
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station Perplexiplex
Why: Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Wallice began releasing her witty and well-crafted pop songs in 2017 but really caught the attention of a wider audience with her 2020 single “Punching Bag” and its very of the moment sentiments commenting about online culture and dating including the amusing, no budget music video. Since then Wallice has honed her skills in writing solid pop hooks as evidenced by songs like “Hey Michael” and “Off the Rails” and her two EPs thus far (2021’s Off the Rails and 90s American Superstar from 2022). With the release of the heartfelt and tender folk-inflected
“Japan” about visiting her father’s hometown in central Japan Wallice revealed that the sensitivity and emotional insight that was at the core of even a fairly sassy diss track like “Hey Michael” could sit with complete vulnerability. A commanding performer, Wallice shares the stage with one of the other stars of modern indie pop, Jawny, whose work with Doja Cat and Beck highlight his eclectic style with roots in hip-hop and R&B as well as psychedelic pop. His new single “fall in love” is much more melancholic than much of his earlier output but the lush soundscape of the song is in keeping with his ear for an immersive approach to songwriting and production.

Primitive Man, photo courtesy the artists

Tuesday | 03.14
What: The Acacia Strain, Fit For An Autopsy, Full of Hell and Primitive Man
When: 6
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: The Acacia Strain has rightfully become one of the most well known of the bands out of death metal that emerged at the beginning of the 2000s with its savage rhythms and caustic vocals. But show up early and catch the some of the heaviest death grind around with Primitive Man and the relentless and chilling drive of Full of Hell’s particular brand of powerviolence.

Ukko’s Hammer in 2021, photo by Tom Murphy

Tuesday | 03.14
What: Deaf Club w/Only Echoes and Ukko’s Hammer
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Deaf Club is the hyperkinetic, noisy hardcore band fronted by Justin Pearson of The Locust fame. Weirder than the typical hardcore band with a definitely electronic music aesthetic built into its DNA, Deaf Club’s music sounds as unhinged yet as precise as its member’s earlier projects (the aforementioned as well as AcxDC, Weak Flesh and Run With the Hunted etc.). Opening are metallic post-rock juggernauts only Echoes from Denver and hardcore outfit Ukko’s Hammer also from the Mile High.

Friday | 03.17
What: Plack Blague w/Ms. BOAN and Kill You Club DJs
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Plack Blague is the industrial dub/techno noise fetish performance art act from Lincoln, Nebraska that has established itself over the past decade and more as one of the most entertaining and unforgettable acts to have become part of the modern darkwave movement. The now duo has a handful of seven inches and other releases out there but no full album as yet and really the live show is one of the main attractions of the project because it doesn’t fully translate to the purely audio experience. BOAN is another darkwave duo but one whose music is more melodic electronic post-punk dance music. But this show will feature vocalist Mariana Saldaña solo as Ms. BOAN. In 2022 Saldaña guested on Boy Harsher’s song “Machina” from that band’s album and short horror feature The Runner showcasing the singer’s strong vocals and stage presence in a mode reminiscent of electroclash with industrial dance flavor.

Friday | 03.17
What: Weyes Blood w/Vagabon
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Depending on where you checked in on the musical development of Natalie Mering you might have heard her early forays into noise and as a bassist for experimental rock band Jackie-O Motherfucker. But these days she’s most rightfully known for her ambitious and orchestral pop music as Weyes Blood. Her 2022 album And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow is the second of a trilogy of albums beginning with Titanic Rising (2019). The arrangements on the album are not the typical stuff and it seems as though Mering has really keyed into a kind of musical narration that yields rich layers and a willingness to experiment with movements within a song and across the album. Its lush production hearkens back to some art pop record of the 70s without being hemmed in by instincts to recreating the past.

The Magnetic Fields, photo by Kevin Yatarola

Friday and Saturday | 03.17 and 03.18
What: The Magnetic Fields
When: 8
Where: Swallow Hill
Why: These shows probably should have happened at a larger venue because these performances sold out weeks ago. But the intimate setting of Swallow Hill is probably the best environment to take in Stephin Merritt’s raw vulnerability in the current incarnation of his long running band The Magnetic Fields. This isn’t the band of Get Lost or Distortion, but likely of Quickies on which Merritt stripped things down to a compelling minimum of acoustic guitar and spare electronics and his own highly expressive voice. But maybe you can find a ticket or find one of those egregiously price gouging after market tickets if you didn’t already get one.

Saturday | 03.18
What: Big Dopes, Modern Leisure and Frail Talk
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Big Dopes released its most recent album Destination Wedding in November 2021 and are now finally set to release the vinyl edition of the record at this release show. The group fronted by Eddie Schmid has a knack for telling stories in its songs that put you in a distinct place sonically and emotionally and the aforementioned album in particular has sound elements in the music that convey the impression of physically being in the setting of the lyrics. Modern Leisure hasn’t played shows in awhile and the band that is a vehicle for the songwriting of Casey Banker offers its own emotionally resonant musical insight into modern life.

Saturday | 03.18
What: Underoath w/Periphery and Loathe
When: 6
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Underoath emerged from its early metalcore and screamo period to integrate and evolve those creative impulses to craft a body of work that seems to have culminated in its 2022 album Voyeurist. It has the honestly poignant and feral screaming vocal style and angular guitar progressions and driving percussion that has been part of its core sound since early on. The band also tackles in a more mature and philosophical fashion existential issues and the place of faith in their lives. But there is an imaginative creation of mood and atmosphere and layered songwriting that one doesn’t often hear in heavy music of this ilk and if footage of recent performances are any indicated, delivered with a spirited conviction that is undeniably compelling.

Saturday | 03.18
What: Kimbra w/Tei Shi
When: 6
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Kimbra’s soulful vocals and quietly lush, subtle production has made her one of the more acclaimed songwriters in the more creative, arty end of modern alternative pop. In January 2023 she released her new album A Reckoning and its raw and confessional yet tender lyricism and emotionally expansive presentation. Sharing the bill this night is Tei Shi who releases her new EP Bad Premonition on 3/17/2023. The title track offers an inventive rhythm and production that fans of Goldfrapp and Charli XCX will appreciate for its pure fusion of R&B and an experimental electronic soundscaping.

Saturday | 03.18
What: Unwritten Law, Authority Zero and Mercy Music
When: 7
Where: Bluebird Theater

Orions Belte, photo by Nikolai Grasaasen

Sunday | 03.19
What: Orions Belte w/Alex Siegel
When: 7
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: Norwegian band Orions Belte has been seemingly conjuring unique music for several years that sounds like an impossible but always somehow appealing and flowing blend of psych, indiepop, prog, library music, Bossa Nova, jazz and whatever seems to make this music that sounds like it was recorded high fidelity onto cassette but with the lo-fi aesthetics intact. The group just released a new single called “Silhouettes” that is vintage Orions Belte in that it sounds like it could have come out 50 years ago in the same scene you’d find Os Mutantes or W.I.T.C.H. or today.

Monday | 03.20
What: Laveda, Isadora Eden and Autumnal
When: 7
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Albany, New York’s dream pop band Laveda is touring in advance of the release of its new album A Place You Grew Up In, the released singles from which hint at an album that is both tender and vulnerable in its lush melodies and melancholic moods but not without pointed commentary. Laveda’s lyrics offer insight about the likely future facing us all and the current social and economic climate that many if not most of us have had to navigate even though it seems obvious the powers that be are steering the world into disaster. It’s an album very much of this moment and crafted with a poignancy and delicacy of feeling that honors the anxiety, pain, disappointment, disillusionment and anger with a rare grace.

Monday | 03.20
What: KEN Mode w/Frail Body, Abrams and Fathers
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: KEN Mode delivered a reliably cathartic set of songs with its new record NULL. Is it “extreme noise rock” or “extreme metal”? Yes, but with its caustic sonic powers used for scorching and purging some of the amplified despair and repressed frustration and desperation underlying the mood in much of the world as governments careen into fascism, an ideology completely inadequate to addressing global climate change, corruption, fiscal malfeasance and income inequality. Joined on the bill by a couple of prominent bands in the realm of extreme metal and noisy hardcore in Abrams and Fathers.

Monday | 03.20
What: PROBLEMS w/Heligoats, Kelly Garlick and Mr. Pacman
When: 8
Where: Glob
Why: PROBLEMS is experimental electronic and performance art legend Darren Keen whose finely crafted electronic music in a modern techno vein is pared well with his unusual, always entertaining, performance style that challenges the conventions of the format with also being directly relatable. Mr. Pacman will bring the mutant synth pop/rock costumed post-futurist performance that will be a great complement to Keen’s own musical and aesthetic subversion.

Tuesday | 03.21
What: The Church
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: The Church is the respected Australian rock band whose music falls into multiple categories like New Wave, post-punk, psychedelic rock, dream pop, art and alternative rock. But always on its own creative terms and with a body of work that is both thoughtful and passionate. Even from the beginning The Church’s lyrics have gone beyond rock and roll tropes to offer insight into human relationships and culture in a way that gets to the essence of the human condition resulting in an uncanny ability to reinvent and offer new vistas of songwriting across its entire career including its remarkable 2023 album Hypnogogue. It’s pretty much an evening of The Church but that just means a well orchestrated set of richly emotional music and a performance that establishes and sustains a shared mystique of exploring and feeling the core resonances of living.

The Residents photo for In Between Dreams Tour 2018, image courtesy Homer Flynn

Tuesday | 03.21
What: The Residents
When: 7
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: The Residents are the long running and beloved art pop band whose membership has long been obscured with elaborate costumes and theatrical stage sets that allow for its always inspired storytelling and social commentary. The group has been noted for its innovations in multimedia live shows and albums as early adopters of new technology and formats in engaging a potential audience. Its latest offering is the Triple Trouble film which will drop via Night Flight’s new platform The Movie Store. The film is the story of Randall “Junior” Rose who becomes to believe that a fungus is a threat to the human race and in typical conspiracy theory fashion, heads to the realms of the unhinged. Perhaps some of the music for the film will be performed on this night.

Tuesday | 03.21
What: ¿Téo? Sol & Luna Tour w/Maesu
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: ¿Téo? Is an LA-based songwriter who spent a stretch of 2022 opening for Justin Bieber. But his lushly imaginative production and soulful vocals sound like a new incarnation of neo soul. The lead singles from his forthcoming album Luna, the companion tot he 2021 record Sol and as the name of the tour indicates, the set list will likely comprise choice selections from each record. A fusion of reggaeton, hip-hop and one might even point to the aesthetics of chillwave, ¿Téo?’s warmly intimate songs will probably find a larger audience in the near future so catch him at a small club if it sounds like it’s your thing.

Wednesday | 03.22
What: Kiss the Tiger w/Blankslate and Dead Boyfriend
When: 8
Where: The Squire Lounge
Why: Kiss the Tiger is a rock band from Minneapolis whose sound draws on some Americana flavor but fueled by a driven energy channeled ably by singer Meghan Kreidler. Though its vibe is very much of the present time its songwriting is reminiscent of some of the better early 80s power pop New Wave bands like The Plimsouls with a gritty soulfulness and a scrappy spirit that lends the music an upbeat immediacy. Denver’s Blankslate is likeminded in sound with its own core of confessional, moody pop. Dead Boyfriend’s recently released album battle of carthage is a concept album about licing in a New York village as a fourteen-year-old young person navigating and exploring a sense of self and of identity. Musically it’s like a true mashup of dream pop, emo and whatever confessionally poetic and insightful post-folk pop songcraft Elliott Smith was getting up to in his late 90s development as a songwriter.

Wednesday | 03.22
What: Disco Doom w/Taleen Kali and Pleasure Prince https://www.skylarklounge.com/schedule/disco-doomtaleen-kalipleasure-prince
When: 7
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Disco Doom is an avant-garde post-punk band from Zurich, Switzerland whose left field rhythms and off melodic tones and extensive experiments in texture are like a fusion of Sonic Youth and Pavement but somehow noisier and weirder. Its recent album Mt. Surreal is like the mutant offspring of musique concrète and noise rock. Taleen Kali with its newest album Flower of Life is an example of where shoegaze could have gone had it taken more the route of Medicine and Curve with soulful melodies and a more bold use of rhythm and more crisp songwriting. Pleasure Prince is a Denver band whose exquisite synth work and vocal melodies sit at a gorgeous nexus of jazz, IDM, dream pop and R&B.

Rayland Baxter, photo by Citizen Kane Wayne

Wednesday | 03.22
What: Rayland Baxter w/Liz Cooper and Friko
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre

Friday | 03.24
What: Palehorse/Palerider w/Git Some, Ghosts of Glaciers and Despair Jordan
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Palehorse/Palerider returns with its new lineup after the tragic passing of founding drummer Nate Marcy in 2021. The tribal doomgaze group recently reissued its 2017 album Burial Songs and its vast, sweeping soundscapes capturing the stark beauty of the desert and high plains of the western United States and its pockets of ghost towns. Sludge rock legends Git Some reconvened in 2022 to play shows with These Arms Are Snakes and now on a short run of gigs in Colorado including this night, 3.25 at Six-Two in Colorado Springs (also with Palehorse/Palerider) and an early evening show at Mutiny Information Café on 3.26.

Friday | 03.24
What: Solar Fake w/Voight, eHpH and DJ Nitrogen
When: 8
Where: HQ
Why: Berlin’s Solar Fake is one of the few futurepop bands of recent years that doesn’t sound like a pale imitation of Covenant, VNV Nation and Assemblage 23. Its 2021 album Enjoy Dystopia is more like a solid synthpop record with an electronic industrial sound palette and an upbeat if melancholic take on modern existential dread. Denver’s eHpH (pronounced “eff”) is similarly rooted in classic EBM but its presentation is more confrontational and even punk though its production is enveloping and expertly rendered. Voight might be the only band bringing guitars to execute its own shoegaze-inflected industrial darkwave akin to acts like A Place to Bury Strangers and The Soft Moon in terms of aesthetic and emotional intensity.

Friday | 03.24
What: SORROWS w/Lanx Borealis and Baby Baby
When: 7
Where: Enigma Bazaar
Why: SORROWS is the latest project from vocalist Glynnis Braan and drummer Lawrence Snell. Both are talented producers of electronic music in their own right and this band’s downtempo, sultry, nearly operatic music is like a modern update on trip-hop. Lanx Borealis is an ambient artist from Denver whose ethereal compositions demonstrate the influence of the more tranquil Krautrock and progressive New Age music. Baby Baby is Lily Conrad’s electronic-based indiepop band that fans of The Blow may enjoy.

Monday | 03.27
What: John Mellencamp
When: 7
Where: Ellie Caulkins Opera House
Why: Few artists of the stature of John Mellencamp are touring 76 dates but that’s what Mellencamp is doing now. The songwriter’s rock and pop hits of the 80s and 90s are part of the canon of American music culture beginning really with his sixth album, 1982’s American Fool and radio hits “Hurts So Good” and “Jack & Diane.” For his entire career Mellencamp has offered a poignant and poetic portrait into everyday life in a way relatable to most people with a particularly keen insight into working class life in a way that resonates broadly and garnering him prestigious acclaim like the John Steinbeck Award, The Woody Guthrie Award and the Americana Music Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Nevertheless Mellencamp has continued to be a prolific songwriter and visual artist. Expect the artist’s typically engaging and witty performance in a venue that feels like getting to see a show in a large, particularly well-appointed high school recital hall, lending any concert there a touch of intimacy not present over other rooms in town of comparable size.

Monday | 03.27
What: HIDE w/HARPY and BENT (updated HARPY had to cancel and 00.AUR is now performing)
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: HIDE is an industrial noise duo from Chicago whose sample-based compositions offer a harrowing and cathartic commentary on the identities imposed by traditional culture, misogyny, environmental destruction and a sonic expression of liberation from oppression from without and internalized and imposed from within. All of its albums are a fascinating exploration of these themes and others but 2021’s Interior Terror decidedly goes off the map of conventional songwriting style or structure (not that HIDE every really made many concessions to that kind of accessibility) and going for the rhythms and frequencies in establishing a powerful, confrontational mood. Seems as though Providence, Rhode Island’s HARPY is having to cancel this date due to COVID but fans of industrial drone and, frankly, HIDE, should check out the band’s music on Bandcamp. BENT is a like-minded project from Colorado Springs that fuses harrowing industrial noise with glitch and breakcore.

Airiel at 3 Kings Tavern in 2007, photo by Tom Murphy

Monday | 03.27
What: Airiel w/Wave Decay and Shadows Tranquil
When: 7
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Airiel is a long-running shoegaze band from Chicago that’s been popular among connoisseurs of the genre despite the band not having a copious, readily available recorded output. Its particular flavor of the music incorporates electronic sounds and musical sensibilities giving its songs an especially tonally rich and immersive quality. Sharing the stage are two of the best Denver shoegaze practitioners with the more Krautrock-inflected Wave Decay and the darker moodier yet uplifting soundscapes of Shadows Tranquil.

Tuesday | 03.28
What: Protomartyr w/Immortal Nightbody
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Detroit post-punk band has been on quite a trajectory since forming in 2010. When the group first played in Denver at a basement show in 2014 and similar situations on that early national tour it had garnered some critical acclaim for its then new album Under Color of Official Right on Hardly Art. But it quickly garnered high profile fans like Iggy Pop, Greg Dulli, David Bazan and Kelley Deal (who joined Protomartyr for a 2020 tour) for its stream of consciousness lyrics, its highly evocative and dramatic blend of introspective moods and gritty dynamism combining garage rock roots with artier ambitions. As well as its live shows that seem to teeter on the edge of coming off the rails in a loosely controlled release of tension in cathartic bursts. On June 2, 2023 the band will release its new album Formal Growth in the Desert on Domino.

Tuesday | 03.28
What: Morbid Angel w/Revocation, Skeletal Remains and Crypta
When: 6
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Morbid Angel is one of the foundational bands of death metal having formed in 1983 as more of a thrash band. But by the time of its highly influential 1989 debut album Altars of Madness. The record admittedly offered themes of supernatural horror that one heard in the darker corners of extreme metal of the time and since but its threading together of fast and brutal guitar rhythms and leads in a fashion taking what Slayer, Celtic Frost and Venom had already done and pushing that in an even more extreme direction along with truly sepulchral vocals became a template for much of death metal and perhaps black metal since.

Wednesday | 03.29
What: Sell Farm, Sky Creature, French Kettle Station and Pink Lady Monster
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Sell Farm has been exploring an unusual but fascinating creative trajectory for the past few years seeming to create an unlikely combination of indiepop, dub and industrial music. New York City’s Sky Creature is an eclectic fusion of punk energy, dream pop and art rock. French Kettle Station has often defied easy categorization but might be loosely be considered to make music expanding beyond a brilliant nexus of dub, glitchcore, New Age music and ambient. Pink Lady Monster might once have been considered a “dream pop” band and there are elements of that there but the trio and maybe quartet at this point has moved more into the realm of post-psychedelic rock free jazz prog while having become one of Denver’s best bands not yet widely acknowledged as such.

Hermanos Gutiérrez, photo by Larry Nlehues

Wednesday and Thursday | 03.29 and 03.30
What: Hermanos Gutiérrez
When: 7
Where: Washingon’s (03.29) and Boulder Theater (03.30)
Why: Hermanos Gutiérrez, as the name suggests, is brothers Alejandro and Estevan Gutiérrez who have an Ecuadorian mother and Swiss father. With frequent trips to Playas, Ecuador growing up the brothers absorbed the culture and music of both family backgrounds. The duo formed its current project in 2015 in a jam session that apparently created an evocative sound that had roots in surf rock and Latin musical styles. By 2020 a sound more akin to Ennio Morricone’s soundtrack work became an element of the band’s style expanding its emotional or at least tonal range and lending its already compelling instrumental music even more nuance and emotional shading. The brothers Gutiérrez seem to play as one instrument with their various elements on guitar and percussion in perfect sync and working toward telling introspective and thoughtful stories without lyrics and operating on pure mood and the poetry of their shared expression through sound. Hermanos Gutiérrez toured in Fall 2022 in support of its then new album El Bueno y el Malo produced by Dan Auerbach for his label Easy Eye Sound and for this tour one can expect a reprise of that set of music for the shows at Washington’s in Fort Collins and Boulder Theater.

Friday | 03.31
What: Muscle Beach, Endless Nameless and Limbwrecker
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Endless Nameless released its debut album Living Without via Silent Pendulum Records on March 24, 2023. The Denver-based band has been establishing its reputation for a uniquely creative sound that is math rock, emo, progressive metal and punk and for its cathartically energetic live shows that feel like an extended flow of enthusiasm and emotional upswing. Sharing the bill this night are hybrid hardcore-extreme metal legends Muscle Beach and grind/hardcore/thrash group Limbwrecker.

Friday | 03.31
What: N3PTUNE w/Rusty Steve, Neon the Bishop and Cain Culto
When: 7
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: N3PTUNE has against the odds turned his inspired R&B, glam rock, futuristic funk and dream pop inclinations into a band that seems unbound by narrow genres. The live show is theatrical, dramatic and powerful in a way that one doesn’t often see in local music like the offspring of Prince and David Bowie.

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond December 2022

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Soft Moon in 2015, photo by Tom Murphy

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

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

The Lemonheads, photo by Barry Brescheisen

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

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

Water From Your Eyes, photo by Ana Fangayen

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

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

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

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

The Smile, from the band’s Facebook page

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

Bartees Strange, photo by Luke Piotrowski

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

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

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

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

Meet the Giant in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

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

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

Milk Blossoms in 2021, photo by Tom Murphy

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

Master Ferocious in 2021, photo by Tom Murphy

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

Alaska Thunderfuck, photo by Albert Sanchez

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

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

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

Julian Street Nightmare, photo by Tom Murphy

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

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

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

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

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

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

To Be Continued…

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond November 2022

Enumclaw plays Globe Hall 11.3 and 11.4, photo by Colin Matsui

Jeffrey Lewis, photo from artist Bandcamp

Tuesday | 11.01
What: Jeffrey Lewis w/Gila Teen and Emily Frembgen
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Jeffrey Lewis is a cartoonest best known for his long running Fuff series (formerly Guff) and one of the leading lights of what some music commentators have dubbed the “antifolk” movement of the 1990s and 2000s. What that means in practice is very lo-fi sometimes folk-punk songs that are stories from everyday life of an unvarnished honesty that fans of artists like Daniel Johnston, Wolf Colonel and Moldy Peaches will appreciate for how it makes few concessions to commercial music convention in the songwriting, the raw performances and in the released recordings. But there’s something real and emotionally resonant that feels like something that isn’t mass produced the way a lot of commercial pop and non-pop music lending the music a quality that isn’t just vital but life-giving. Similarly-minded formerly Colorado-based, experimental folk pop artist Emily Frembgen is on the bill as is the post-punk/avant-emo/heart-on-sleeve weirdo pop duo Gila Teen.

Mercyful Fate promo photo (1980s) by Ole Bang, photo from mercyfulfatecoven.com

Tuesday | 11.01
What: Mercyful Fate w/Kreator and Midnight
When: 6
Where: The Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Mercyful Fate was a band that was part of the first wave of black metal during its initial run from 1981-1985. Fronted by King Diamond, a theatrical vocalist whose operatic vocals meshed well with the progressive, melodic guitar work and with its sinister stage presence the group exerted a massive influence on thrash and death metal on the musical level and in terms of aesthetics and the subject matter of its lyrics. Its first two albums Melissa and Don’t Break the Oath are rightfully considered genre standouts. It might be said that the outfit sounded like an evil version of Judas Priest but its songwriting was markedly different with progressive rock roots more obvious. After Mercyful Fate split in 1985 King Diamond went on to a respectable and arguably equally influential career with a band under his name. But from 1993 and onward the band has spent periods reunited, releasing new material along the way. It’s just fortunate that this show is happening on the Day of the Dead with thrash legends Kreator also sharing the stage.

Polly Urethane in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Tuesday | 11.01
What: Sloppy Jane w/Niis and Polly Urethane
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Sloppy Jane is a post-punk band from Los Angeles whose 2021 album Madison is an orchestral and baroque pop affair more akin to something in the realm of a 2000s chamber pop band than its earlier sound, a raw, dark punk sound. Founded by Haley Dahl at age fifteen the group’s 2015 debut EP Sure-Tuff sounds like hours of absorbing Hole, Lydia Lunch and early death rock and moving onto the realm of underrated art punk bands like Mika Miko. In the early years of the band a bassist named Phoebe Bridgers added to the mix before moving on to an acclaimed singer-songwriter career of her own and establishing Saddest Factory, the label that is home to Madison. Niis, also from Los Angeles, sounds founded on similar roots as Sloppy Jane but with a more cutting and fuzzy sound yet the same kind of emotionally stirring and ragged exuberance. Its cover of Elastica’s “Connection” from its 2020 Not Niis EP captures the unhinged spirit of the original in a more punk mode. Opening act Polly Urethane combines an elemental kind of performance art with eruptive emotional energy with the elegance of classical music sensibilities and distills it into an unforgettable live show that feels like anything could happen.

Magdalena Bay photo by Lissyelle Laricchia

Wednesday | 11.02
What: Magdalena Bay w/BAYLI
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Magdalena Bay is a synth pop duo based out of Los Angeles. Mica Tenenbaum and Matthew Lewin met while in high school as part of a music program but formed their own progressive rock band before forming the current project in 2016. With some early releases under its belt, Magalena Bay dropped its debut full length Mercurial World in October 2021 but haven’t been able to properly tour in support of the album until now. The album like the group’s website taps into some retro aesthetics and uses them in a self-aware but creative new ways. The website mercurialworld.com looks like an old Geo Cities website and all across the record one hears sampling of 8-bit sounds that give it a touch of grit while perhaps invoking the sounds of artists like Charli XCX and the original Crystal Castles. Opening act BAYLI recently released her Stories 2 EP and lead single “act up” and the attendant music video presents a complex and nuanced take on relationships and identity and the ways we interact with the world around us. Its sultry vibes and synth infused R&B sound isn’t so easily defined by narrow genre designations as its themes utilize a strong but gentle pop hook that renders it possible to accomplish in under three minutes what an entire movie can often fail to accomplish with nearly as much grace and poetry.

Thursday and Friday | 11.03 and 11.04
What: Illuminati Hotties w/Enumclaw and GUPPY
When: 7 (11.03) and 8 (11.04)
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Enumclaw’s new album Save the Baby is an update on its raw and vulnerable sound somewhere on the outer fringes of an unlikely alchemy of post-punk and emo. The band has always been adept at building an inspired imperfection into its songwriting in a manner similar to what Dinosaur Jr has done since its own inception. The emotional core is what hits the hardest and the vocals are a little rough around the edges but seem to somehow fit the moment perfectly. For the new record Enumclaw has refined the raw power of Jimbo Demo and tightening the dynamics without sacrificing the unvarnished feel of the music that made it so appealing from the beginning. It’s fairly rare that someone more or less begins their music career as a recording engineer but that’s what Sarah Tudzin of Illuminati Hotties did before she got her musical project off the ground in 2017. In 2021 Illuminati Hotties released its second album Let Me Do One More and reaffirmed the project’s status as expert purveyors of punk infused pop hooks and imaginative song titles and subjects like “Threatening Each Other re: Capitalism” and “Joni LA’s No. 1 Health Goth.” Fortunately, the songwriting is fully capable of embodying the implied social critique with the meta humor one would hope to hear. GUPPY from Los Angeles somehow makes delicate guitar work and twee sensibilities come off as punk and its 2022 album Big Man Says Slappydoo has enough pop culturally aware irreverent humor to seal its punk bonafides.

Friday | 11.04
What: Cuffed Up w/Shadow Work and Wiff
When: 6/6:30
Where: HQ
Why: Cuffed Up from Los Angeles came together in 2018 inspired in part by the post-punk coming out of Ireland and the UK in the 2010s. Acts like Fontaines DC, IDLES and Shame set a template of politically conscious rock music with a personal immediacy set to a headlong pace and imaginative, atmospheric guitar work and impassioned vocals. With two EPs under its belt including the 2020 self-titled and 2021’s Asymmetry, Cuffed Up is proving itself to coming to be worthy of its influences. This is a bit of a one-off show in Denver hinting that maybe Cuffed Up is working with a local producer or album mixer but whatever the reason for this jaunt from California it’s a rare opportunity to catch the band before it becomes the subject of much buzz.

Friday | 11.04
What: Os Mutantes w/Claude Fontaine https://www.bluebirdtheater.net/events/detail/435716
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Fitting that legendary and influential Brazilian psychedelic rock and Tropicália band Os Mutantes are touring in the wake of its home country’s recent election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva aka Lula to the presidency over his fascistic opponent former president Jair Bolsonaro. The band was associated with the dissident movement in the late 1960s during the then Brazilian dictatorship so it’s playful and otherworldly music had a subversive element and a soundtrack to a countercultural moment. Its 1968 self-titled album is a bonafide classic of world psychedelic music and Os Mutantes had a bit of an international following before splitting in 1978. The band reunited in 2006 and has been touring on and off since and having released three new albums following that reconvening operations.

Friday | 11.04
What: Hi-Dive Anniversary Night 1: The Spits, Zebroids, Colfax Speed Queen, Townies
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: The Hi-Dive has been operating since early November 2003 and will celebrate the occasion with two nights of shows including this oe with the garage punk legends The Spits, punk rock tricksters Zebroids, psychedelic garage phenoms Colfax Speed Queen and Townies, a band of Denver expatriates to Trinidad who have an element of humor at the core of its identity of the band despite having serious rock songwriting chops and musicianship.

Of Feather and Bone, photo by Alvino Salcedo

Saturday | 11.05
What: Hi-Dive Anniversary: Warthog, Of Feather and Bone, Candy Apple and Spiritual Poison https://hi-dive.com/event/warthog-of-feather-and-bone-candy-apple-tba
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: The Hi-Dive Anniversary festivities continue for a second night with veteran, NYC thrash crossover quintet Warthog, psychedelic death metal legends Of Feather and Bone, noise rock/hardcore trip Candy Apple and Ethan McCarthy’s other noise project, the more ambient and orchestrated sound environment Spiritual Poison.

Saturday | 11.05
What: Kevin Morby w/Coco https://www.gothictheatre.com/events/detail/?event_id=427528
When: 8
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Kevin Morby came to prominence in experimental folk group Woods when he was living in NYC in the mid-2000s and then with his band The Babies with Cassie Ramone of Vivian Girls. But once he moved to Los Angeles he firmly established his solo career with the 2013 debut album under his own name, Harlem River, a record paying homage to his former home city. Morby’s creative arrangements transcend specific music styles so that when you hear his music its the songwriting that catches your attention more so than trying to frame it into a stylistic context. Maybe its his attention to rhythm and structure with texture in the flow of melody like he listened to a lot of mid-70s Sly & The Family Stone, Devendra Banhart and the breadth of Bob Dylan’s output. His latest album This Is a Photograph is his most thematically and emotionally direct album to date and its pastoral introspection doesn’t feel like a pose or pretense but rather a vehicle at illuminating honest and deeply observant personal insights. Opening act Coco released its self-titled debut album in 2021 and the project includes Maia Friedman (of Dirty Projectors, Uni-Ika Ai), Dan Moland (Lucius, Chimney) and Oliver Hill (Pavo Pavo, Dustrider). There is a great use of space in which the group casts sultry moods and soulful soundscapes to accompany gorgeously melodic and warm yet lonely vocal harmonies. It’s the kind of slowcore pop one might expect more out of Low when that band isn’t going fully into gloriously avant-garde mode. The elegant bass lines and and a willingness to let the physicality of the performance of the music to leak into the recording gives it an immediacy and grounding that matches the tenor of the way the musicians sync so perfectly with their voices.

Sunday | 11.06
What: Cloakroom w/Seer Believer and Cherished
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Cloakroom’s 2022 album Dissolution Wave might be seen as a Utopian concept space rock album about creating a parallel new world to process and replace the world as we know it with all its environmental degradation, political and social decay, oligarchic domination and the commodification of all levels of our lived experience. It’s like a western doom record with the core idea being a technology, the generator of the titular energy, that obliterates all existing creative work and abstract thought including all ideologies, philosophy and much of what we take for granted as the foundations of our civilization. Except there is “the Spire and Ward of Song” that filter human imaginative accomplishments so that only the best ideas and creations can get through and fuel the continuation of the world. The album also finds the band branching even further into melodic accessibility with broad vistas of dream-like pop hooks drifting in distorted haze and sheets of discordant tones. The effect is mutually complementary. It’s also among the best shoegaze albums out of the past decade and the perfect blend of dense atmospherics and transporting tonal drifts. Opening are Denver shoegaze bands Seer Believer and Cherished, the latter being a group that seems to fit in well in this realm of music as well as post-punk for its vibrantly vulnerable moods.

Monday | 11.07
What: Patriarchy w/Street Fever and Sell Farm, Kill You Club DJs
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Patriarchy is currently touring in support of its 2022 album The Unself and proving itself purveyors of a sound that perhaps has some roots in Gothic industrial sounds and saturated synth tones and a darker form of dance music. Fronted by Actually Huizenga, the group’s aesthetic perfectly blends the hyper real, stark visual style of 80s slasher films, Giorgio Moroder’s cinematic compositions, David Lynchian noir and both ancient and modern mythology for its performance style and the content of the music. It’s a band that embraces the theater of camp and its exploration of themes about sex and power in society and personal relationships is provocative and thought-provoking while delivering a bombastic and challenging music that is also danceable and joyous in its catharsis.

Tuesday | 11.08
What: Echosmith w/lostboycrow and Band Of Silver
When: 7
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Echosmith is a pop band that formed in 2009 in Chico, California. The former and current quartet are siblings Sydney, Noah, Graham and Jamie Sierota (Jamie having taken a break from the band from 2016-2022). Adopting the moniker when the group signed to Warner Bros. Records in 2012 (previously having performed under the name Ready Set Go!), Echosmith released its debut album Talking Dreams in 2013 which yielded the hit single “Cool Kids” about not really fitting in with the popular crowd but being comfortable with being different. Following the performance and touring cycle behind the debut album on a major label, Echosmith found itself saying yes to every opportunity to advance the band and listening to industry people in helping to further their career and that meant long term that there wasn’t enough time to write and develop new material aside from an occasional EP until the group took steps to do so in time to issue the sophomore album Lonely Generation in January 2020. With the onset of the pandemic and the enduring and continuing impacts on tour and thus supporting a new record Echosmith had time to reassess its priorities and reconnect with the ideas and inspirations that initially got the group off the ground into a serious project and during that process went with a more open approach to its songwriting as heard on new singles “Hang Around” and “Gelato” hinting at the new chapter of Echosmith’s creative development. Recently “Cool Kids” garnered some renewed interest when it was used in TikTok videos by the likes of Demi Lovato, Drew Barrymore, Lindsay Lohan, Addison Rae and Hayley Kiyoko who felt the song expressed their own feelings about looking back and seeing how far they’ve come as people. The trend of utilizing the song has garnered more than six million views to date. Echosmith in response to that did a new version of the song with a new music video with “Cool Kids (our version).”

Charles Lloyd Ocean Trio, photo by Dorothy Darr

Tuesday | 11.08
What: Charles Lloyd Ocean Trio feat. Gerald Clayton and Anthony Wilson
When: 6/7
Where: MCA Denver at the Holiday Theater 2644 W. 32nd Ave, Denver, CO 80211
Why: Charles Lloyd is a tenor saxophone and flute player and one of the few remaining legends of the age of jazz in which he performed with the likes of Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, Eric Dolphy and other leading talents of west coast jazz. He also formed his classic quintet in 1966 with Jack DeJohnette, Keith Jarrett and Cecil McBee. Their 1966 live album Forest Flower is said to have built an audience among fans of rock, fans of jazz and the hippie counterculture that was on the ascent. Lloyd was also an early adopter of incorporating the music of various cultures beyond his own American context into his compositions. Lloyd is also one of the most prolific artists of his generation who has continued releasing albums through ECM and Blue Note including the 2022 twin albums Trio: Chapel and Trio: Ocean. His imaginative arrangements and creative performance style both elegant and forceful has kept his work vital and consistently worth a listen.

Tuesday | 11.08
What: Tegan and Sara w/Tomberlin
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Tegan and Sara Quin are twin sisters who formed their pop project Tegan and Sara in 1998 in Calgary. Multi-instrumentalists, the Quin sisters first started getting a name for themselves in underground music circles more widely with the release of the 2000 album The Business of Art. Warm vocal melodies, gentle yet exuberant energy and tender, declarative, observational song have been part of the Tegan and Sara sound since early on and even though they have refined their songwriting and performances and collaborated with numerous other musicians there is a comforting consistency in knowing that a new Tegan and Sara record will have some words of condolence, of emotional clarity and an articulation of struggle and finding the right tone of humor in unexpected situations. This is also true of their new album Crybaby which released a week after the October 14, 2022 premier of their TV series High School (based on their 2019 memoir of the same name) on Amazon Freevee. Of course the live show will feature the duo’s signature, highly engaging stage banter and commentary on the state of the world and sharing the bill for this night is experimental folk pop singer-songwriter Tomberlin whose 2022 album i don’t know who needs to hear this captured a relatable impulse to restlessness and personal set of songs the speak to a yearning for connection and tranquility in a particularly troubled time in human history.

Wednesday | 11.09
What: Meat Wave w/Moon Pussy and SPELLS
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Chicago’s Meat Wave in true tradition of that city’s underground music is difficult to define precisely. Fans of noise rock in the Amphetamine Reptile and Touch and Go vein will find much to like. There is a touch of the angular intensity of Shellac there and a melancholic desperation channeled into cathartic bursts of noise that dissolve and reform in raging passages. Its 2022 album Malign Hex not only has one of the best album titles of the year but imbued with a seething urgency balanced with a touch of near meditative atmospherics that break and dive off into unexpected directions. It sounds both conflicted and resigned and isn’t that one of the prevailing spirits of recent years with thwarted and then blunted frustrations waiting for release but let to hang and rot and transform into a mutant form of lingering neuroses that is still playing out in the culture. Meat Wave gives that decay and psychic poison a thrilling outlet. Denver pop punk band SPELLS may seem like the party group of every season but its own lyrics give form to an adult will to do something of significance only to find that the machine has you locked in for a mediocre fate so you decide to mock the situation and make the kind of music that rebels against being so unceremoniously shuffled off into the extra person column of modern civilization. Moon Pussy and its wiry and explosive dynamics takes the surreal absurdity of the life and world we have to contend with every day and transmutes it into an irresistible sonic release that every time makes you think maybe rock music isn’t dead after all.

Wednesday | 11.09
What: Slander: Thrive on the Rocks w/Virtual Riot, Moore Kismet, Leotrix and Saka
When: 6
Where: Red Rocks Amphitheater
Why: Slander’s Thrive on the Rocks show will of course feature the well-known dubstep band. But get there early because Moore Kismet will have a set. Their 2022 album UNIVERSE is a deep dive into exploring the possibilities of modern electronic dance music production and songwriting. Where another artist might embrace a trope of the style of music, Kismet takes it somewhere else with an imaginative playfulness that draws you in with every track with its attention to every sonic detail culminating in tracks that are flowing with energy but soothing to the mind at once. Its a riveting mix that is innovative and arresting in unpredictable ways even if you’re a veteran of electronic music or don’t even really get it. With its supreme sound design and creativity UNIVERSE is worth a listen and Moore Kismet is a young artist who seems set on helping to change the world of electronic dance music for the better.

Thursday | 11.10
What: Militarie Gun w/MSPaint, Public Opinion and Dirt Sucker
When: 7
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: Militarie Gun is set to release the deluxe edition of its 2021 album All Roads Lead To The Gun on November 18. The Los Angeles-based hardcore band has those confrontational vocals but there’s something more arty about its guitar work and rhythms more like an old DC post-hardcore band of the 80s but more rooted in modern hardcore. Regardless of its actual roots it has earned a reputation as one of the most exciting bands out of the current wave of punk and hardcore. MSPaint from Hattiesburg, Mississippi sure seems to play some hardcore shows and the intensity of its performances are in that vein in terms of energy but its own music is a fusion of that spirit and bass and synth driven post-punk with songs that capture perfectly the fractured spirit of the American culture and consciousness. Its 2020 self-titled demo is truly one of the most original sounds coming out of the milieu of hardcore and the live show is a barn burner of inspiration and enthusiasm.

Thursday | 11.10
What: Hermanos Gutiérrez
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Hermanos Gutiérrez is a two piece band comprised of brothers Alejandro and Estevan Gutiérrez. It’s an instrumental project that fuses the traditions and influences of their Ecuadorian mother and Swiss father and the 2022 album El Bueno Y El Malo sounds like a hybrid of Santo & Johnny, Neil Young’s soundtrack work for Dead Man (1995) and a more modern form of pasillo. The introspective pastoral quality of the music is gorgeously tranquil but suggests long journeys and a searching spirit as each song explores nuances of mood and emotion while capturing a sense of place both physically and in the mind.

Friday | 11.11
What: Specter Poetics (Omaha goth pop), Jeff In Leather (Omaha techno pop), Hex Cassette, Pattern Screamers (angular new wave)
When: 7:30
Where: Jester’s Palace
Why: Denver Blood Cult presents a night of darkwave from Nebraska but also includes a performance from Denver confrontational industrial dance legend in the making Hex Cassette. His friendly cajoling of the audience from stage paired with music that is aimed at evoking a spirit of excitement in the face of a bevy of overwhelming challenges internal and external. Pattern Screamers might be described as an art punk band based purely on its 24-Hour Write-A-Record Challenge EP and the song “Grocery Store” and “Internet.” Specter Poetics bridges the worlds of synth-infused post-punk and dark New Wave revival. Jeff In Leather is more techno dream pop dance music style.

Saturday | 11.12
What: Mister Water Wet, M. Sage, snowfloer and Aspen Colorado
When: 8
Where: Glob
Why: Mister Water Wet is a Kansas City-based artist whose prepared environments and ambient drones found an especially evocative form on the 2022 album Significant Soil. M. Sage spent many years helping to keep Fort Collins weird with his experimental pop bands and his own tape collage style experiments in creating unique soundtracks to spaces of his own imagining. Aspen Colorado is a side project of performance artist/experimental modern classical/industrial darkwave artist Polly Urethane. Might be the only performance of Aspen Colorado and this is your chance to catch what will likely be an interesting showing of that. Snowfloer is Derrick Bozich’s solo project and you may know him as a guitarist in Sound of Ceres and formerly of Ancient Elk and Grease Pony among other projects more in the realm of indie rock.

Sunday | 11.13
What: Holy Fawn w/SOM and Grivo
When: 6:30
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Holy Fawn from Phoenix, Arizona is a four-piece that has been exploring and evolving a sound that brings together an introspective ethereal soundscape with a heaviness of mood that reflects a depth of feeling found on all of its recorded output. From its 2015 debut EP Realms to its 2022 album Dimensional Bleed one hears in the music of Holy Fawn expansive melodies and tonal brightness paired with a textural grittiness that feels like a cathartic and transcendent journey into deep emotional spaces. In that sound one hears echoes of obvious influences in realms of shoegaze, post-rock, black metal and the more atmospheric post-hardcore and emo with lush swarms of intricate guitar and intertwining rhythms. But there is also an element of musique concrète to the songwriting bringing in field recordings and tape collages to augment a sense of layered meaning and lending Dimensional Bleed in particular a cinematic quality that can create a rippling shift of sonic focus in every moment of a song. Without attachment to a specific style of music, Holy Fawn is able to deftly navigate and even embody multiple genres at once as suggested by the title of its new record. Also on the bill are two of the other current master practitioners of heavy atmospherics. SOM whose own 2022 album The Shape of Everything is brimming with uplifting and illuminating sonics and Grivo from Austin, Texas whose album Omit (also 2022) reveals a gift for shaping transporting drifts of luminously dense melodies.

Monday | 11.14
What: Exhumed w/Escuela Grind, Vitriol, Molde r
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Deathgrind legends Exhumed bring the tour in support of its new album To The Dead to Denver. Formed in 1990 when vocalist and guitarist Matt Harvey was fifteen years old, Exhumed has gone on to carve out its place in the canon of extreme metal. Its gory lyrics have always been a metaphor for consumerism and political issues and like a good horror movie provides an outlet to explore the horrible things humans do to each other in the name of a religion, a political affiliation, out of greed or any other unsavory motivation. To The Dead is another fine visceral litany of raging dismay in Exhume’s prolific catalog.

Monday | 11.14
What: Beth Orton w/Heather Woods Broderick
When: 7
Where: Oriental Theater
Why: Some people may know Beth Orton for her unforgettable collaborations with legendary producer and electronic music artist William Orbit in particular “She Cries Your Name” and her contributions to Orbit’s song “Water From a Vine Leaf.” But Orton’s album under her own name have been eclectic and sonically rich including her 2022 album Weather Alive. Orton’s hushed, soulful vocals and ear for deeply evocative melodies and unconventional production has garnered her a bit of a cult following over the past three decades. But Weather Alive is a bit of an unexpected entry in her catalog as its attention to detail and the crafting of atmosphere and mood in the context of masterfully crafted songs makes it perhaps her finest offering to date.

Masma Dream World, photo courtesy the artist

Tuesday | 11.15
What: DUMA w/Masma Dream World, Knife Band and Watching People Drown
When: 7
Where: The Coast
Why: Masma Dream World is the solo project of multi-disciplinary artist Devi Mambouka that incorporates elements of Butoh, drone, theta frequency and ambient music. In 2020 the debut Masma Dream World album Play at Night but likely didn’t get a proper airing to a wide public because November 2020 was in one of the depths of the ongoing pandemic. The record is a mesmerizing listen that taps into parts of your brain that feel like a direct connection to the subconscious and one’s ancient ancestors. The use of percussion and unconventional tonalities and shamanic vocals creates a real moment throughout the recording as Mambouka makes sacred psychological space with the music opening a path to a mindset that exists outside the usual and unrelenting considerations of narrow materialism and demands on time at every moment from multiple sources. The music is a journey into a headspace that is always there for you to access but which can seem blocked from your conscious mind by habits of living that prioritize the needs of a corrosive economic system rather than what fortifies your life for real and that of everyone else and the rest of the world generally. It’s a therapeutic listen that exists outside the bounds of musical convention. DUMA (“Darkness” in Kikuyu) is a band that has emerged out of the underground metal scene in Nairobi, Kenya. Martin Khanja and Sam Karugu released their2020 self-titled debut during the height of the current pandemic and thus international touring has been all but impossible now. So fans had to give its harrowing and stark and frenetic soundscapes online or through purchasing a record from Nyege Nyege Tapes. The haunting and riveting soundscapes crafted by the two musicians is unlike most anything you’re likely to hear anywhere that is undeniably rooted in grindcore but also lo-fi industrial and imbued with a political awareness and existential angst that gives it a rare and very real edge.

Tuesday | 11.15
What: Brothertiger w/Neo Tokyo Philharmonic
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Oh the 2022 self-titled Brothertiger album John Jagos demonstrates what sounds like a great deal of growth as a songwriter. Certainly he has emerged from being one of the leading lights of chillwave in the late 2000s and 2010s having grown beyond the confines of that microgenre. During the early months of the pandemic Jagos acquired vintage samplers and synths manufactured by Ensoniq employed by sophisti-pop artists of the 80s influenced by the lush and dusky sounds of Roxy Music’s 1982 album Avalon. Think ABC, Level 42, Prefab Sprout and Spandau Ballet and Everything but the Girl. There’s a soulful quality to the collection of songs that hearkens back to a time when people were coping with dire international tensions and the looming threat of authoritarian domination but needing an escape into something that released some of that tension. There is a soothing quality to the album whose lyrics also seem to look to a near future where people are able to build a life and forge one without as much of the persistent oligarchic boot to the neck where anyone can take the time out to contemplate what to do with your ample leisure time. It’s not an album that ignores the current state of things but one that recognizes that sometimes we all need an interlude out of that pressure for a bit and the ability of music to provide that emotional space.

No Age at Glob on August 28, 2013, photo by Tom Murphy

Wednesday | 11.16
What: No Age w/John Wiese and New Standards Men
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: No Age is a noise rock/art punk duo based in Los Angeles, California. Drummer/vocalist Dean Spunt and guitarist/vocalist Randy Randall had been in a band called Wives from 2001-2005 that had been a staple of the underground/DIY music world at the time. But Spunt and Randall scrapped the name and took their then musical ideas and recast their efforts as No Age with their first shows under the new moniker in early 2006 with their second show at the legendary DIY space The Smell in April of that year. From the beginning there was a refreshing lack of pretension and exuberance in the sound of No Age. Like a fusion of The Ramones at its most raw and the lo-fi experimentation and tape collage aesthetic of The Microphones. Within the often grainy and charmingly unvarnished early recordings one could hear a joyfulness and embrace of lived experiences that could contain and express a broad range of emotions and ideas in a manner often spirited and tender. There was always an element of vulnerability to No Age’s version of punk that transformed the music into something immediately accessible, like an unspoken invitation into a shared experience of thoughts and feelings it’s easy to think of going through alone and in isolation. No Age as artists and as a band have always approached its music and its operation as a band with a community spirit and that underlying ethos is something one an hear and feel in all of its albums and at its live performances. The group’s 2007 debut full length compilation of its early EPs and singles Weirdo Rippers (FatCat) is a fantastic introduction to the core No Age sound with a title that captures what you’re in for hearing, that is to say exciting music for people who embrace being different from mainstream expectation. From 2008-2013 No Age was signed to SubPop which helped to push the band to wider audiences. The most recent No Age album People Helping People (Drag City, 2022) is one of its most daring to date and bringing into the mix more fully the musique concrète element heard from its beginnings with gorgeously dream-like tape collages set alongside its signature vital rock songs. It may be the most fully realized No Age album to date and sonically among its most arresting. Opening the show are instrumental noise rock mutants New Standards Men who answer the question of what one might get if weirdos who were into Ruins, Talk Talk, Patrick Shiroishi, John Zorn and Tangerine Dream might do. Also noise legend John Wiese who has long been a part of the Southern California DIY underground.

Thursday | 11.17
What: Till The Teeth w/Pythian Whispers, Laudanum Quilt and Doc Box
When: 8
Where: Glob
Why: Till The Teeth is a Seattle based duo of Sandesh Nagaraj and Jonathan Rodriguez. Its releases thus far suggest a compositional style that employs techniques of soundscaping one most often associates with musique concrète, ambient, noise, prepared environment and ritual drone inspired in part by non-musical experiences, ideas and concepts whether cinematic, explorations of pure imagination or simply being struck by everyday occurrences and encounters. And the local openers come from a similar approach to making sound art. Laudanum Quilt whose prolific output for the last more than half a decade has put soundtracks to imagery, stories, quasi-mythologized personal experiences and the union of urban and rural environments. This author’s own project Pythian Whispers properly became a band when friends with a mutual interest in cinema, non-conventional music and other visual arts made music together and continued evolving beyond harsh ambient noise, experimental electronic music, drone and psychedelic abstract prog into whatever realms of sound came together through spontaneous improvisation.

Thursday | 11.17
What: Dead Boys w/The Briefs, Suzi Moon and Fast Eddy
When: 7
Where: Oriental Theater
Why: Dead Boys are an influential early punk band from Cleveland, Ohio whose only constant member Cheetah Chrome was also in proto-punk band Rocket From the Tombs with Peter Laughner who also contributed to the early music of post-punk legends Pere Ubu. The band’s 1977 debut Young, Loud and Snotty with its ramshackle sound and raw and abrasive style proved influential on punk and glam metal going forward. The group’s volatile energy yielded one more album We Have Come For Your Children (1978) before the band broke up for what would have been good in 1980 with lead singer Stiv Bators going on to pioneer a kind of glam death rock with Lords of the New Church. With some brief reunions since then lead guitarist Cheetah Chrome put together a line up of Dead Boys in 2017 that has been touring the classic material on a semi-regular basis.

Drab Majesty in 2019, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 11.18
What: AFI w/Drab Majesty
When: 7
Where: Fillmore Auditorium
Why: AFI is one of the longest running bands out of the first wave of emo and one of the genre’s most inventive and stylistically versatile. Bridging the worlds of the kind of “horror punk” one associates with the sound of the Misfits, post-hardcore and gothic rock, AFI reintroduced an unabashed visual style for its live performances early on as opposed to the usual punk street clothes style favored by many if not most bands out of punk and emo. Altogether the musical and performance ideas have long helped AFI to stand out from the music scenes with which it has been most often associated. And certainly the choice of post-punk/dream pop duo Drab Majesty as an opener for this tour is an inspired one since the group’s fans seem open to AFI’s proclivity for making music with a similar appeal and presentation. Those unfamiliar with Drab Majesty, its darkly dream pop post-punk is like a more haunting take on the kind of experimental guitar rock of Red Lorry Yellow Lorry and a darker and more gritty flavor of the similarly gossamer toned and emotionally charged sound one hears in Cocteau Twins.

Friday | 11.18
What: Turnover w/Yumi Zouma and Horse Jumper of Love
When: 7
Where: The Summit Music Hall
Why: Turnover has come a long way since its more pop punk roots as heard on its 2013 debut album Magnolia. Its 2022 release Myself in the Way comes across as a hybrid of dream pop and indie R&B with some synth pop style. Yumi Zouma is the indie pop band from Christchurch, New Zealand whose 2022 album Present Tense has a paradoxically hushed enthusiasm with delicate songs buoyed by an energetic spirit. Horsejumper of Love is a post-punk band from Boston whose albums have been lumped under the designation of slowcore. But anyone that has seen the band knows there is an understated intensity and darkness to its live performances like Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and the kind of brooding and visceral quality to be heard there.

The Legendary Pink Dots in 2022, photo courtesy Randall Frazier

Saturday | 11.19
What: Legendary Pink Dots w/Orbit Service and The Drood
When: 5
Where: Mercury Café
Why: The Legendary Pink Dots have left an indelible imprint on the worlds of psychedelic rock, post-punk, Gothic rock, the avant-garde, noise, ambient, industrial, synth pop and electronic music since its inception in1980. Fronted by Edward Ka-Spel, the Pink Dots have evolved through various lineups and shifting musical styles exploring musical and non-directly musical ideas for over four decades now leaving in the wake of that path of experimentation and rich a prolific body of work all worth a listen. From the late 80s through the early 90s there was a sea change in the band’s music as its membership expanded and its songwriting style shifted toward the kinds of lush atmospherics and dreamlike melodies and textures of 1990’s Crushed Velvet Apocalypse and even more fully on the 1991 album The Maria Dimension. That era of the band reached wider audiences and established The Legendary Pink Dots as a cult band with a wide international following from the alternative rock era to this day. Its enigmatic yet colorful and highly emotionally charged story songs provide a kind of parallel narrative to established cultural paradigms, sagely commenting on the prevailing culture in which we all live and which we all navigate and offering insight into civilizational themes and expressing deeply personal reactions to and thoughts on he lived human experience. The group’s highly imaginative and creative music never abstracts feelings but finds a way to make the complicated and difficult explicable. The live shows are a cathartic celebration of life and dreaming and seeking and finding deeper meaning set to sonically rich and transporting soundscapes. In 2022 the Pink Dots released its latest album The Museum of Human Happiness on Metropolis Records and following that, welcomed long time booster, publicist, tour manager and friend Randall Frazier of Denver space rock/ambient band Orbit Service into the current lineup alongside Ka-Spel, long time multi-instrumentalist Erik Drost and live engineer/producer Joep Hendrikx. Opening this show will be Frazier’s psychedelic ambient group Orbit Service and psychedelic, art rock, post-punk mystics The Drood.

Cheap Perfume performs on November 30 at Hi-Dive, photo circa 2016 by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 11.19
What: Riot Grrrl Party feat. Cheap Perfume, Tammy Shine
When: 6
Where: Mercury Café
Why: This is an event hosted by Gogo Germaine whose book Glory Guitars recently released to critical acclaim as the highly entertaining and touching memoir of a teenage punk. This event in addition to performances by the powerful, feminist punk band Cheap Perfume and the solo project of Dressy Bessy frontwoman Tammy Ealom as Tammy Shine there will be live burlesque with Becky Taha’Blu, Paloma Nectar, Siouxsie Cupcakes and Siren Sixxkiller, then readings by Gogo Germaine and Hillary Leftwich with Molina Speaks perhaps MCing the evening.

Dead Voices On Air in 2015, photo by Tom Murphy

Sunday | 11.20
What: The Legendary Pink Dots w/Edward Ka-Spel (solo) ft. Tom Hagerman of DeVotchKa and Dead Voices on Air
When: 4
Where: Mercury Café
Why: See above for Legendary Pink Dots. But for this evening Ka-Spel will perform solo with contributions from Tom Hagerman of DeVotchKa and ambient music legend Mark Spybey of Zoviet France and his current project Dead Voices On Air.

Sunday | 11.20
What: Primo Premier Wrestling’s Emergence w/Wrestling Fiend: Arlo White and musical guest An Hobbes
When: 5:45/6
Where: The Roxy Theatre
Why: Arlo White has been involved in various ends of Denver music and art for decades with punk and art rock/concept bands like Dead Bubbles, Sparkle Jetts, The Buckingham Squares and others. He has also curated unique shows in a house space hosting the likes of Mercury Rev and Ken Stringfellow. Now White has assembled a performance as Wrestling Fiend. A lifelong fan of the gloriously absurd and dramatic art of professional wrestling and its stories and bombastic events, White reconnected with professional wrestling during the pandemic and found in it a path out of the stasis and despair of the current era. With his production company/media outlet Hypnotic Turtle he has teamed up with Colorado’s longest running independent wrestling promotion company Primos Premier Pro Wrestling. The show will feature pro wrestling, live painting and a musical performance from philosophical nerdcore rapper An Hobbes.

Sunday | 11.20
What: Arrows In Action w/TITUS and Lady Denim
When: 6:30
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: TITUS has found a way to combine hip-hop and pop punk in a way that draws upon the virtues of both forms of music to make something that might not work with another person’s songwriting. His infectious guitar hooks and emotionally raw and vulnerable lyrics that resonate with the heart on sleeve style of the best pop punk and emo bands of the turn of the century while also informed by the instinct for authenticity that is the backbone of any hip-hop worth your time. The result is a refreshingly sincere body of work thus far including his singles “Love Myself” and “SiCK ABOuT U” that seem to eschew bravado and embrace a sensitive spirit. Opening on this tour with Gainesville, Florida-based Arrows in Action and its likeminded fusion of pop rock and even more tender than usual emo seems like a solid pairing.

Monday | 11.21
What: Black Flag, TSOL, The Dickies, Total Chaos. https://theorientaltheater.com/event/396181/So-Cal-Punk-Invasion-Tour
When: 6
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: This tour includes some of the most influential bands out of the Southern California punk underground of the late 70s and early 80s with godfathers of hardcore, Black Flag whose current shows manage to remind one of the brilliantly creative guitar work and rhythms that long time band leader Greg Ginn helped to usher in to a punk world that was increasingly becoming more conformist. TSOL too switched up its own sounds across decades rather than stay stuck in a musical rut and at times embracing a dark, moody post-punk sound alongside its searing hardcore style. The Dickies are one of the longest continually running punk bands in existence starting in the banner year for punk of 1977 and with songs informed by a healthy and irreverent sense of humor while early on helping to establish a style of music that would become pop punk.

Monday | 11.21
What: The Garden w/Machine Girl
When: 7
Where: The Summit Music Hall
Why: The Garden is a band formed by twin brothers Wyatt and Fletcher Shears and true to its name suggesting growth and evolution the group defies easy categorization. Sure you can see one of their exuberant live shows and hear the influence of pop punk, Green Day in particular, but its visual style is reminiscent of somehow both Suicidal Tendencies and that band’s own embrace of graffiti aesthetics and the kind of theatrical glam of Slipknot or more unlikely but possible Malfunktion, particularly on the singles for its 2022 album Horseshit on Route 66. But the music seems to dip into the realm of electronic music and art rock but thread that into its punk sensibilities completely for a sound that fits in with a modern disregard for narrow genre in songwriting. Which makes opener Machine Girl and its own industrial dance/glitchcore music and borderline unhinged performances seem like a natural choice and one for which its fans have been prepared with The Garden’s own evolution in daring new directions.

Tuesday | 11.22
What: Oruã, Laminate, Horse Bitch and Totem Pocket
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Oruã is a band from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil that has for more than half a decade been crafting a particularly sonically dense blend of Krautrock, free jazz and Tropicalía. Its 2021 album Íngreme made more clear an incorporation of ideas from library music and indiepop. Also on the bill are Irish noise rock group Laminate, quirky, Denver-based pop punk indie folk mutants Horse Bitch and hazily atmospheric shoegaze group Totem Pocket.

Reverb and the Verse, photo by Tom Murphy

Wednesday | 11.23
What: Reverb and the Verse
When: 6-10
Where: Bonacquisti Wine Company
Why: Reverb and the Verse has been a staple of the more experimental edge of Denver hip-hop since the late 90s with its vital mix of socially and politically astute lyrics and masterful electronic soundscapes. Its 2022 album BLACKWALL is its final intended album and a barn burner of a record that fuses industrial beats with passionate vocals and expert production that gives the record the feel of something from the future commenting poignantly about the deeply conflicted and imperiled time in which we find ourselves. Think Moby and Nine Inch Nails collaborating with Chuck D for an album to be released on Warp Records.

Secret Shame, photo courtesy the artists

Friday | 11.25
What: Secret Shame w/Verhoffst, Voight and ilind
When: 9
Where: The Crypt ($10)
Why: Secret Shame formed in Asheville, North Carolina in 2018. Its members came from the local punk scene and the music they made together was, summed up by a quote found on one or more of its online accounts, “too punk for Goth and too Goth for punk.” But however its sound might be best described its style of dark post-punk struck an immediate chord with people that got to see the fledgling band and even the debut basement demo from 2016 revealed a band that was tapping into emotional spaces resonant with Siouxsie and the Banshees and Xmal Deutschland. Its songwriting quickly developed into the songs that would comprise its energetic self-titled 2017 EP and the 2019 full-length debut album Dark Synthetics. In that vital mix of death rock and synth-infused post-punk one could hear an emotional vulnerability that told stories of struggle and abuse sometimes couched in terms of cosmic horror. And yet there was a core of honest feeling that bled through the metaphors and abstraction. For the 2022 album Autonomy, singer Lena had been working from a place of wanting to not obscure her lived experience and emotional truth and one hears that reflected directly in the music too. It’s still beautifully moody and moving but less haze and more direct tonal expression. Also in the new set of music are more conventionally accessible melodies without sacrificing the grit and darkness that has made the group’s songwriting so compelling since its inception. Autonomy is an album by a band that has come into its own while also a demonstration of an evolution from where it’s been and hinting at further exploration of where the music can go when you feel like you can craft your art from a deeply personal place without needing to couch it in the stylistic terms of anyone else or their narrow expectations. Opening is noise sculptor Verhoffs, techno DJ and avant-garde electronic music composer ilind and industrial post-punk shoegaze techno aspirers Voight. Listen to our interview with Secret Shame here.

Friday | 11.25
What: Emerald Siam, Jacket of Spiders, Juliet Mission and Shadows Tranquil
When: 7
Where: Enigma Bazaar
Why: Four of Denver’s best live rock bands on one bill doesn’t often happen but the day after Thanksgiving if you choose to show up to Enigma Bazaar you can witness the dark yet triumphant and emotionally expansive music of Emerald Siam, the blues edged, gritty art rock of Jacket of Spiders, Julie Mission’s perfection of transforming brooding shoegaze sounds into expressions of pure joy and Shadows Tranquil’s synthesis of math-y emo, shoegaze inflected metal and psyche cleansing, atmospheric post-punk. Sometimes for an all local bill you have to think maybe one or two of the bands are merely okay or there’s a clear headliner. But not for this show.

Saturday | 11.26
What: beabadoobee w/Lowertown
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Lowertown is an avant-pop duo based out of Atlanta. Olivia Osby and Avsha Weinberg met in math class in high school and bonded over a mutual and deep appreciation for jazz. Weinberg was a classical pianist with aims of going to the conservatory and Osby was a fledgling yet prolific poet. Before graduating in 2021 the two released the Honeycomb, Bedbug EP (2020) and the critically acclaimed The Gaping Mouth EP after high school in September 2021 having been picked up by the Dirty Hit imprint. Those EPs revealed a great deal of creative sophistication and development with songs that tapped into electronic music aesthetics, pop, angular post-punk, jazz and folk for a sound that feels intuitive in a way that speaks directly to the lived emotional experience in a way vulnerable and knowing and comfortable in not being so certain. The 2022 debut album I Love To Lie retains all the insightful introspection but the songwriting seems more straightforward and accessible and its content is the most clearly political and incisively observant. “Bucktooth” in particular addresses gun violence, political extremism and the seemingly everyday crisis mode that pervades not just American culture but the state of much of the world. It’s an album written from the perspective of youth and informed by an underlying hopefulness in the face of the dire possibilities and likelihoods and its catharsis of that anxiety is heartfelt and immediately striking. Filipino-British artist Beatrice Kristi Laus performs as beabdoobee and though only 22 has garnered a solid cult following for her early EPs released in 2018. Her breathy, expressive vocals are a compelling contrast with her expert crafting of lively, fuzzy guitar work and a seeming gift for delivering music with a raw spirit and a keen ear for creative melodies. Initially maybe her music seems completely beholden to 90s rock, especially on 2022 album Beatopia, but the sensibility has a touch of meta quality like Laus is soundtracking a 90s coming of age movie she has in her head infused with nosalgia, which fits in with the songwriter’s citing movie soundtracks as an influence on her own work and a desire to make music for films.

Seraphim Shock in 2017, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 11.26
What: Seraphim Shock 25th Anniversary w/Dead on a Sunday, Whorticulture and DJ Celebrytie and hosted by Sid Pink
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Seraphim Shock has been spinning its tales of the dark side of American society informed by themes of the occult, Satanism, hedonism and resistance to a puritanical culture that often causes the trauma and neuroses that drive dysfunction. Seraphim Shock’s music is an expression of solidarity with living with that legacy and purging it. It’s debut full length album Red Silk Vow released in 1997 to great local fanfare in the local Goth scene with shows in which lead singer Charles Edward garbed as a Victorian Vampire, top hat and all, orchestrated a stage show with bandmates in corpse paint style. Whether one was fully into the music or not the spectacle was undeniably compelling to the point where it helped to elevate the music in its Goth-industrial style. As the years went on the band’s style adopted a more glam metal sound and Edward more like a sinister yet benevolent professional wrestler look but more sculpted and more like a Goth super hero. This show celebrates the release of that first album and ushers in the next chapter of the band with its impending release of the second volume of The Fairmount Chronicles which launched in 2020. These days the stage show is back to being as theatrical as the early days with Edward exuding the undeniable charisma and commanding presence that has been a feature of the live show for decades. Also here for the proceedings is the classic Seraphim Shock MC, the sarcastic and sardonic MC Sid Pink so maybe we’ll also see a return of his irreverent game show, Think Pink.

Monday | 11.28
What: SRSQ w/Causer and Polly Urethane
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: SRSQ (pronounced “seer-skew”) is the solo project of former Them Are Us Too singer Kennedy Ashlyn. Her operatic vocals brought a good deal of emotional weight to the gorgeously ethereal guitar work of the late Cash Askew for a powerfully evocative combination. Her 2018 album Unreality was a tender and engulfing meditation on loss and grief cast in lush and hazy synths and soaring vocals. Her new album Ever Crashing is a statement of rediscovery of a firm sense of self with the usual elegantly evocative synth but including an expanded sound palette of guitar, string arrangements, live drums and other percussion alongside Ashlyn’s singularly expressive voice. People that got to see SRSQ during her time touring in the wake of the release of Unreality know that Ashlyn’s native charisma and emotional vibrance as a performer is undeniable.

Rosegarden Funeral Party in February 2020, photo by Tom Murphy

Tuesday | 11.29
What: Rosegarden Funeral Party w/Vio\ator and Faces Under the Mirror
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Rosegarden Funeral Party from Dallas, Texas has been blurring the line between shoegaze and post-punk since its inception. Frontperson/guitarist Leah Lane strikes a commanding figure while delivering impassioned vocals and atmospheric guitar wizardry while drummer Dylan Stamas triggers samples and orchestrates the sweeping rhythms with bassist Michael Doty, synthesist Michael Ortega layering the music with vividly cinematic melody. Lane helped to write and produce and perform on (as well as doing the artwork for) Vio\ator’s 2021 album Solitude and the broodily icy tones and gritty synth and bass driven music is the sound of an autumn spent in isolation. Faces Under The Mirror from Denver has been crafting some of the better EBM around since 1994 without much recognition beyond the Mile High City but whose moody yet energetic music is imbued with a sense of joy in the live setting.

To Be Continued…

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond October 2022

black midi performs at The Fox on 10.3.22 and The Ogden on 10.4.22, photo by Atiba Jefferson

Amyl and The Sniffers, photo by Jamie Wdziekonski

Saturday | 10.01
What: Amyl and The Sniffers w/Boby Vylan and Cleaner
When: 7
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Amyl and The Sniffers may be named after amyl nitrate aka poppers as well as a humorous nod to singer Amy Taylor’s name but its own buzz has lasted much longer than thirty seconds. The group’s early EPs Giddy Up (2016) and Big Attraction (2017) garnered the group an avid cult following in its hometown of Melbourne, Australia as well as abroad where its fuzz-infused proto-punk sound felt like a stripping back of even punk to its essentials. The band’s 2019 self-titled album and fiery live shows cemented its reputation as one of the most exciting live bands of recent years. In 2021 Taylor guested on the song “Nudge It” by influential UK duo Sleaford Mods and Amyl and The Sniffers released the sophomore album Comfort to Me. As noteworthy as the earlier records were, Comfort to Me has the group sounding as massive as the furious energy that seems to be fueling its performances this year thus far.

Saturday | 10.01
What: Abrams album release w/Lost Relics, Vexing and Lord Velvet, poster art by Mhyk Monroe
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Calling Denver metal band Abrams doom has never quite fit the group even though that’s roughly where maybe its music has landed in terms of framing. Its new album In The Dark has such an expansive spirit and deep atmospherics that its surging melodies and weighty hooks might be compared with those of Baroness, especially the newer offerings from that band. But this new record also has a touch of psychedelia on its fringes. The vocal harmonies sound and the incandescent guitar riffs somehow complement each other perfectly guided by elegantly interlocking rhythms. Live the band’s raw power feels almost as much punk as it does metal with turns of musical phrase that take the music into sonic realms beyond both making Abrams one of the most interesting bands in heavy music out of Denver right now.

Saturday | 10.01
What: Daniel Avery
When: 9
Where: 1134 Warehouse
Why: Daniel Avery is poducer from Bournemouth, UK whose work with the likes of synth pop artist Little Boots and nu disco project Hercules and Love Affair garnered him no small amount of cache in the world of electronic music. His latest solo album Ultra Truth is reminiscent of late 90s Underworld but more ambient, more progressive/ethereal deep house.

The Afghan Whigs in 2017, photo by Chris Cuffaro, courtesy subpop.com

Saturday | 10.01
What: The Afghan Whigs
When: 8
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Afghan Whigs have long fused R&B and rock in powerful, poetic ways since the late 80s. Early comparisons to the Replacements seem a bit obvious because of the group’s passionate performances even decades later. But there is also in its music a soulful core that offers great distillations of universal human experiences and an evocation of emotion that especially live is irresistible. The group’s 1993 album Gentlemen put it on the map nationally and internationally and even now it sounds like something fairly timeless when a lot of 90s music sounds of the period. The 2022 album How Do You Burn? feels more dark and electronic than previous records but in being so like its expanding on its core sound in a bold way that it began on 2017’s In Spades.

Monday and Tuesday | 10.03 and 10.04
What: black midi w/Quelle Chris
When: 7:30 (10.03), 8 (10.04)
Where: Fox Theatre (10.03) and Ogden Theatre (10.04)
Why: For connoisseurs of highly imaginative art rock, London’s black midi has been a go to for finding some of the most wild dynamics and musical ideas this side of Frank Zappa for many years. Its much more than its truly creative and unique guitar and bass compositions and performances its like these guys tap into various sounds in orchestrating a musical experience that exists outside normal time. Its new album Hellfire (2022) feels like a lounge jazz variety show as curated by Anthony Braxton, Zappa or Zach Hill. The group uses its hyperkinetic maximalist approach to songwriting in ways that clearly aim at producing compelling songwriting and not just as an exercise in superior musicianship. Like a Can having come up after being influenced by Women and Hella.

Monday and Tuesday | 10.03 and 10.04
What: Iceage and Earth
When: 7 (10.03) and 8:30 (10.04)
Where: The Marquis Theater (10.03) and Fox Theatre (10.04)
Why: Danish band Iceage had an immediate cult following with the release of its 2011 album New Brigade and its tour of small clubs DIY spaces including Rhinoceropolis in Denver, Colorado that year revealed a band that sat at the nexus of hardcore and moodier yet cathartic post-punk. But as the band developed its sound it grew into a brilliantly decadent art rock that might have had more sonic kinship with 80s Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and with its most recent studio offering Seek Shelter it reconciled its various creative instincts for music that had both the forcefulness of its early music and the sophistication of what came after. In September 2022 Iceage released Shake The Feeling: Outtakes & Rarities 2015-2021 including songs that could have easily have been on the records of that time period but which didn’t quite fit in and showcased how Iceage had absorbed power pop and the noise rock of the likes of Dinosaur Jr. Also on this tour are doom legends Earth whose visionary heavy blues psychedelia has been an influence on most doom bands since its own 1989 inception whether they know it or not. Its soundscapes and use of drone has an almost ritualistic, mystical quality that utilizes slow, hypnotic progressions to build dramatic tension and release in a way that draws you further into emotional spaces maybe you had shuffled to the side in the headlong pace of everyday life but are better off experiencing and processing in the ways Earth seems so adept at facilitating with its gorgeous layers of psychedelic heaviness.

Wednesday | 10.05
What: Ceremony w/Spy, Restraining Order and Candy Apple
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Ceremony was considered one of the great bands of 2000s hardcore with its 2008 album Still Nothing Moves You standing as one of the most potent examples of that music of that decade. But its own musical ideas were progressing rapidly out of hardcore and 2010’s Rohnert Park contained experiments in sound and songwriting that were well out of the hardcore frame. Zoo (2012), though, had Ceremony well into post-punk territory and though its tour for the album had the band in high, ferocious form it was a fascinating contrast with music that seemed to be more in tune with its atmospheric potential rather than merely the visceral. Since then the group has gone straight into arty almost glam rock territory with its most recent album In the Spirit World Now (2019) making Ceremony a band that is forging a creative path that is yielding fascinating results with every release.

Broken Social Scene, photo by Richmond Lam

Wednesday | 10.05
What: Broken Social Scene w/Jasmyn
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Broken Social Scene is a bit of a supergroup making glorious and epic art pop whose membership has included musicians from Do Make Say Think, Metric, Feist, Stars and other notable Canadian musical projects. For this tour the group is celebrating the twenty year anniversary of the release of its monumental 2002 album You Forgot It In People. While orchestral in its arrangements the album’s lush sound felt like an intimate exploration of personal aspirations, identity and culture through an eclectic run of songs that could be awash in nostalgic ambient pop haze and urgent rock songs that harnessed an exuberant energy that seemed to drive the whole album underneath its inspired moments of reverie. The original record featured eleven members and its tour at that time delivered on the seemingly daunting promise of the recorded album and this is a chance to catch that moment in the group’s development one more time.

Thursday | 10.06
What: Night Moves w/Free Music
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Night Moves is a rock band from Minneapolis that has been honing its blend of power pop, psychedelia and Americana since forming in 2010. Across three albums and now two EPs Night Moves’ eclectic style with one leg in modern American indie rock and the other in soul and R&B has evolved and refined to produce the expansive and bright yet introspective moods you hear in its 2022 EP The Redacted. Its its flow of melodic layers and sonic detail one might hear the touch of the more cosmic end of Gram Parsons and Spirit as well as some resonance with what more modern artists like Whitney and Foxygen have done in melding a classic songwriting sensibility and modern use of electronic production in achieving a depth of atmosphere but accomplished with more tangible instrumentation.

Thursday | 10.06
What: Pusha T w/IDK
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: On his fourth studio album It’s Almost Dry, rapper Pusha T puts his usual commanding string of bars over beats that are a mixture of inspired sampling and deeply evocative and atmospheric melodies. The title of the album he said in an interview with Rolling Stone references the making of a painting and thus an album as it’s being finalized. But also drug culture when you have to wait on the product to dry before it can be distributed. And the album walks those boundaries in terms of them and metaphors brought to bear. Once again, like Pusha T’s 2018 masterpiece Daytona, this new record sounds like a journey through the labyrinth of aspirations and personal ghosts that require creativity and boldness to navigate without getting sunk by the trappings of the former and the enervating power of the latter.

Friday and Saturday | 10.7 and 10.8
What: Viagra Boys w/Shame and Kills Birds
When: 7:30 (10.7) and 7 (10.8)
Where: The Fox Theatre (10.7) and The Gothic Theatre (10.8)
Why: Viagra Boys are a Swedish rock band that has defied easy categorization going back to its audacious 2018 debut album Street Worms. Like if a post-punk band embraced the more glam and art rock roots of that music while giving it a raw edge. With the release of 2022’s Cave World the group seems to have let go of any stylistic restraints that have guided it in established directions. The brash and irrepressible energy heard on the record has garnered comparisons by critics to Iggy Pop and one would presume to IDLES. But Viagra Boys more than dabble in electronics and “Troglodyte” sounds like Devo pushed through a garage rock lens. And live Viagra Boys have earned the Iggy-esque reputation with exuberant performances that sound and feel like they could collapse or go off in unexpected directions at any moment. Co-headliners Shame from South London have had a similar creative trajectory as Viagra Boys. Its own first album, Songs of Praise, also dropped in 2018 to great acclaim. But its much-anticipated sophomore album Drunk Tank Pink more than delivered when it was available in mid-January 2021 during a period when live music was basically at a standstill due to the pandemic but anyone that pre-ordered the record got to see a stream of an intimate and emotionally stirring performance of the songs not only revealing how Drunk Tank Pink was a leap into new directions for Shame but how it was able to take its own raw energy and channel that into sensitive and nuanced yet powerful takes on the sense of desperation and and pent up frustration with nowhere to go but plug those feelings into a rare depth of personal reflection, in particular the track “Human, For a Minute” and its perfect and poetic encapsulation of a kind of emotional solidarity based in universal human experiences that anyone can identify even beyond the circumstances of the enforced life limitations of the pandemic and the emergent sense of personal dignity discovered by most people that had been covered over by the headlong momentum of the fraud that was “normal life.” And if two of the best bands out of the wide realm of post-punk wasn’t enough Kills Birds from Los Angeles is a noise rock trio whose own scorching and unrelenting songwriting has garnered great critical acclaim and fans like Kim Gordon and Dave Grohl. Its 2021 album Married is obviously informed by music from the grunge era but also oddly reminds one of the youthful energetic outburst of Minor Threat combined with the elegant and gritty moodiness of Live Skull.

Friday | 10.7
What: Suzanne Vega
When: 7
Where: Boulder Theater
Why: The a capella recording of “Tom’s Diner” was used as a test track during the development of the MP3 digital audio format. The track was at the end of Suzanne Vega’s 1987 breakthrough album Solitude Standing, bookending one of the most sensitive and knowing and clever records of the 1980s with “Luka,” a song about child abuse, an unlikely mainstream radio hit. But Vega’s idiosyncratic, folk rock songs had already made waves in college radio and would continue to do so long after the mainstream no longer seemed to shine its light on the talented songwriter’s career. Vega perhaps became known to a wide audience with her song “Left of Center” as it appeared on the soundtrack to the 1986, John Hughes penned coming of age film Pretty In Pink.

Saturday | 10.8
What: Verhoffst, KNEIFFII, Laudanum_quilt, ET Mac & the Alien, DJ URSA and No More Cheering
When: 6, $10 cover
Where: Glob
Why: This is fundraiser for Puerto Rican mutual aid group Brigada Solidaria del Oeste featuring some of Denver’s finest industrial noise and experimental sound sculptors.

Saturday | 10.8
What: Kid Bloom w/Wizthemc and All Things Blue
When: 8
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Kid Bloom’s style of indie pop seems to be inspired by the sort of chillwave and hip-hop production that The Weeknd has perfected up to this point. But his new album Highway sounds like an introspective journey (street sounds included) through a mood that feels like he’s trying to leech out a malaise and spiritual exhaustion that sits deep inside through a radically self honest look at his own ways of conducting himself and his life from often subconscious and almost always else unexamined motivations as tied with life experiences that can tumble by you into a dark place in your head left neglected in the headlong pace in modern life. In the song “Cowboy” alone when Kid Bloom sings “when desperation pulls me closer” its obvious that he’s become very familiar with a deep place in his own psychology and took the opportunity to explore that territory in his music with an aim to soothing and letting those personal demons go. It’s just that the lush synth work and production like an even more luminous early Twin Shadow makes these feelings seem possible to process with success.

Saturday and Sunday | 10.08 and 10.09
What: DaiKaiju w/TripLip
When: 7
Where: The Squire Lounge (10.08) and 715 Club (10.09)
Why: DaiKaiju is the legendary surf and psychedelic kabuki theater and kaiju themed rock band from Alabama. Its shows involve fire and wildly energetic performances and a transformation of the venue into a ritual space of fun and rock and roll myth come to life. Opening the show as usual is Denver dup TripLip whose fusion of experimental prog, weirdo jazz, funk and punk with elements of performance art is the perfect complement to the strangeness that is a DaiKaiju show.

Psychedelic Porn Crumpets, phot by Matt Puccinelli

Saturday and Sunday | 10.08 and 10.09
What: Psychedelic Porn Crumpets w/Acid Dad
When: 8 (10.08) and 7 (10.09)
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Psychedelic Porn Crumpets from Perth, Australia have certainly chosen a surrealistic and absurd name for the band but it’s one that you don’t forget despite its three words and multiple syllables. It makes no sense and therefore doesn’t automatically suggest an aesthetic or a sound other than something colorful and certainly its brand of fuzzed out guitar atmospherics and sublime vocal melodies swimming in a wavy, expansive dynamic embodies what modern psychedelia should be more like. Its 2022 album Night Gnomes has song titles worthy of Black Moth Super Rainbow and an unabashed playful trippiness in its tonal choices and the visual representation of the music akin to early Mercury Rev. Also on the bill is the surprisingly original and not at all style victim psychedelic rock band Acid Dad whose elegant compositions are enveloping and hypnotic with irresistible whorls of transporting soundscaping.

Sunday | 10.09
What: Cyclo-Sonic w/The Valve
When: 1
Where: Wax Trax
Why: Cyclo-Sonic is an always forceful post-grunge punk band comprised of members of local punk legends like Rok Tots, The Choosey Mothers, Fluid and Frantix. The quartet recently released its most recent album Everything Went Stupid on Big Neck Records and may be available at the show ahead of the official October 21, 2022 release date.

Melt-Banana in 2011, photo by Tom Murphy

Sunday | 10.09
What: Melt-Banana w/Quits and Wiff
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Melt-Banana is a ferocious ball of sounds and ideas that seem to erupt in multiple directions at the same time live on stage so that its manic energy and dazzling array of noises fits nicely in the realm of noise rock, grindcore, glitchcore, math-y hardcore and really like no other band even from the very rich world of Japanese experimental rock. That the group was inspired by the raw originality of the bands on the No New York compilation as the baseline starting point in being able to carve out its own sound should come as no surprise. Quits from Denver might be simply described as noise rock as well but there is something also primal in its angular and unpredictable musical and emotional trajectories that makes it sound dangerous from the beginning of a song to the end.

Sunday | 10.09
What: MAITA w/Allison Lorenzen and Moodlighting
When: 7
Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Club
Why: MAITA released one of the most poignant and astute set of songs on the deleterious effects of overstimulation through the bombardment of information and the demands of that constant flow on psyche with I Just Want To Be Wild For You (2022). But the songs hit deeply personal notes with a gentleness of spirit that also conveys a coherence of creative vision that comes from serial realizations about the world around you. MAITA’s pairing of exquisite vocal melodies and evocative counter melodies in the music lend the music an intimacy of tone that feels like MAITA has given voice to some of your own anxieties and discovered a way to make them explicable and easier to untangle. Allison Lorenzen has created some of the most compellingly and emotionally stirring ambient and experimental folk of recent years out of Denver. Moodlighting’s blend of shoegaze and dream pop is delicate and vulnerable and in being so draws you into its poetic commentary on life in this tentative and confusing era.

Sunday | 10.09
What: Front 242 and The Revolting Corpse
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: This is the final North American tour for the foundational, influential and legendary EBM band Front 242 who despite some of their martial sounds and hard industrial visual aesthetic have made songs about the human condition with humor and insight. The Revolting Corpse is a bit of an industrial music super group that for this iteration, the last of its kind, will include founding Revolting Cocks members Paul Barker and Chris Connelly.

Kaelan Mikla i 2019, photo by Tom Murphy

Monday | 10.10
What: Kaelan Mikla w/Kanga and Midnight Marionettes
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Icelandic post-punk trio Kaelan Mikla returns to Denver following the release of its 2021 album Undir Köldum Norðurljósum. Its suffusion of the otherworldly and ethereal into its primal sound gives its melodies a visceral quality that renders its signature styles in cool colors and tonal stark yet bleeding contrasts. The sublime and the feral in its vocals playing off each other gives it the flavor of a Viking epic that wouldn’t be out of place in a future show about Vikings that are versed in magic and mysticism.

Tuesday | 10.11
What: The Mars Volta w/Teri Genderbender
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: The Mars Volta is the influential art rock band that formed after the split of the also impactful arty post-hardcore group At the Drive-In. The Mars Volt combined the angular dynamics and raw power and energy of punk with the creative ambition and histrionics that informed Led Zeppelin and the progressive rock of King Crimson. With a new, self-titled album out that reveals an outfit that has pared back some of its inspired, sprawling workouts of politico-mystical poetry and elongated phrasings in favor of songs that cut with the intro and get into the heart of the songwriting and seem to have incorporated more straightforward pop songcraft and gentleness of textures into its soundscapes. It doesn’t sound like a group of artists that are trying to recapture previous glory but pushing forward toward musical ideas that may once again be ahead of the tastes of previous fans.

Tuesday | 10.11
What: Otoboke Beaver w/Cheap Perfume
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Otoboke Beaver from Kyoto, Japan takes cultural references, tropes and frustrations and shreds them and reassembles them in a surrealistic yet cathartic bursts of mutant punk rock fury. That this process is set to hypermanic melodies that are undeniably catchy and even infectious is a testament to their deep resonance with anyone that has had to tangle with the alienation of modern hypercapitalism and the way it warps culture and consciousness unless you make a break with it and turn it in on itself the way Otoboke Beaver has done not just with that particular brand of psychological conditioning but also with the baked in misogyny of Japanese and Western culture. But this band makes it seem fun and revolutionary by virtue of making that critique seem exciting. None more so than on its 2022 album Super Champon. It’ll be in good company with the radical yet immediately relatable subject matter and the energy of Colorado Springs punk band Cheap Perfume who mince no words in their deconstruction and dismantling of sexist tropes.

Tuesday | 10.11
What: Superorganism w/Blood Cultures
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf
Why: Superorganism’s 2022 album World Wide Pop is another exploration of the outer edges of where accessible pop song can occupy in its ever-expanding aesthetic. From the beginning it has a production style and pacing that feels like constant weirdo advertisement for some strange variety show with a level of sampling and manufacturing of samples nearly on par with a hip-hop record of old. To merely dub what the band does as psychedelic pop doesn’t do justice to how genuinely strangely its songs come across. Like if Elton John co-wrote an album with Cut Copy as produced by Charli XCX inspired to make an album that tapped into the cheesiest of 1980s synth pop and turned it inside out. It’s the kind of music that washes through your brain and lingers for longer than average with so many unusual song ideas it might take your brain a minute or ten to catch up and appreciate what you’ve just heard.

Why:

Tuesday | 10.11
What: Kris Baha w/Mvtant, Modern Devotion and DJs Moody and Wngdu
When: 9
Where: Glob
Why: Kris Baha got his start in the Melbourne, Australia club scene with the industrial weekly event Power Station. But these days Baha calls Berlin home but his crafting of dark, hard techno with a leg in EBM has been on a steady arc of development that these days intersects aesthetically with the likes of darkwave artists likes Kontravoid and hardware-based industrial techno like Mvtant who is also on the bill and Modern Devotion, which is the techno project of Adam Rojo from post-punk group Voight.

Wednesday | 10.12
What: Alex G w/Barrie https://www.ogdentheatre.com/events/detail/434815
When: 7
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Alexander Giannascoli aka Alex G is one of the most gifted pop songwriters of his generation with a respectable track record of orchestral indie folk that is sharply observed and widely eclectic and inventive in production and swapping and collaging styles. This unorthodox aesthetic is very much to the fore on the new Alex G record God Save the Animals where the songwriter free employs processing on all sounds and at times casts his voice in different modes including some of the only cool use of autotune in “Cross the Sea” where he also uses surreal and bizarre tones to establish a mood of resigned melancholy. But the whole record sounds like an exercise in fascinating experiments making catching him on this tour look promising in getting to see a lot of the new material live.

Thursday | 10.13
What: Clutch w/Helmet, Quicksand and JD Pinkus
When: 6
Where: Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Over thirty years into its career Clutch continues to defy easy categorization in being too close to the spirited drive of punk to be strictly metal, too sludgy and groove oriented in its riffs to be punk. Too charged with momentum to truly be a “stoner rock” band and too willing to experiment with its core sound and ideas to stay stuck in the same musical rut for decades because something worked with commercial success years ago resulting in an ossified style. Its new album Sunrise on Slaughter Beach doesn’t reinvent Clutch’s aesthetic so much as show how the band still knows how to write hard rock with a clarity and economy of style without compromising its ability to stretch out and get weird, the title track being a prime example. Also on the bill are noteworthy practitioners of sludgy heaviness from the alternative rock era with Helmet and Quicksand who on their own would be worth catching live. And JD Pinkus who some may know for his tenure in Butthole Surfers on Honky.

Thursday | 10.13
What: The Peculiar Pretzelmen, Vampire Squids From Hell and Plastic Rakes
When: 8
Where: Jester’s Palace
Why: The Peculiar Pretzelmen from Los Angels is a band that took the challenge of making its own instruments sometimes parted out from other instruments or from everyday objects in order to craft music so idiosyncratic yet accessible one wonders how there hasn’t already been an eccentric documentary about the band. Musically its somewhere betwixt Bob Log III, Flat Duo Jets, a steam punk version of Dead Moon and Pere Ubu. Fitting enough that psychedelic, noisy surf rock weirdos Vampire Squids From Hell are opening as are prog pop trio Plastic Rakes.

Thursday | 10.13
What: Om w/Zombi
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Om might be described as ritual doom as its songs combine sonic elements you might more readily associate with devotional music. Compound time signatures that make the music resolve in ways that sink into the mind and move you in ways that feel like they’re coming from a primal place and processed drones that serve as a meditative preparation and backdrop to the direct action of each song. With the high volume of the live setting Om’s music comes off both cosmic and channeling the energies of an ancient and largely forgotten mother civilization to those we know now. Pittsburgh’s Zombi is perhaps best known for its true fusion of heavy rock with synthesizer music in crafting music that at times might remind one of the psychedelic progressive rock of Goblin who composed music not only for Dawn of the Dead (named Zombi in Italy from which this project borrows its own moniker) but multiple Dario Argento horror classics. Chances are this performance will feature that end of the group’s music. The duo’s most recent album is Zombi & Friends Vol. 1 which is a set of fairly faithful covers of songs by The Eagles, Alan Parsons Project, Dionne Warwick, Eddie Rabbit, The Doobie Brothers and more soft rock and pop artists whose work primarily emerged prominently in the 1970s. Somehow it works and the record itself includes appearances from members of The Sword, Trans Am, Pinkish Black, Zao and others. Maybe you’ll get to see some of that too.

Friday | 10.14
What: Honey Blazer vinyl release w/Body and Jasper Adkins
When: 8
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Denver’s Honey Blazer is the kind of band that seems to have unabashedly come out of that flood of indie psych and 1970s folk rock revival of the 2010s. But like many of those bands at least the songwriting is deeply attentive to craft and tight performances that give its sound great range and nuance. Its debut album Lookin’ Up has an elegance and poetry of composition that transcends any of the aforementioned considerations like if a group of guys took threads of the Dead and The Velvet Underground at their most pop and countrified and absorbed late 60s Flying Burrito Brothers along with Joni Mitchell of that same era and infused it with a touch of Bob Dylan with The Band and Fairport Convention but all translated through the lens of modern sensibility. Like what indie Americana wants to be but rarely achieves.

Friday | 10.14
What: Maude Latour w/Charlie Hickey
When: 8
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Since 2019’s Starsick, Maude Latour has been releasing a series of inventive pop EPs including her latest, 001 from 2022. Her take on indie R&B and dream pop has an layer of complexity with thoughtful personal observations and her willingness to experiment with the composition of her beats and melodies freely borrowing from experimental electronic music and vocal processing. At times her music is reminiscent of what Alice Glass has been doing since going solo but Latour’s vocal style is very much her own and wide-ranging and inventively eclectic.

Guerilla Toss performs at Lost Lake on October 15, 2022, photo by Vanessa Castro

Saturday | 10.15
What: Guerilla Toss w/Forty Feet Tall and Hex Cassette
When: 8
Where: Lost Lake
Why: For the past decade Guerilla Toss has been pushing the envelope of the fusion of experimental electronic music and art rock. From its artwork to its music videos and stage show, Guerilla Toss has always put a personal touch to how it engages with a potential audience. In putting forth an idiosyncratic creative vision the band has in its way encouraged anyone encountering its music to forge their own path whether as fellow creatives or someone just getting through life and resisting a beige compliance with a standard issue existence. The latest Guerilla Toss album Famously Alive is somehow simultaneously its most adventurous and accessible album to date with songs that sound like they’re coming from the edges of dreams and expressive of a spirit of hopefulness and acceptance, of a will to use imagination to explore the potentials life has to offer if your existence wasn’t limited by practical considerations.

Church Fire in 2021, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 10.15
What: Church Fire album release w/Xadie James Orchestra, Dragon Drop and Sell Farm
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Wildly energetic and intense industrial dance trio Church Fire is celebrating the release of its album puppy god on Witch Cat Records with this show sharing the stage with like-minded weirdos and comrades in deconstructing popular musical styles and infusing it with a social analysis that is both inspirational and in which its easy to get swept up in the moment. The new album itself is like a science fiction novel in which one imagines a better future in spite of the time of troubles we’re experiencing at this moment. It’s an embrace of a perhaps foolish hope that the collective us can endure the onslaught of authoritarian politics and culture and outlast its momentum.

Saturday | 10.15
What: Metric w/Secret Machines
When: 7
Where: Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Keeping your band going for twenty-four years is challenging enough but even more so is to sustain a band with some artistic ambition and inventiveness across a similar period but that’s what is obvious from Metric’s 2022 album Formentera. The dream-like atmospherics and lush soulfulness of the music is still there. But this time around, perhaps more so than on previous albums, Metric takes aim at some of the serious issues that are coming crashing into human civilization that are impacting us all in a direct and personal way. The band is calling this tour the “Doomscroller Tour” after the first song on the album and how the very common habit of scrolling through social media and the news and being confronted with the horror, oppression, violence, despair, deprivation, disaster and much more that has come to be considered the norm and a generalized dissociation seems like a feature of modern life as a coping mechanism that can be psychologically paralyzing when it becomes a generalized state of mind. The album in its grand vistas of beauty and menace aims to disrupt that process with some choice commentary and music that inspires movement and challenges complacency in listeners as well as in the creation of the songs that seem to mark a new era for the long-running band.

Meet Me @ The Altar, photo by Lindsey Byrnes

Saturday | 10.15
What: Meet Me @ The Altar w/MUNA at Boulder Theater
When: 7
Where: Boulder Theater
Why: Synth pop trio MUNA could have gone a different route since two of the three members are guitarists but having met in college at the University of South California they decided on taking a different route. And the result is an electronic pop sound with great momentum in its rhythms and vocal harmonies that soulful and vital. Opening act Meet Me @ The Altar is a pop-punk group from Florida that is really combining musical styles in an exuberant mix that takes that emotionally expansive and open and self-affirming spirit of pop-punk and blends it with joyful pop production for a sound that is genuinely exciting and uplifting. Earlier in the year the group released an acoustic version of its 2021 EP Model Citizen.

Sunday | 10.16
What: Taleen Kali w/Tuff Bluff, Galleries and Princess Dewclaw
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Taleen Kali spent the early part of the 2010s in the experimental, exuberant garage/shoegaze outfit TÜLIPS. But for the past few years with the project under her own name, Kali has been establishing her own sound that draws on some of those early influences but might be considered in the realm of post-punk, raw psychedelic rock and dream pop in a vital fusion of elements. Her forthcoming album Flower of Life is an emotional and musical journey from a fiery and direct energy to something more contemplative and tranquil. This tour may feature a good deal of that material before you can hear it in full in early 2023 and the group has a certain forceful and charismatic quality that makes the music hit harder than one might expect. Also on the bill is s Sarah Fischer’s latest project Tuff Bluff and noisy and political post-punk group Princess Dewclaw.

Sunday | 10.16
What: Molly Nilsson w/Water on the Thirsty Ground and French Kettle Station
When: 8
Where: Glob
Why: Molly Nilsson is a Swedish born electronic pop artist now based in Berlin. Since 2007 she has been creating a rich body of work including ten albums starting with These Things Take Time (2008) which yielded her first widely recognized single “Hey Moon” and covered by experimental electronic artist John Maus on his 2011 album We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves. The introspective sounds and luminous melodies with measured yet accented beats of Nilsson’s early work and her poetically illustrative lyrics brought to the songs a mystique that has endured throughout the songwriter’s career. Her embrace of a lo-fi aesthetic and organic noise in her songs also gives the music a sense of immediacy and intimacy that other artists at her level of accomplishment, development and influence might have chosen to edit out in pursuit of a kind of fictional purity. This core humanity to Nilsson’s work is one of its perhaps often unspoken appeal and it helps to ground some of the heady concepts she infuses into her lyrics. There is a political element in much of her music that explores concepts of power, our notions of identity and the foundation of what we aspire to achieve and do with our lives and how that is so often driven by the prevailing economic system controlled by the interests of elites until we learn to disentangle our dreams and psychology generally from the ongoing process of commodifying every aspect of our lives. This examination always seems to be carried out in a compassionate and imaginative way and never comes across in didactic fashion. Her 2022 album Extreme brings together Nilsson’s various impulses and instincts as a uniquely creative musician who imbues accessible pop songs with rich conceptual content that most directly yet not explicitly explores the place and role of power in the world and how it manifests in society and in our own consciousness and how we can challenge the less savory aspects of it in the world and in our own hearts. It’s a thematically deep record that works on the level of a poignant social critique and as pure pop songcraft. It is yet another chapter in Nilsson’s ever-evolving artistic journey and one worth taking in from beginning to end. This marks her first performance in Colorado.

Saturday and Sunday | 10.15 and 10.16
What: The Wrecks w/CARR
When: 7 both nights
Where: The Black Sheep (10.15) and Fox Theatre (10.16)
Why: The Wrecks are a pop band from Los Angeles, California that formed in 2015 when Nick Anderson and Aaron Kelley put their pop-punk band Coastbound on hiatus in favor of a more straight ahead pop project they would call The Wrecks. Though technically more of an alternative rock band the pop sensibility of what The Wrecks have put into the world across its two albums including the 2022 offering Sonder is undeniable even though one is reminded of the better end of late 90s alternative rock with some taking of those threads further and genre bending in the modern mode of blurring genre lines to keep the sound from getting stale and aging better rather than getting pigeonholed to a particular era of music.

Monday | 10.17
What: King Princess w/Em Beihold https://www.missionballroom.com/event/428147-mission-ballroom-denver-tickets
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: For her sophomore album Hold On Baby, King Princess (aka Mikaela Straus) dispenses with the pretense of pretending everything is okay or going to be okay as one often hears in pop music. She also leaned into an eclectic and instrumentally rich songwriting and recording process that somehow also didn’t hamper how raw the record feels because it is artfully truthful about the struggle of dealing with the world as we have it and if you’re a touring musician that depends on live music and the industry for your livelihood the past three years and really much longer have been challenging as evidenced by Santigold’s recent statement on why she canceled her upcoming tour. Santigold, a very established and respected artist. Straus captures that moment in multiple ways on the new record and the fact that the late, great Taylor Hawkins played on the pointed social critique of “Let Us Die” is particularly poignant. Seems that song might be hard to play live but it’s such a powerful song hopefully Straus doesn’t skimp on it for this tour.

Wednesday | 10.19
What: L7 – Bricks Are Heavy 30th Anniversary tour w/FEA
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: L7 benefited from the alternative rock explosion of the early 90s without really sounding much like any of the more popular styles. Its mix of metal and punk with a irreverent sense of humor and ferocious energy paired with sensitive takes on subjects that might not be obvious from the band’s image as hard rocking hellions but a deep dive into its catalog reveals some choice moments of poignant character portraits and social commentary against war, sexism, abuse and psychological turmoil. Its 1992 album Bricks Are Heavy catapulted the band briefly into mainstream radio and certainly stations catering to the alternative music format at a key time when the music industry was in disarray in trying to keep up with the flood of music rock and otherwise becoming popular beyond what was already calculated to perform well in a commercial sense. Bricks Are Heavy yielded at least two stone classics of the alternative era with “Shitlist” and “Pretend We’re Dead” but you’ll get to see probably the whole album live for this show.

Brujeria in October 2016, photo by Tom Murphy

Wednesday | 10.19
What: Napalm Death w/Brujeria and Clusterfux
When: 6
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Napalm Death is one of the foundational bands of grindcore but its music imbued with always on point political and socially critical content. It also has to be admitted that Napalm Death doesn’t just have brutal, noisy music, it’s catchy and isn’t short on hooks and melody for one of the bands who has a reputation for pointed and electrifyingly challenging music. Brujeria is also a sort of death metal and grindcore band that has a wicked sense of humor and political commentary couched in the character of some kind of revolutionary drug gang writing songs in Spanish about illicit substances, Satanism, the occult and populist politics aimed at authoritarian impulses. Clusterfux is one of the absolute classic Denver skate punk and hardcore bands still in operation since 1995 and still putting on a spirited live show.

Pink Lady Monster in July 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Thursday | 10.20
What: Antibroth w/Supreme Joy, Pink Lady Monster and Endless Nameless
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Sometimes an all local bill can be a bunch of the same thing or not all excellent bands but fortunately that’s not the case for this show. Endless Nameless blurs the line completely between math rock, emo and death metal in an impressive display of musical chops with an equally impressive emotional range. Supreme Joy’s lo-fi psychedelic garage inflected post-punk sounds like something that had to have come out in Los Angeles’ weirdo art punk world of the early 80s but having landed in the 2020s absorbing the influence of decades of experimental pop. To say its music is reminiscent of Savage Republic gone psychedelic pop Americana or The Feelies having done the same might be a bit much but it gives you a sense of what you’re in for. Pink Lady Monster appears to have skipped trendy sounds of the past decade and crafted a deeply imaginative style of music that is rooted in more left field rock but comes off like an indie pop version of Broadcast and thoroughly entrancing because of that. Antibroth is definitely in the broad galaxy of post-punk but freely associating ideas from No Wave, math rock and noise rock into the mix. Like they grew up listening to a lot of Protomartyr, Pere Ubu, Palm, Lithics and the Contortions but decided to make their own mutant version of the kinds of sounds that leaked into their brain in a society in which we’re constantly bombarded by content and doing something different was one way to be free.

Saturday | 10.22
What: Juliet Mission w/Plague Garden, SORROWS and DJ Katastrophy
When: 9
Where: Broadway Roxy
Why: Juliet Mission are still a bit of a secret great modern shoegaze band and out of Denver including current and former members of jazz-inflected dream pop rock band Sympathy F. This might be the first show for SORROWS, a downtempo duo with beautifully orchestrated soundscapes and deeply emotionally expressive songs that seem like a cathartic expression of just what the name of the band suggests without wallowing overlong in the dark end of that as the music is ultimately about embracing the broad spectrum of experiences life presents us. Plague Garden bridge the gap between death rock inflected post-punk and synth infused New Wave and full disclosure the author of this piece plays second guitar in the group.

Saturday | 10.22
What: Spacey Jane
When: 8
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Spacey Jane’s 2022 sophomore album Here Comes Everybody is like the catharsis of the depression, anxiety and uncertainty everyone with any level of sensitivity has undergone in the last few years with of course the pandemic (ongoing) and really for a working musician the way things already felt precarious but were amplified by the various ways the pandemic has affected the ecosystem of the music industry from independent local artists and their own way of operating to even famous, commercially successful artists and definitely artists like Spacey Jane who are in that middle tier of renown where they can play middle sized theaters internationally but touring out of Australia to the rest of the world can be a dicey proposition. Musically its lightly psychedelic pop rock style makes that exploration of life challenges directly relatable even if you’re not a musician. Songs like “Lots of Nothing” are about self-acceptance of your flawed and what you might perceive as incomplete self and “Clean My Car” and “Haircut” point out some basic everyday things we must force ourselves to do to have a scaffold out of the emotionally paralyzing end of depression.

The Jesus and Mary Chain, photo by Steve Gullick

Sunday | 10.23
What: The Jesus and Mary Chain w/Scott Von Ryper
When: 8
Where: Paramount Theatre
Why: Indeed it’s The Jesus and Mary Chain performing in a fancier theater than usual for a Denver show. The legendary band predated and completely informed the sound of shoegaze in the 90s with its mastery of both volume and fragmented melodies that still hit a sweet spot so that it could never be saccharine nor dismissed as discordant. JAMC blurred that line completely with beautiful vocal melodies, emotionally intense yet nuanced songwriting and the ability to deconstruct musical conventions while reassembling them for the modern era in a way that reconciled a pre-classic rock 1960s pop era with the sonic possibilities open to a band from the 1980s willing to not follow prevailing trends to forge a vital sound often imitated, rarely if ever equaled. There is no A Place to Bury Strangers, no My Bloody Valentine, no modern dream pop and noise rock really without the root inspiration of The Jesus and Mary Chain.

Sunday | 10.23
What: Spelling w/Ramahkhandra and BODY
When: 7
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: In a 2021 interview in Under the Radar by Jordan J. Michael, Christia “Tia” Cabral who performs as Spelling cited her favorite albums were by artists as disparate as Minnie Ripperton, Kraftwerk and Iggy Pop. That tells you a lot about the kind of music and show you’re in for if you decide to come out to this show in support of her 2021 album The Turning Wheel. It’s baroque pop with an art rock underpinning. Opening is experimental pop/performance art band BODY from Denver and the eclectic psychedelic world music inflected jazz of Denver underground greats Ramakhandra.

Sunday | 10.23
What: EXTC featuring Terry Chambers of XTC https://www.eventbrite.com/e/extc-tickets-403543699067
When: 7
Where: Soiled Dove Underground
Why: Terry Chambers was the drummer for the legendary pop/post-punk band XTC from 1972 until it stopped touring and playing live shows in 1982 though his work appeared on the 1983 XTC record Mummer. Afterward he ended up living in Australia for many years where he did session work behind the drum kit before returning to the UK and recorded an album called Great Aspirations (2017) with ex-XTC member Colin Moulding and another bandmate Steve Tilling under the project moniker TC&I. Shortly after Chambers and Tilling formed EXTC which performs classic songs by Chambers’ old band from the period in which he was an active participant. This is a rare opportunity to get to see any of this music live by one of the people who made it happen.

Monday | 10.24
What: The Chills w/Unwed Sailor
When: 7
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: The Chills are touring in support of the thirtieth anniversary of its album Soft Bomb. But regardless of the occasion it’s The Chills, the legendary New Zealand pop band whose songwriting helped to define the “Dunedin sound” branch of New Zealand rock music with jangle guitar sounds that one has to assume helped to inform what became C86 and thus indiepop as we know it. New Zealand bands rarely come through Denver much less a foundational group like The Chills whose leader Martin Phillipps has made such a deep impact on popular music his influence would make an interesting book or documentary.

Mr. Pacman in August 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Monday | 10.24
What: Bit Brigade w/Mr. Pacman and Adam Newman
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Bit Brigade performs on somewhat standard instrumentation very legit renditions of the music from various 8 and 16-bit video games. So who from Denver makes sense to open the show but Mr. Pacman whose own musical connection to video games is not so obvious except for the name and how its members dress up as characters from a long lost super hero team cartoon themed after Pacman but the music is like a fusion of punk, performance art and synth pop in a way that is intense and mysterious and always entertaining.

Tuesday | 10/25
What: Dayglow w/Ritt Momney
When: 7
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Sloan Struble of Dayglow got his start recording and producing music at eleven years old with Garageband. While still a teen he had a project called Kindred that released one self-titled album in 2016 and in that music you hear his knack for crafting electronic pop with a sense of vulnerability and self-awareness. A lot of bedroom pop is fairly lacking in production chops but even that Kindred record though fairly minimal and lo-fi demonstrates a clear working within the limitations of available resources to make something that is clearly more ambitious. So when Struble began his next project called Dayglow by the time of his second release Harmony House (2021) there is of course the creative growth but also much more development in how the music is recorded. All of that evolution as an artist can be heard and pushed further in terms of songwriting and sound palette on the 2022 album People In Motion. The blend of R&B, psychedelic pop and indie rock on the album sounds like the modern equivalent of yacht rock but with a much more expansive array of sounds and an accessible immediacy. It may sound like the opposite of a focus on the conflicted energy and tragedy of the current period in human history but having a respite from that heaviness and intensity is what you need at least once in a while and Dayglow offers that aplenty for the duration of a show or an album.

Tuesday | 10.25
What: Minuit Machine and Priest
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Minuit Machine is an industrial darkwave duo based in Paris, France. Its particular brand of brooding dance music is a modern take on EBM with soulful vocals that wouldn’t have sounded out of place in the 90s era of downtempo and trip-hop or on a The Crystal Method record. Priest includes former members of the Swedish heavy metal band Ghost but this project is not some campy prog metal. But the sense of theatrical presentation of the music is very much there including costumes. And the music is infused with a futuristic aesthetic akin to Nitzer Ebb if that band made industrial disco for cyborgs. Its 2022 sophomore album Body Machine fuses beautiful synth melodies with hard edged, almost martial rhythms like the equivalent of Kraftwerk having emerged in the world of The Terminator and operating in secret underground dance clubs for the discerning cyborg.

Peel Dream Magazine, photo by Samira Winter

Wednesday | 10.26
What: Peel Dream Magazine w/Calamity and Duck Turnstone
When: 7
Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Room
Why: Joseph Stevens has released three fine full length albums over the past few years under the moniker of Peel Dream Magazine including the 2022 record Pad. The 2018 debut album Modern Meta Physic presented a sound that had obvious musical touchstones in My Bloody Valentine, Velvet Underground and Stereolab as well as their own sources of inspiration. The hypnotic drones and fuzzy melodies over steady beats an obvious ear for crafting textural aesthetics that helped to shape the structures in the music. 2020’s Agitprop Alterna cemented Stevens’ reputation as a songwriter and artist who could combine heady atmospherics and widely dynamic music with poetic and insightful personal and cultural commentary. With Pad Stevens broke his own mold by swapping in a different sound palette including banjo, chimes, vibraphone and more extensive use of keyboards to create a softer sound that is more reminiscent of Harry Nilsson’s early 70s psychedelic pop albums and like those records there is a creative concept that runs through the album which is a journey in which Stevens is ejected from his own band, which is in most ways a solo project, and undertakes a journey to find a way back in. Though the soothingly dreamlike melodies and free weaving in elements of Bossa Nova and ambient folk gives the album an immediately palatable quality it is about the disconnect and anxieties that have careened into the general culture while taking a chance in finding ways to make connections again and to process the anxiety and trauma in a way that lands us in a better place. It reflects Stevens’ own journey from being a bit of a New York-based outsider to a member of the Los Angeles creative community. The album is worth a deep dive and allow its retro-futuristic sounds and style to sink into your brain with its therapeutic frequencies.

Eliza & The Delusionals, photo by Luke Henery

Wednesday | 10.26
What: Eliza & The Delusionals w/BODY
When: 6:30
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Australian pop band Eliza & The Delusionals release its debut full length album Now And Then in May 2022. The album came along as many have in the wake of the recent and ongoing global pandemic. The songwriting had begun in various stages of development prior to the pandemic and some prior to the group having embarked on the first leg of a big tour of North America in January and February 2020 with The Silversun Pickups. But the period of lockdown and then the prolonged time of not being able to tour with anything resembling reliability left the band with time to hone the songs and create an album that is brimming with a sense of nostalgia and reconnecting with a time in life and a time period in the early 2000s when perhaps if you were a kid in Australia or the USA, depending on life circumstances, you had the time and the ability to allow your imagination and your heart to take in experiences that stimulated both. Connecting with that headspace lending your current self the tools to navigate bringing a bit of that mindset into life today. In the fuzzy and chiming guitar work and singer Eliza Klatt’s melodious and exuberant vocals one hears an introspective articulation of a desire to liberate one self from one’s own limitations and of those imposed on you by circumstance. Opening the show is experimental psychedelic pop band BODY from Denver which includes former members of Ned Garthe Explosion but in a band that is fully embraces its chops and songwriting craft as well as its idiosyncratic sensibilities.

Thursday | 10.27
What: Turnstile w/JPEGMAFIA and Snail Mail
When: 6
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: This is a very eclectic bill of all bands from Baltimore. Lindsey Jordan as Snail Mail has been writing some of the most heartfelt and vulnerable, even raw and honest pop songs of recent years as heard perhaps most powerfully on her 2021 album Valentine. Jordan takes painful experiences and transforms them into the kind of songwriting that normalizes the struggle and the will to persevere. JPEGMAFIA is one of the most boundary pushing artists operating today whose work can generally be described as hip-hop but in his beats there is a spirit of experimentalism so that it can weave in the elements you might expect but also industrial music and noise. Turnstile manages to blend what might be described as nü metal and hardcore in a way that is incredibly accessible and subverts the tropes of those genres. Sure there’s the electronic component and aesthetic in its beats and angular guitar riffing and vocals that are melodic even in the shouting. But Turnstile delivers it with more imagination and genuine excitement than most bands coming out of those realms of music in many years.

Thursday | 10.27
What: The Chameleons w/Shadows Tranquil and Emerald Siam
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: The Chameleons are the post-punk band that emerged out of the 1980s with a unique and atmospheric guitar sound that one assumes plugged more directly into the sound of groups like Slowdive and Kitchens of Distinction and other shoegaze bands than other groups of the era. For years a version of the band that included only singer Mark Burgess from the original lineup. But this time out brilliant guitarist Reg Smithies is back in the mix so expect some of those classic Chameleons dreamlike guitar wizardry.

Dubble Trouble in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Thursday | 10.27
What: Free Music (Minneapolis), Dubble Trouble (cassette release), Yenan Form (debut performance), Goo Age (Orange Milk Records)
When: 9
Where: Glob
Why: This is going to be the kind of experimental electronic show that is part glitchcore and part that Orange Milk weirdo ambient and New Age strangeness. But it’s also the cassette release of dub and free jazz/glitch/ambient duo Dubble Trouble.

Friday | 10.28
What: Wngdu, Ray Diess, Church Fire and special guest
When: 8
Where: Jester’s Palace
Why: Denver Blood Cult is presenting this Halloween show featuring charismatic industrial dance group Church Fire who recently put out their powerful new album puppy god. Ray Diess will deliver his sincere and thought-provoking synth pop. DJ Wngdu will officiate the music outside the live music sets proper and likely a surprise guest. All at one of the weirdest newer venues in Downtown Denver.

Friday | 10.28
What: King Bee’s METAMORPHOSIS w/The Milk Blossoms (duo) and DJ Camp Love
When: 7
Where: Mercury Café
Why: King Bee is the latest project of Fox Linnea Drickey from high concept art pop band Chimney Choir. This current performance is the fifth installment of a multi-episode semi-autobiographical allegory called “Tugboat vs. Tidal Wave” and involves Greek chorus-style theater, performance art, costumes and DJ dance party afterward. Includes David and Carl from Chimney Choir and Cassidy Bacon from The Whimsy of Things/Ghost Tapes and Ben Weinrich of Dandu/Retrofette. Expect inspired and insightful storytelling and a theatrical performance unlike most things most other bands have to offer. Opening is the duo version of experimental pop band The Milk Blossoms whose music makes a true virtue of vulnerability when channeled through richly imagined songwriting.

Captured! By Robots, photo by Raymond Ahner

Friday | 10.28
What: Captured! By Robots w/Axeslasher and Valiomierda
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Captured! By Robots is a grindcore band unlike any other in that the vocalist is human (JBOT) but the musicians in the band are all robots built by JBOT after other human musicians failed him in putting together a reliable project.

Friday through Sunday | 10.28-10.30
What: Front Range Noise Fest
When: 6 p.m. each day
Where: Glob
Why: This is the closest Denver is going to get to one of the noise and experimental electronic festivals that used to happen in the Mile High City regularly. It would be too much of an undertaking to write a blurb on every artist performing but below are the dates with the artist lineups each date.
Friday Oct 28th @ Glob
Caged Grave
Mumble
Foans
A Light Among Many
Solypsis (AZ)
New Aged Karen
Night Grinder
Granular Breath (IA)
Lore
Saturday Oct 29th @ Glob
Boar (IA)
Compactor (NY)
Demonsleeper (CA)
Fleeting Breath (KY)
Ghost Dance (MI)
Man.Moth (MI)
Scuzz Nun (WA)
Fresh Bait
Maltreatment
Many Blessings
MPW
Sunday Oct 30th @ Glob
Rush Falknor (IL)
Magical Mind (IL)
0rgan
Sounding
Gate Fog
May Leitz
Bunny Showstopper
Staff of Loss
Herpes Hideaway

Saturday | 10.29
What: Scream Screen with Carbon Dioxide Orchestra
When: 5:30 p.m.
Where: Sie Film Center
Why: Carbon Dioxide Ensemble (CO2 Ensemble) is an avant-garde trio from Denver composed of the electronic music composer and the Mile High City’s premier Theremin player Victoria Lundy, her husband and mathematician Thomas Lundy and fellow practitioner of the electronic music arts Mark Mosher whose work in electronic music technology and visual synthesis has been a part of local music and art culture for over a decade. The three met through Mosher’s Rocky Mountain Synth Meet-Up events around 2012 where enthusiasts of that technology and methods for utilizing it in making music would meet up to network and share their passion for synthesizers generally. Shortly into their friendship the Lundys helped to organize an event called Concrete Mixer that has happened a handful of times over the past eight or nine years and a showcase for musique concrète, a type of music composition pioneered by French composer Pierre Schaeffer in the early 1940s with that term coined by Schaeffer in 1948. Those theoretical principles Schaeffer put into practice attracted the interest of composers Pierre Henry, Edgard Varèse, Iannis Xenakis, Karlheinz Stockhausen and others including a popularizer of the art form with one of Schaeffer’s students, Jean-Michel Jarre. The technique of manipulating recorded sound can be heard in looping techniques and the use of samples. CO2 Ensemble hearken back to the earlier method but utilize unconventional sound sources including a large, copper heart that Thomas Lundy rubs with pieces of dry ice to generate frequencies that Mosher processes to enhance and render into different musical forms. Victoria Lundy playing Theremin utilizes one of the oldest electronic music technologies having been patented by Leon Theremin in 1928 with a device that is controlled without physical contact by the performer. Everyone has heard one if they’ve watched any 1950s science fiction film with a spooky soundtrack. Working in tandem the CO2 Ensemble generate highly evocative compositions that suggest textures and primal emotional experiences. Victoria Lundy co-founded what was called the Carbon Dioxide Orchestra in the mid-90s employing similar methods but with less emphasis on the electronic production end and in the 2000s and 2010s she was the Theremin player in experimental pop band The Inactivists who are currently, what else, inactive. The Carbon Dioxide Orchestra concept she revived when Concrete Mixer started up. Mosher was the keyboard player for New Wave cover band Head Full of Zombies based in Colorado Springs from 1989-2003 before branching out into making his own music. The group’s current performance will be the live musical portion of Noche de Terror, a double feature of Rubén Galindo Jr’s Cemetery of Terror (1985) and Don’t Panic (1987) presented by Scream Screen creator and host Theresa Mercado. The trio has a shared affection for B science fiction and horror and cult movies as well as the musical avant-garde and their piece prior to the film screening suits well the Halloween season and the films at hand.

Saturday | 10.29
What: Julian Street Nightmare, The Savage Blush and Voight
When: 8 p.m.
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Julian Street Nightmare is a post-punk band from Denver whose sound draws not just on recent darkwave but surf rock and psychedelia. But its songwriting has developed into its own flavor that has a freshness and intensity colored by a moodiness and energy that lends it an edge of unpredictability. The Savage Blush is a local psychedelic garage rock band. Voight bridges the gap between dark, industrial post-punk and techno with a pointed yet self-effacing sense of humor.

Saturday | 10.29
What: Pinkshift w/Jigsaw Youth and Yasmin Nur
When: 8
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Baltimore’s Pinkshift recently released its debut full-length album Love Me Forever. The record sounds like a lifetime of frustration and processing trauma and oppression put into songs that sound like something Sleater-Kinney might have put out had its members come up a couple of decades later and influenced by the riot grrrl bands that existed prior to and in parallel with S-K as well as early 2000s post-hardcore and emo. There is an irresistible emotional vitality and joy of release of pent up feeling on the record and a directly relatable yearning for a life in a world where you can live free of the yoke of a pervasive authoritarian patriarchal culture. Also on the bill is NYC’s Jigsaw Youth who last came through Denver as an opener for art noise metal group SASAMI. It felt like seeing a band that absorbed the irreverent humor and scorching guitar anthemics of L7 and Betty Blowtorch in finding a true fusion of punk and metal that isn’t rooted in crossover or metalcore. Feral and electrifying stuff.

White Rose Motor Oil, photo courtesy the artists

Sunday | 10.30
What: Smokestack Relics w/White Rose Motor Oil
When: 1 p.m.
Where: Wax Trax
Why: Smokestack Relics are a bluesy Americana duo whose vagabond honky tonk aesthetic that seems obviously influenced by Tom Waits, likely a bit of Hasil Adkins is in there and Scott H. Biram. But the presentation is so eccentric and energetic its definitely not mere imitation. White Rose Motor Oil somehow makes a kind of Americana that isn’t tied to any particular strain of the Colorado variety and for that alone always worth a lisen. But its shows have a warm energy and its music is more akin to country punk-esque bands like Lone Justice and The Beat Farmers. Its beautifully atmospheric 2021 album Oh Lucretia was recently re-released and on cassette.

Monday | 10.31
What: Vision Video w/Radio Scarlet, Redwing Blackbird and Witchhands
When: 8
Where: HQ
Why: Vision Video is a post-punk band based out of Athens, Georgia whose self-styled Goth pop is infused with gorgeous melodic hooks and emotionally raw and honest lyrics. Visually the band looks like what you might imagine a Goth band from a movie might look like with the appropriate make-up and sartorial flair. But there is something darker and different yet also welcoming about that appearance and in performance, reflecting the ethos of the members of Video Vision who recognize the band and fan dynamic as being one of community. There is disarming earnestness in the songwriting coupled with a clear sense of humor and self-awareness in how Video Vision conduct themselves as people that signals an approachable quality that doesn’t undermine the serious and meaningful content in what the band is putting into its art. In recent years frontman Dusty Gannon has been releasing videos on the Video Vision TikTok in which he adopts the persona of “Goth Dad” who presents information about the Goth subculture in which he came up as well as real life issues with a sense of humor, affection and sincerity in a way that comes across as wholesome, a quality one doesn’t always associate with Goths. In 2022 Vision Video released its second album Haunted Hours, the much anticipated follow-up to its 2021 debut Inked in Red. Fans of The Cult and The Cure will find much to like about the flavor of both records as will anyone looking for modern post-punk with solid production, urgent dance rhythms and songs that really tell it like it is with the state of the world and the importance of embracing your own humanity and that of those around you even and especially as the world seems to be crumbling.

To Be Continued…

Best Shows in Denver November 2021

Julien Baker performs at Gothic Theatre on Nov 13, photo by Alyssa Gafkjen

Wednesday | 11.03
What: Brandy Clark w/Kelsey Waldon
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: If famous country music stars performing songs you’ve written is a sign of your significance as an artist, Brandy Clark has had a resoundingly successful career. Kenny Rogers, Reba McEntire, LeAnn Rimes, Kacey Musgraves, Keith Urban and Darius Rucker have all performed songs penned by Clark. Her critically acclaimed 2020 album Your Life Is a Record garnered her accolades for her own work even from more critical reviewers because her arrangements and thoughtful lyrics were undeniably well crafted and affecting even if you’re not a fan of country music or acoustic pop. Producer Jay Joyce encouraged Clark to expand her musical range with sounds and ideas that brought a quality to the songs that pushed beyond the boundaries of Clark’s previous work for arguably the best record of her career thus far. The 2020 pandemic put plenty of plans for touring and promoting records on hold so this is a chance to see the award winning singer and songwriter at an intimate venue.

Wednesday and Thursday | 11.03 and 11.04
What: Wolf Alice w/The Blossom
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Wolf Alice is hitting its stride with its new album Blue Weekend. Earlier records like 2017’s Visions of a Life and 2015’s My Love is Cool showcased the music of a band learning its powers and creative instincts in often thrilling ways during some years when too many rock bands were trying to cop some of that classic rock or psychedelic garage cachet. Wolf Alice walked a finer line of hard rock and atmospherics fortified by singer Ellie Rowsell’s sometimes gritty vocals yet always emotionally vibrant and nuanced vocals. The new album reveals a band that has not become stuck in what one might expect from previous efforts. Swells in a song don’t inevitably lead to a glorious blowout, rather Wolf Alice takes left field turns in its arrangements perhaps a challenge to foster their growth as a band with consistently compelling results.

Thursday | 11.04
What: Black Dice w/cindygod and H Lite
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Black Dice was an integral part of New York City underground music in the late 90s and 2000s. Its members had come up through punk but took the spirit of open possibilities suggested by that music to do whatever the wanted to. Anything could be an instrument, any rhythmic idea could be made to work. Even ideas about how structure and patterns would emerge through a kind of sound collage cut-up technique that one might compare favorably with the work of Autechre and Aphex Twin. Key to the band’s creative approach and aesthetic was visual art concepts and its various album covers have been designed by members of the band in a style that hits you like graffiti by way of the Situationist International. The band’s methods of composition and expression proved influential to peers like Animal Collective, a band that on the surface makes an updated form of 90s indie pop but like that music truly experiments with the form and musical substance of the songwriting with forays into noise and sampling that enriched the palette of sounds and dynamics available in crafting songs.

In 2012 Black Dice released its then most recent album Mr. Impossible after which its members took time to pursue other projects, Eric Copeland releasing several solo works as well. With the pandemic thus far time seems to have stretched and compressed for most people and what may feel like a handful of years in the living it can stretch to several and in 2021 Black Dice released its latest record Mod Prog Sic. It is classic Black Dice as a free flowing parade of ideas, textures, rhythm and playful tone and signal processing like some futuristic hip-hop/EBM fusion psychedelic beatmaking. We recently had a chance to speak with longtime member Aaron Warren about his early musical days growing up in California and his formative years as an active member of the punk scene in Boulder and Denver in the 90s before ending up in NYC in pursuit of furthering his education and ending up in the city at a time of great creative ferment. Listen to the interview on the Queen City Sounds Podcast.

Thursday | 11.04
What: The Black Angels w/L.A. Witch
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: The Black Angels came together and established its individual style of psychedelic rock before that became too trendy in the 2010s and has been able to develop, refine and then evolve its aesthetic across multiple records. Obvious influences drawn from early psychedelic rock, shoegaze, Middle Eastern drones and compound time signatures out of that music and perhaps a touch of African influence along with industrial and the avant-garde has merely made for a musical career that is much more creatively varied than seems obvious with a live show that is consistently entrancing. Opening is the like-minded L.A. Witch and their engaging take on blending 60s psychedelic pop with noir vibes.

Thursday | 11.04
What: Soccer Mommy w/Alexalone
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Probably virtually every musician touring in 2021 has the same story of an album released early in 2020 or slated or release that year only to have all forward momentum in getting the music out there slowed down or stopped due to the pandemic. When Soccer Mommy’s Color Theory was released at the end of February 2020 it garnered some critical acclaim for its winsome, melancholic pop songs in which the songwriter’s arrangements expanded to give her short lyrical lines expansive and often shimmering background textures paired with ethereal string arrangements. There is a pensive and yearning quality to singer/songwriter Sophie Allison’s words and vocal performance that elevates the music beyond much of the sometimes interchangeable indie music offerings you might hear on a playlist in a public space. Allison is not stranger to luminous and introspective songwriting, but right now she is taking her craft into deeper emotional territory than her admittedly excellent 2018 debut album Clean.

Band of Horses, photo by Stevie and Sarah Gee

Thursday | 11.04
What: Band of Horses w/Miya Folick
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Band of Horses is a band that has managed to make uplifting yet incredibly heartbreaking music with undeniable earworm melodies without losing the emotional impact for the last 17 years. The group formed after the respected indie pop band Carissa’s Wierd split in 2004 and quickly established itself as purveyors of thoughtful songs imbued with an upbeat energy and great forward momentum while never dipping into the realm of the hokey or obnoxious positivity. Probably because the lyrics have consistently hit as grounded and insightful even when written in good fun. Expect the new Band of Horses album Things Are Great to drop in January 2022 but for now you can maybe catch a good deal of that new material live until then.

Friday | 11.05
What: Eventually It Will Kill You 4 Year Anniversary Pre-Show: Wisteria w/Candy Apple, Deadluv and Vitrina
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Brian Castillo has been involved in DJ nights over the years and releasing a few records here and there. But he may have found his niche when he launched Eventually It Will Kill You four years ago releasing mostly experimental music and darkwave like the 2018 reissue of the 1983 death rock classic by Denver band Your Funeral and their single “I Want To Be You” b/w “April Fool’s Day” and releases from Many Blessings, the noise side project of Primitive Man’s Ethan McCarthy, chicago darkwave band Funeral Door and dark minimal synth group Child of Night from Columbus, OH. For the occasion of the anniversary “El Brian” put together two shows including this Pre-Show which includes performances by Pittsburgh based post-punk band Wisteria and jagged, jangly Denver post-punkers by way of hardcore Candy Apple.

Plack Blague in October 2018, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 11.06
What: Eventually It Will Kill You 4 Year Anniversary: Kontravoid, Plack Blague, Many Blessings and Closed Tear
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: For the second night of the 4 year anniversary of Eventually It Will Kill You you can catch some of the stars of underground darkwave and noise with EBM techno artist Kontravoid, industrial disco legend Plack Blague (listen to our new interview with Raws Scheslinger of Plack Blague from our podcast on Bandcamp), the ambient noise stylings of Many Blessings and the gloomy, post-punky dream pop of Closed Tear.

Saturday | 11.06
What: Dan Deacon w/Alex Silva and Patrick McMinn
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Dan Deacon’s 2020 album Mystic Familiar was praised as a solid synth pop album but it sounds more like Deacon has really honed his songwriting after a career of pushing musical ideas ever forward. The instrumental performances have a nuance and energy with a granular level of musical detail that can be enjoyed for simply the sheer joy and dynamic expressiveness Deacon seems to bring to his music. But one has to marvel at the way Deacon orchestrates complex passages and textures to into majestic pop songs that uplift the spirit and living up to the name of the album. His live shows are often a collaborative affair and even with his music surely Deacon will encourage those that show up to become involved in spontaneous and creative ways that don’t happen at other shows.

Saturday | 11.06
What: Gus Dapperton w/spill tab at The Gothic
When: 6 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Forget the hair style, the jewelry, the eyeliner and Gus Dapperton’s stylish sartorial proclivities, the songwriter’s 2020 album Orca is brimming with touching and delicate songs with real insight into the vulnerabilities and haunting thoughts that come to you in your lowest moments. His spare musical arrangements give the vocalization of the lyrics space to issue forth and sit in the air like lingering melodies. It’s an unexpectedly interesting effect from a songwriter who can come across to anyone that hasn’t sat down with the music as saccharine pop but the guy’s music is anything but that.

Monday | 11.08
What: Uniform, Portrayal of Guilt and Body Void
When: 7 p.m.
Where: HQ
Why: Uniform is an industrial hardcore band from New York that came out of the city’s punk and extreme music scene. Its fiery and abrasive electronic onslaught articulates issues of existential confusion and frustration with the destructive forces of society and within our own minds and clawing a path to catharsis. The group’s 2020 album Shame (Sacred Bones Records) is perhaps its most accessible but also its most deeply personal and raw. Also, listen to our podcast episode with an interview with vocalist Michael Berdan on Bandcamp. Opening the show is the great experimental hardcore group Portrayal of Guilt. With music sitting somewhere betwixt black metal, grindcore, hardcore and noise, Portrayal of Guilt consistently delivers scorching songs of poetic yet abrasive beauty. Its new album Christfucker is due out November 5, 2021 on Run For Cover Records. Body Void’s scathing, outraged doom just seems like the perfect complement to the whole show and its 2021 album Bury Me Beneath This Rotting Earth out on Prosthetic Records is not short on tortured crushers.

Tuesday | 11.09
What: Slow Pulp w/Mamalarky
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: When many bands in the 2010s were evoking a bit of 1990s fuzz rock and grunge, Slow Pulp took a hint of that but went in more a direction of atmospheric pop and experimental soundscapes as a structure for its more hushed and introspective songs. Tourmates Mamalarky from Atlanta is on a similar wavelength with songs of unconventional structure, rhythmic strategy and tonal palette. Like maybe its members came up listening to early Liz Phair demos, Broadcast, Virginia Wing, Deerhoof and Electrelane. The group’s outstanding 2020 self-titled album never gives you a chance to get too settled into a sound but draws you along for a ride into a colorfully dreamlike realm of lush pop adventures.

Wednesday | 11.10
What: Nothing w/Frankie Rose and Enumclaw
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: Nothing has been on a great trajectory of developing into and beyond punk-influenced shoegaze reaching a high state of creativity on its 2020 album The Great Dismal. Whorling sheets of guitar drone bursting up and receding like waves punctuated by electronic crackles and an aesthetic as much informed by electronic music as by rock at this point. Frankie Rose has spent time in such bands as Crystal Stilts, Dum Dum Girls, Vivian Girls and Beverly but her solo albums is where she has perhaps been most free to utilize her imaginative guitar work, production and songwriting. Though these days she’s also in a band with Matthew Hord of Pop. 1280 called Fine Place which is more in the realm of dub-influenced darkwave pop. So it may be awhile before you get a chance to see a solo Frankie Rose performance for a bit. Enumclaw is one of the few modern bands that sounds like it was heavily influenced by Dinosaur Jr without ripping the band off and injecting a good deal of fuzzy dream pop like they listened to The Smiths but found a way to mix Morrissey out of the proceedings.

Wednesday | 11.10
What: Armand Hammer w/Trayce Chapman and Time (from Calm.)
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: The psychedelic sounds in the beats to Haram, the 2021 album by Armand Hammer with The Alchemist, is reminiscent of the ways cLOUDDEAD tapped into subconscious spaces to evoke a mood that complements the surreal vibe of the lyrics. Fans of Gonjasufi and early Sole records will appreciate the way this pairing of artists collage tone and texture to create great depth of sound and expression. Plus opening is Time whose existential and deeply philosophical and playful lyrics are an antidote to the programmed ignorance of the American education system and the current state of the culture.

Thursday and Friday | 11.11 and 11.12
What: Silverstein w/The Plot In You and Can’t Swim
When: 6 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater and Gothic Theatre
Why: Silverstein is one of the few bands that walked the line between pop punk and screamo without sounding a parody of itself and where the distorted, screaming vocals really did sound like a primal expression of an intense peak of feeling in the context of the songs. What has kept the band worth a listen is the songwriting and how, as is the case with the better pop punk, the most critical examination in the lyrics is aimed at one’s own shortcomings and finding a way to get through those moments of feelings of failure and intense self-judgment rather than lash out at someone else like a challenge to oneself to truly feel these things you don’t want to in an attempt to be a better person even if you fall short because life and self-betterment is often a process of reworking habits and not some perfect formula to follow.

Friday | 11.12
What: Glacial Tomb, Noctambulist, Necrosophik Abyss — CANCELED
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Glacial Tomb and Noctambulist are two of the best and most brutal and imaginative technical death metal bands out of Denver at the moment and if that’s your thing they’re both on the same bill.

Friday | 11.12
What: Phony Ppl w/Kent Washington
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: Brooklyn’s Phony Ppl have done some music with Megan Thee Stallion but their own music is a richly expressive sort of art soul music and jazz-inflected hip-hop without making boundaries between any of those styles. There is a gentleness to the music that makes it instantly accessible even though the specific content is very musically sophisticated and challenging. These five guys take heady musical elements and ideas and bring to it a loose and playful spirit that sounds like it should be music for the kind of arty dramas that have yet to be made about the poignant periods in the lives of regular people.

Saturday | 11.13
What: Julien Baker w/Dehd
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Little Oblivions is not the album a lot of people were expecting from Julien Baker. Her first two records of hushed and introspective folk rock had an undeniable emotional power in part because of Baker’s own stirringly emotional vocals. For this record Baker expanded the palette of sounds including more electronic elements and more expansive, brash soundscapes that seem perfectly suited to what really feels like a burst of expressing emotions kept under wraps for too long yearning to be let out. There is an intensity to the record that almost makes Baker’s previous albums seem safe by comparison if they too weren’t informed by a strong emotional honesty themselves. Easily one of the top albums of the year in the realm of rock. Opening is psychedelic surf pop band Dehd from Chicago. Don’t let that short descriptor throw you off because Dehd performs with an often unsettling intensity as well for a band whose moody music is not short on nervy energy too.

Saturday | 11.13
What: Nitzer Ebb w/DJ Eli
Where: Oriental Theater
Why: EBM/industrial legends Nitzer Ebb don’t tour much these days and no matter which of their music you’ve heard the live band is more scrappy, more visceral and more powerful than you could really expect. Their 1987 album That Total Age remains a stone classic of 1980s electronic industrial music.

Saturday | 11.13
What: Big Dopes album release w/Bellhoss
When: 9 p.m.
Where: Roxy on Broadway
Why: Big Dopes is one of the best Denver bands not enough people know about yet. Its new EP Destination Wedding picks up where its outstanding 2019 album Crimes Against Gratitude left off with affecting lyrics and exquisitely crafted melodies. Fans of C86 era pop, Magnetic Fields and Carissa’s Wierd will likely appreciate the band’s attention to sonic detail and knack for a poetic and thoughtful turn of phrase. Also on the bill is the utterly idiosyncratic pop group Bellhoss. Although many have compared Bellhoss and singer Becky Hostetler, at least according to the project’s website, to artists like Waxahatchee and Soccer Mommy, Bellhoss is weirder and more interesting than those comparisons would suggest (though both artists are obviously notable in their own right) and often comes off like some kind of weirdo indie pop thing with intricate and eccentrically shoegaze-y guitar. Really a show with two of the most compelling bands in the Denver scene post-2017 when the music scene in the Mile High City started to severely fragment even as it expanded.

Monday | 11/15
What: Surfbort — CANCELED
When: 8 p.m.
Where: The Coast (Fort Collins)
Why: Surfbort is a weirdo punk band that’s probably a little too rough around the edges and real for a lot of people who call themselves fans of punk but it’s also one of the most interesting and powerful bands in the world of punk today. They don’t have a lot of releases but its new single “FML” has a strange music video that includes Fred Armisen of Portlandia fame whose own background in punk and his own unusual sense of humor vibed with that of this New York band.

Monday | 11.15
What: Exhumed w/Creeping Death, Bewitcher and Victim ov Fire
Where: Oriental Theater
Why: Indeed, it’s influential deathgrind band Exhumed from San Jose, California. Though the music can be brutal and forbidding in a way that might be reminiscent of Cannibal Corpse it nevertheless performs the music with great energy informed by a sense of irony and humor with lyrics often aimed at the corrupt American political and economic system that has metastasized into an oligarchy with a wide gulf between the ultra rich and the poorest members of society.

Tuesday | 11.16
What: Tonstartssbandht, Paul Jacobs and Wally
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Between its gentle lo-fi psychedelia and almost found sound collage aesthetic, Tonstartssbandht from Orlando, Florida is a different animal in the realm of modern psychedelic pop. Andy and Edwin White draw on a broad spectrum of influences from more traditional music to classical music, classic rock and they have a High Rise tribute band called High Rise II. So even though their relatively pastoral 2021 album Petunia can come off just shy of too weird and gritty for yacht rock there are plenty of bizarro nuggets in the mix to keep it interesting. Paul Jacobs’ 2021 album Pink Dogs on the Green Grass gave us a solid batch of wefting and warping psych pop that somehow both hits the ears reminiscent of both Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Clarke and the Himselfs and Odessey & Oracle period The Zombies. The textural quality of his guitar sound keeps us grounded as vocals and wind sounds and even the percussion carries us away into ethereal realms of daydream wonder. In the case of both artists it seems odd to consider how they might pull this stuff off live and yet they do.

Black Marble in May 2017, photo by Tom Murphy

Tuesday | 11.16
What: Black Marble w/Voight
When: 7 p.m.
Where: HQ
Why: Black Marble has spent some years perfecting a sonic equivalent of Polaroid photos cast in the colors of lo-fi, New Wave-y post-punk. The 2021 album Fast Idol finds Black Marble less in the realm of entrancing gloom pop and more in some upbeat mood with a sound that makes one think about what forbidden music might have sounded like if it was the USA rather than the USSR that cracked down on the immoral popular music of a decadent other empire. Live the music hits with full fidelity resulting in two different experiences of the music. Denver’s Voight really wants to be a dark techno band playing in dark rooms in the neo-urban decay but is still stuck in industrial shoegaze mode. And yet remains one of the best bands in the Mile High City because the music isn’t rote, predictable, safe pabulum and ferocious live.

Tuesday | 11.16
What: Nick Lowe’s Quality Rock & Roll Revue w/Los Straightjackets
Where: Oriental Theater
Why: Nick Lowe is one of the pioneers of power pop. He would have sealed that reputation had he remained in Rockpile with one of the other greats of that form of music Dave Edmunds. But Lowe’s solo career speaks for itself with soulful pop rock classics like “Cruel to Be Kind” and “I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass.” This run of music is a nod to the sounds that influenced Lowe from rockabilly to soul and beyond.

Wednesday | 11.17
What: Caribou w/Jessy Lanza
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Boulder Theater
Why: Dan Snaith has written some of the most inventive yet accessible electronic music for nearly 20 years as Caribou. Employing traditionally acoustic instrumentation alongside synths/electronic instruments and programming, Snaith taps into some of the same emotional pools of yearning, introspective pondering and nostalgia as the later chillwave and bedroom pop composers he influenced directly or indirectly. His most recent album Suddenly (2020) seemed more somber than other releases but still flowing with hazy yet bright melodies. Even in the most down moments, Snaith incorporates a playful creativity in the mix to convey the nuances and complexity of existence and how we experience life.

Wednesday | 11/24
What: Kraak & Smaak w/Capyac
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: Dutch musical production trio Kraak & Smaak are masters of blending a tropical beat with layers of synth melody modified in real time to give a sense of fluid movement giving the music the aural equivalent of 3D visuals. The effect being an enveloping music with a cinematic sensibility like a somehow benevolent spy movie funk without any violence or skullduggery involved, just adventure and relaxing moods. It’s most recent EP, Scirocco, is like an unlikely but satisfying blend of Ennio Morricone, Boards of Canada and Simple Minds. If the band’s recent live streams are any indication, this current tour will be like seeing some long lost electro funk great of the past playing music that seems familiar yet fresh.

The Velveteers, photo by David Mermilliod

Friday | 11.26
What: The Velveteers w/Dreadnought and Dry Ice
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: The Velveteers were a promising band from early on in their career in Denver and Boulder playing house shows, small clubs and DIY spaces. While many bands were trying for that classic rock sound, The Velveteers were rapidly outgrowing those early influences into their own sound with fuzzed out riffs and surging song dynamics that made the band sound like it was taking off in multiple directions lending its performances a fiery energy. Through developing the group, creating their own music videos and a little bit of touring, The Velveteers came to the attention of Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys who offered to produce the trio’s new album Nightmare Daydream. Sure it has expert production and clearly the band got some polish in Auerbach’s studio but this set of songs also sound so focused yet as thrillingly effusive as it ever has.

Friday | 11.26
What: Baroness
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Savannah, Georgia’s Baroness never got to tour behind its 2019 album Gold & Grey for the reasons most bands didn’t do a lot of touring in 2020 and a good chunk of 2021. But now the group with new guitarist Gina Gleason will get a chance to perform older favorites as well as material from the aforementioned album showcasing a seemingly different approach to songwriting different from the brash, bombastic and playful style of previous records. John Baizley’s vocals still soar with great expressive control but the music seems more tied in with the rhythms and beautiful minor chord progressions so that when the songs engage into expansive choruses they always seem to resolve in ways that feel like the group decided to push themselves to say something different and worthwhile with each song. It’s frankly their best album and it would be simply lazy and clumsy to merely refer to this era of Baroness as sludge metal.

Primitive Man in April 2015, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 11.27
What: Primitive Man w/Spectral Voice and Oryx
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Denver is fortunate to have an exceptional extreme metal scene with many bands worth a deep listen. This show, though, showcases three of the best. Spectral Voice and the angular brutality of its dark death metal has evolved from an earlier sort of a blackened deathgrind sound into more refined sonic brutality without losing its raw edge. Oryx has never been short on an inventive evocation of musical heaviness and commentary on the hubris of human civilization. It’s 2021 album Lamenting a Dead World perhaps says it all with the title but the vocals sound especially feral and the parallel rhythms and guitar leads flow with a primordial energy that embodies an inevitable path to doom for the planet if things don’t take a different turn amongst us humans. And of course Primitive Man brings the most crushing and emotionally harrowing death grind you’re likely to experience anywhere. The Denver trio did not tour or play much if anything in the way of live shows in 2020 or much of 2021 so its caustic 2020 album Immersion and its nightmare vision of what seem like end times didn’t get to unleash what is hopefully a catharsis of the eschatological mood that has cloaked the planet since the onset of the pandemic until recently. That these great works of music from Oryx and Primitive Man are still so relevant does speak to the excellence of their conception and execution but also to how far we have to go as a species to prove ourselves worthy of continued existence.

Best Shows in Denver September 2021

**Emerald Siam performs at Down in Denver Fest on Saturday, Sep 4, 2021 11 p.m. Photo by Tom Murphy From Dec 2019**

Quits in October 2019, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday – Monday | September 4-6
What: Down In Denver Fest
When: Labor Day Weekend
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: With the erosion of the national and local media especially in coverage of local music and culture as a parallel to increasing income inequality the curation of a local scene virtually everywhere in America has all but disappeared. Publications that once served as active legacy institutions that traditionally documented and preserved local culture in a robust way have either dissolved or transitioned to a digital marketing portal model with a subsequent narrowing of content and cultural mission. Music festivals often following a lifestyle branding concept in sync with the lifestyle model of much of digital media following the implosion of the blogosphere can feel like Philip K. Dick circa Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep was more of a prophet than we’d prefer to believe. The Down in Denver Fest organizers remember a time when the rich and broad diversity of Denver’s local scene was more honored and represented in local music festivals and older artists were not expected to retire but, rather, respected for their past and current efforts. While Denver and other cities are in disarray with the forces of drastic income inequality and subsequent gentrification local cultural history seems to pass into irrelevance like a social media feed more quickly than at any previous moment in human history, episodes without context, products to consume and discard. But this is antithetical to lived human experience and human life and our collective craving for connection not just to other people but our experiential, existential context that defines our lives for a certain period or our entire lives. Maybe Down In Denver Fest won’t provide this to everyone but the inspiration behind it is the understanding that local culture and the people who make it a living thing past and present are not just the atomized dots of a marketing galaxy but a continuum that can be and is accessible. So go expecting to see a broad slice of bands representing decades of Denver music history from bands from a variety of genres and styles to DJs from the Denver underground. Visit the event website for the line-up and schedule and to sample artists. Also listen to the Queen City Sounds Podcast featuring a handful of stories from the Denver scene from some of the people that were involved and have helped to make various corners of the city’s musical milieu.

Midwife in October 2019, photo by Tom Murphy

Monday | September 6
What: Midwife w/Sympathy Pain and Sketches
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Midwife is touring more broadly in support of her 2021 album Luminol, a soothing yet heart wrenching record mourning deep loss and fumbling for healing the caustic burns on your heart from the death of friends, the crumbling of the cultural infrastructure that gave one’s life more definition than it might have had and a nation and international community in disarray from grand forces of inequality and the rise of fascism and science denial with no seeming relief on the horizon. It isn’t a dire record but an honest one cast in gossamer guitar work and introspective, dreamlike vocals that tap into those dark places of the mind and not to say it’s all going to be okay but rather as a reminder that you’re not crazy and your feelings of despair, deep discontent and righteous anger are real and valid. Midwife is also performing at Trident Bookstore in Boulder on September 8 and The Coast in Fort Collins on September 12.

Thursday | September 9
What: Denver Meatpacking Company w/I’m A Boy, Wiff and Sleep Demons
When: 7 p.m./8 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Denver Meatpacking Company pull liberally from 90s alternative rock for inspiration but its fuzzy guitar work is couched in solid pop hooks that prevent it from sounding like a throwback act. Which makes it a good pairing with I’m A Boy and its own power pop sensibilities and refreshingly unaffected love for bombastic and theatrical rock and roll.

Sunday | September 12
What: Denver Does Denver
When: 1-10 p.m.
Where: Green Valley Ranch Town Center Amphitheater 5060 Argonne St., Denver, CO 80249
Why: It has been 11 years since the last Denver Does Denver event happened when various musicians in the Denver scene covered music by peers and influences in local music at the Meadowlark Bar and its environs. This reboot of the event, once again curated by educator and member of experimental funk and world music phenoms Pink hawks, Yuzo Nieto, is taking place outdoors in Green Valley Ranch and features a typically fascinating set of musicians showcasing the creative wares of other bands and songwriters that otherwise wouldn’t normally be thus recognized for their impact.

Thursday | September 16
What: St. Vincent
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Annie Clark has been experimenting with concepts across her musical career and giving us not only a respectable body of work and consistently fascinating songwriting and inventive musicianship but a creative arc in which she’s willing to take risks. None more so than her 2021 album Daddy’s Home. It is clearly a well-arranged series of vignettes about life in New York City as told through the sonic lens of 70s pop and rock like an East Coast answer to Joni Mitchell’s fantastic and insightful 1970 album Ladies of the Canyon. The structure of the album feels like reading a short novel with a cinematic scope and revelations about character and concept reminiscent of the flow of Virgnia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. Every tour, certainly for her last three albums, has involved creative and entrancing production and even set design subverting the standard rock and pop paradigm so if you go expect some of that deep creativity for which Annie Clark and St. Vincent are rightfully known.

Friday | September 17
What: Herbie Hancock
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Ellie Caulkins Opera House
Why: Herbie Hancock and his stunningly brilliant keyboard and synth work alongside his mindblowingly talented collaborators put on one of the greatest live shows going regardless of genre. His roots in some of the jazz legends of the 60s and 70s are impressive enough but his albums under his own name often reveal a passion and genius for composition that he channels into accessible and engrossing songs and performances that remain relevant and powerful.

Friday and Saturday | September 17-18
What: Westword Music Showcase
When: See schedule per day at http://www.westwordshowcase.com
Where: Rino Arts District and Mission Ballroom
Why: The Westword Music Showcase returns with an expanded presentation in the Rino Arts District northwest of downtown Denver including performances at the Mission Ballroom for headlining acts like Young The Giant, Kaytranada, Thundercat, Matoma, Hippo Campus and Duke Dumont with a bevy of local acts nominated by experts in the local scene tapped for their knowledge by the long running alternative weekly paper.

Monday | September 20
What: Mannequin Pussy w/Angel Du$t and Pinkshift
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Philadelphia’s Mannequin Pussy has long commented on sexism and its effect on identity and how those issues dovetail into the colonist mentality and the most deleterious and sometimes subtle corrosive effects of capitalism. But doing so in a way that seems as tender and sensitive as it is ferocious, cast in noise rock and melodic punk. In 2021 Mannequin Pussy released its gloriously caustic EP Perfect.

Monday and Tuesday | September 20 and 21
What: Mdou Moctar
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Mahamadou Souleymane is a Tuareg songwriter from Niger who is known to the musical world at large as Mdou Moctar with a growing international following despite the lyrics to his songs being in Tamasheq. His intricate guitar work and sincere performance style renders what might seem exotic to some Americans immediately relatable. Moctar’s fusion of blues and rock with West African musical styles and sounds come off both familiar and arrestingly fresh. In 2021 he released the album Afrique Victime through Matador, his first for an imprint other than specialist label Sahel Sounds. An intense and engaging performer, Moctar’s gracious and self-effacing demeanor doesn’t quite prepare you for the emotionally charged journey of the show but makes it one you want to take.

Tuesday | September 21
What: Twin Tribes and Wingtips w/Plague Garden
When: 7 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: A great pairing of the Brownsville, Texas lo-fi post-punk band Twin Tribes and Chicago’s darkwave pop sensations Wingtips. The former released a beautifully curated remix album in 2021 called Altars including remixes from Turkish post-punk legends She Past Away, Dave Parley of Prayers, Wingtips and Bootblacks. Wingtips’ new record Cutting Room Floor is a gorgeously composed set of expansive and bright yet hazily moody and reflective pop songs subverting the tropes of sounds and aesthetics borrowed from 80s era synth pop by many modern artists and seemingly as influenced by the likes of Thompson Twins and Howard Jones as Depeche Mode and Fad Gadget. Opening the show is Plague Garden whose 2021 album Requiem of Souls is a great expansion on their brooding and atmospheric blend of industrial and post-punk into more pop territory including an excellent cover of Tanita Tikaram’s 1988 hit single “Twisting in My Sobriety” that highlights the song’s then unfashionable level of self-examination.

Tuesday | September 21
What: Torres w/Ariana and The Rose
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Torres has from early in her career blended a more electronic pop aesthetic with a raw and gritty folk-inflected songwriting style and dynamically emotional vocals. Her 2021 album Thirstier is brimming with high contrast sounds that give the songs a forcefulness that was always there in her music but made unmistakable this time around.

Wednesday | September 22
What: Waltzer w/Vision Video, Voight, Lord Friday the 13th
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Waltzer is Sophie Sputnik who fronted punk band Killmama for more than a few years. But her music theater background seems to have been yearning for greater expression if the debut Waltzer album Time Traveler is any indication and the bizarre music video for “Destroyer” which is like a humorous horror movies as a backdrop to soulful, R&B pop. Maybe Sputnik got to listening to a lot of Erykah Badu, Harry Nilsson and Todd Rundgren but she makes that lush, almost orchestral sound seem spare as well. Athens, Georgia-based post-punk/pop band Vision Video is an interesting contrast with its 2021 album Inked in Red reminiscent of 80s jangle pop, XTC and Pink Turns Blue. Voight is a Denver-based band that collides together noise rock, industrial/techno beats, emotionally-charged vocals and caustic shoegaze-y soundscapes.

Front 242 in April 2018, photo by Tom Murphy

Wednesday | September 22
What: Front 242 w/Consolidated, Blackcell and DJ N810
When: 7 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Front 242 is one of the pioneers of the EBM wing of industrial music of the 80s with its stark visual style akin to a stylized Futurist aesthetic. Claiming to be apolitical and even amoral, Front 242’s pulsing, atmospheric dance music nevertheless takes aim at corrupt religious and political figures without an explicitly verbalized critique, rather choosing to present them as absurd and cartoonish. By contrast the overtly political industrial band Consolidated is part of this tour and from its album titles, to its music and confrontational performance style the group from San Francisco leaves no doubt about its leftist politics and activist cultural orientation while also injecting very pointed commentary with humor that also manages not to distract from the message. Denver’s long-running noise/industrial/EBM duo Blackcell opens the show with its own richly imagined and immersive soundscapes.

Wednesday | September 22
What: Ratboys X Wild Pink w/Bellhoss
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Earlier in 2021 Wild Pink released A Billion Little Lights, a pop album of lush orchestration and sage and sharply observed comments on one’s changing perspectives and priorities as one ages into adulthood physically and psychologically and the subsequent realization that the sureties of now will sometimes seem like the follies and cringe-worthy moments of the future. While songwriter John Ross wrote the album from the perspective of a single human life the themes seem to resonate strongly with society overall in the past decade and coming to terms with blind spots, injustice, inequality and chronically bad habits that have a fallout for oneself and others.

Saturday | September 25
What: Lost Relics and Never Kenezzard
When: 9:30 p.m.
Where: Tooey’s Off Colfax
Why: Two giants of Denver sludge metal, Lost Relics and Never Kenezzard both demonstrate how heavy, doomy metal can be dynamic and even expansively psychedelic while hitting hard. Expect a new Lost Relics EP soon and Never Kenezzard’s follow-up to the excellent 2016 album Never Say…

Monday | September 27
What: Esmé Patterson
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: The beginning of the global pandemic in March 2020 landed just in time to thwart plans for Esmé Patterson and her band to tour in support of her then new album There Will Come Soft Rains. The new record showcased Patterson’s ear for subtle emotional dynamics in songwriting and for expressing the complexity of one’s feelings in an uncluttered way. The spare melodies of the new batch of songs also demonstrate an attention to space in the songs perhaps as a symbolic way of honoring the need to such in one’s life in order to make sense of what can feel overwhelming. Not a pandemic record but sure seems like one that addresses little things in life we often ignore in our rush to push through everything when we need to and never really taking the time to feel what we need to in order to maintain a healthy state of mind.

Judas Priest in November 2014, photo by Tom Murphy

Wednesday | September 29
What: Judas Priest w/Sabaton
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Perpetually underrated yet highly influential, Judas Priest is one of the pioneering bands of heavy metal that still occasionally tours and is still a powerful live act due in no small part to singer Rob Halford’s expressive and operatic vocals. With hits like “Breaking The Law” and “Living After Midnight” from its 1980 album British Steel, Judas Priest started to break into the mainstream with subsequent regular rotation on MTV. Getting to see Judas Priest at a theater like the Mission Ballroom with its excellent sound and seating layout is likely to be the most enjoyable environment to take in the band’s broad range of moods and highly charged dynamics.

Cadence Weapon in June 2012, photo by Tom Murphy

Thursday | September 30
What: Fat Tony and Cadence Weapon
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Fat Tony and Cadence Weapon are rappers from Houston and Edmonton, Canada respectively but who both draw on an electric palette of sounds and influences and their use of imaginative beats and production have set them apart from many peers from early on in their respective careers. Their individual blends of classic rapping with free associating sounds and textures in the beat with an ear for songwriting and impassioned delivery make this one of the hip-hop shows to see this year in Denver. Fat Tony is touring following the 2020 release of his album Exotica and Cadence Weapon with his 2021 album Parallel World.

Best Shows in Denver August 2021

Princess Dewclaw (here performing at Wax Trax, April 2021) performs at The UMS on August 28

With live music coming back, we’ll see how robustly with the delta and other variants of the pandemic, we’re picking back up with listing some events that might be of interest to readers. Rather than a weekly show listing, this will be a monthly thing with highlights. If things pick up more in 2022 and 2023 maybe more events will be included once the pandemic ends but for now keeping things minimal.

Monday | August 2, 2021
What: King Crimson w/The California Guitar Trio
When: 7 p.m. (6 p.m. doors)
Where: Fiddler’s Green
Why: Since the its 1968 inception, King Crimson has been an innovative rock band whose imaginative blend of avant-garde jazz, classical music, folk and emergent musical ideas and styles across decades has garnered more than a mere cult following. Its 1969 album In The Court of the Crimson King has remained a highly influential work on progressive/art rock to this day. Certainly King Crimson’s music has the feel of composed for an orchestra but there is also a spontaneous spark to the music that has kept its songs fresh well after the first wave of progressive rock ended in the early 80s. The dramatic arrangements, intense yet fluid dynamics and fine emotional nuance of the songwriting demonstrates the inner workings of a band that is not, as is presumed with any band associated with the concept of progressive rock, on technique for its own sake so much as on the impact of the music which superior technique can lend a broad musical palette. Legendary guitarist Robert Fripp is the group’s sole original member and in addition to King Crimson, Fripp has performed on albums by, among many others, David Bowie and Brian Eno. Also on this tour the line up with include bassist/Chapman Stick player Tony Levin. Since the early 80s, Levin has regularly brought his own brand of musical imagination to King Crimson having been introduced to Fripp through working with Peter Gabriel and who has also been a prolific studio and live musician whose work can be heard in work by Tom Waits, Buddy Rich, Pink Floyd, Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson as well as David Bowie. With the recent renewed interest in progressive rock seeing one of the pioneers in this incarnation with Fripp, Levin, Mel Collins, Pat Mastelotto, Gavin Harrison, Jakko Jakszyk and Jeremy Stacey is a fine chance to witness one of the movements great live bands. In the coming days we will publish our interview with Levin and link that here when it’s live.

Friday | August 6, 2021
What: NNAMDÏ w/Fresh Fruit!
When: 9 p.m. (8 p.m. doors)
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Nnamdi Ogbonnaya is a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose broadly eclectic songwriting and performance style has meant he is pretty much impossible to pigeonhole. One dub it the clumsily broad term indie rock but the execution is is often so unconventional and strange that it might be considered psychedelic and an amalgam of all of that with jazz and non-Western musical styles. But he manages to make it coherent and a product of his rich imagination that weaves together daydreams, surreal fantasies, social commentary and contemplation of the nature of human existence and his own place in it without really trying to impose answers to the questions he poses. Start anywhere with his catalog, it’s all wonderfully strange and accessible. Live, he performs with a paradoxical theatrical authenticity that can be off-putting for someone expecting their musicians to be not nearly as physically expressive. The band called NNAMDÏ is also opening for Sleater-Kinney and Wilco at Red Rocks the following Tuesday, August 10.

Saturday | August 7, 2021
What: Big Dopes w/Amazing Adventures and Luna Nunez
When: 9 p.m. (8 p.m. doors)
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Big Dopes’ 2019 album Crimes Against Gratitude was simply one of the most meaningful records out of the realm of indie rock and power pop that year. With tastefully fuzzy melodies the band’s poignant and touchingly poetic lyrics stripped bare the pretense that coats too much modern popular music. This is the band’s first live show since the beginning of the pandemic.

Tuesday | August 10, 2021
What: Small Black and Korine
When: 8 p.m. (7 p.m. doors)
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: As the modern roots of chillwave were congealing into a cohesive musical aesthetic, Small Black was there playing DIY spaces and small clubs in the late 2000s. Its visceral performances paired with transportingly gorgeous, freeflowing song dynamics gave the band an appeal that transcended any trend from early on. Its latest album Cheap Dreams finds the band using its fine tuned crafting of electronic pop songs to suss out, identify, feel fully and process feelings most of us have felt this past decade of needing to settle for a cheapened sense of our own life’s horizons as if those are the only options open to us. It can be a crushing realization and there is a bit of that in these songs too but also a sense of hope and resistance to this death before death if we can be bold enough to cast aside conventional wisdom and cultivate a deep sense of affection for ourselves and others as a bulwark to the narratives that get us to erode our own power. Korine is a great partner for this bill because its own flavor of dream pop evokes a similar sensibility but in a way that might appeal to fans of recent darkwave artists like Choir Boy and Lebanon Hanover. Its 2020 album The Night We Rise sounds beautifully like a musical postcard from 1985 synth pop via Russian post-punk and 2000s electronic artists like Robyn.

Tuesday | August 10
What: Sleater-Kinney and Wilco w/NNAMDÏ
When: (6 p.m. doors)
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Sleater-Kinney and Wilco are two of the most influential and most interesting bands that came out of the mid-90s, both having formed in 1994. S-K came up in the musical milieu of the Pacific Northwest in the context of K Records, Kill Rock Stars, Mr. Lady Records, Chainsaw Records, Riot Grrrl, the International Pop Underground festival, around artists like Unwound, Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, Wipers, Mecca Normal and all of that great ferment of ideas and music of that time. Its early albums dared to imagine a present and a future in which feminist ideas their critique of culture and society was the norm and not something to resist and grounded in lived experience expressed straight from the heart. Though the band has experimented and refined and expanded its sound the base line of compassion and honesty has kept the band from waxing into a more watered down version of itself. Its 2021 album Path of Wellness expands on the electronic textures and soundscapes that made The Center Won’t Hold (2019) so evocative. Wilco emerged out of Chicago, Illinois when alternative country band Uncle Tupelo split and Jeff Tweedy continued in a similar musical vein that he and the rest of the band have evolved in fascinating ways every since to the point that it would make as much sense to refer to Wilco as alternative county as it would to call Beck indie folk. Wilco’s big breakthrough creatively and commercially came with the release of its 2001 opus Yankee Hotel Foxtrot wherein its embrace of production and processed sounds as part of its core of songwriting resulted in a classic of modern pop music that rewards repeated listens some twenty years onward. Both Sleater-Kinney and Wilco have also managed to remain powerful live acts as well and getting to see modern experimental pop weirdo NNAMDÏ is just a bonus.

Oko Tygra at Boulder Theater in 2017, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Voight w/Oko Tygra and Chuch Fire
Where: HQ
Why: If you were to try to put together a bill of the three of the best, most representative bands of Denver’s darkwave/post-punk/dream pop scene, such as it is, you couldn’t do better than this. Voight’s intense, noisy, industrial-tinged shoegaze is always surprisingly gritty and moving. Oko Tygra’s refined emotional colorings and R&B inflected dream pop never fails to captivate. Church Fire somehow makes pointedly poetic socio-political commentary deeply emotional, personal and swirling with dreamy production and powerful dance rhythms.

Thursday | August 12, 2021
What: Radkey
When: 8 p.m. (7 p.m. doors)
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: Radke is a garage rock trio of four brothers Isaiah, Solomon and Dee Radke from St. Joseph, Missouri. Slapping a genre tag on the band, though, doesn’t do it justice and these guys have been called proto-punk and psychedelic rock as well. But its hard hitting rock and roll the brothers Radke play with an undeniable conviction and flair that is undeniably effective.

Oblio Duo in 2006, Steven Lee Lawson on right, photo by Tom Murphy

Thursday | August 19, 2021
What: Steven Lee Lawson with The Dark Wolf Rises Band album release w/Doo Crowder and Disinherited
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Steven Lee Lawson recently released his 2021 self-titled album on Snappy Little Numbers. Lawson played music for years in Denver and elsewhere and his thoughtful lyrics and poetic commentary on human existence with a particular knack for giving form to frustrations, despair, joy, affection and excitement have always made his work noteworthy. But Lawson took seemingly several years off playing music because it can be an unrewarding grind in so many ways with not nearly enough rewards for innovators and those with something unique and interesting to say. Whether in art rock band Zubabi, Americana groups Oblio Duo and Los Dos and the New American Ramblers or even Ross Etherton and the Chariots of Judah, Lawson really brought some passion and creativity to his bands. The self-titled album is an extension and evolution of the songwriter’s prior work and one in which he seems to illuminate and clarify aspects of American culture the past several years that have seemed confusing or tangled. If you go to this show you also get to see Doo Crowder who is like a modern day Harry Nilsson.

~~Tuesday | August 24, 2021~~ — CANCELLED
What: The Residents
When: 8 p.m. (7 p.m. doors)
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: The Residents are a legendary multimedia and avant-garde band whose membership is largely unknown since they started recording and performing under that name in the early 70s. The group’s music and history is storied and fairly well documented for those curious but lest the designation of avant-garde tuns anyone off, The Residents’ music has almost ways been pretty accessible and an experiment with the format of popular music and the experiments coming in with specific sounds used and the content of the music—the lyrics, the visual style, the presentation, the experience of what’s been created. The band has been on the forefront of multimedia performances, set and costume design, video releases, what one might even deem early alternate reality games involving a concept that informed an album and even blurring the line between it all. The Residents’ cover songs by artists like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, James Brown, Elvis Presley and numerous others as well as unusual takes on traditional folk songs are something that simply must be heard to fully appreciate how strangely brilliant the interpretations. In recent years the band has been touring more widely and it appears that this tour is in support of the 2020 album Metal, Meat & Bone – The Songs of Dyin’ Dog.

Gila Teen at Lion’s Lair in 2019, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday and Sunday | August 28 and 29
What: Glasss Records Stage at the UMS
When: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. and 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: The Underground Music Showcase is a sprawling affair and returns in 2021. There may be many fine performances to catch but the best bet to find acts that aren’t playing a bunch of clubs because they are just that underground and likely not to see at many DIY spaces since there aren’t many of those anymore is to spend some time at Mutiny Information Café throughout the day and evening on Saturday and Sunday, August 28 and 20 for the Glasss Records Stage. Not all of the artists are on the local independent imprint but all fit in with the label’s cultivation of various sides of the local experimental music scene. So you can catch the heartfelt post-punk emo of Gila Teen, Princess Dewclaw’s gritty industrial, feminist punk, Blackcell’s maximalist minimal industrial synth noise, R A R E B Y R D $’s soul wrenching/soothing ambient hip-hop, the colorful and imaginative glitchore of Morlox and Kid Mask, the noisy, psychedelic hip-hop of Joohs Up, Shocker Mom’s tender and daydreamy soundscapes, Gort Vs. Goom’s weirdo prog-punk-art rock and numerous other artists. Can’t go wrong no matter when you check in. Pluse it’s at Mutiny so you can get something to drink that isn’t alcoholic and pick up a book you’re not expecting to find, a fine selection of comics, find a record not everyone has on their shelves and maybe even play pinball. The choice pick of the entire festival. Tentative (because day of show things always seem to change) schedule included below.

Queen City Sounds and Art Best Albums of 2020

Sex Swing | Type II | Rocket Recordings

This sprawling best of list was intended for publication in January 2021 but other priorities got in the way and I had written about many of these in brief in my year end best column for the December 2020 print edition of Birdy magazine in December. Others I wrote up for Birdy throughout the year. All of that text is here hopefully not in a form with my errors edited back in. At any rate it begins with what I’m going to call the album of the year, Type II by UK post-punk experimentalists Sex Swing. It not only stretched post-punk beyond the usual boundaries these days and it articulated the conflict, the outage and confusion of a world coming to terms with the great shortcomings of modern, international capitalism, the inadequacy of the conservative/far right and neoliberal government to address the needs of people across decades and most painfully and poignantly in the moment. That agony and anomie can be heard throughout the album but even separate from that context it’s just a great, experimental rock album. The original verbiage for the Birdy piece reads “An uncomromisingly mind-altering psychedelic noise rock ride through 2020 hell.” With any luck we’ll see the band in North America sooner than later and see for ourselves if the live show delivers. What follows is the rest of the best of list for 2020.

A.M. Pleasure Assassins | Careless Laughter | Self-released
This latest EP from Fort Collins-based, math-y post-punk band A.M. Pleasure Assassins sounds like it was written after a long period of contemplation and self-imposed exile from one’s usual social activities. “Said Yer Outta Gas” is imbued with a rush of exuberance reflected in its words about emerging from winter into a period of new beginnings. “Get It Right” finds the band waxing into the warped garage punk territory like something one would expect out of Memphis, Tennessee the past two decades — raw and ragged yet bracing. “Cain Was Killing Abel” strikes a more contemplative tone and the sprawling “Pretty Dead Beat” creates a beautifully hypnotic pulse of sounds with bell tones processed through reverb and distorted drones for an effect like a late 90s Yo La Tengo track. The four songs give the impression of nostalgic reflection, but one where you see and feel deeply the joys and pains of a good time in your life that you are wise enough now to know to enjoy in its full measure rather than through the lens of selective romanticism.

Abrams | Modern Ways | Sailor Records

Adulkt Life | Book of Curses | What’s Your Rupture?

ADULT. | Perception Is/As/Of Deception | Dais Records
Darkly urgent industrial dance anthems to purge today’s desperation, confusion and chaos.

Angel Olsen | Whole New Mess | Secretly Group
A tender yet bracingly fragile portrait of the realization that you can never adequately prepare for everything life might throw your way.

Anna von Hausswolff | Sacro Bosco | Southern Lord

A Shoreline Dream | Melting | Late Night Weeknight
With its first release since 2018’s Waitout EP, A Shoreline Dream presents a set of songs that seems less ethereal than their previous output. From opening track “Turned Too Slow” to closing song “Atheris Hispida” the progressive shoegaze duo has seemingly focused its attention on the texture and physicality of the music. One is tempted to say the guitars are more like hard rock, but only if your idea of hard rock is more in the vein of Swervedriver. But “Downstairs Sundays” has more in common with folk music in its intricate guitar interplay though threading through an uplifting, introspective drone. A Shoreline Dream still gives us its usual transporting melodies, but this time its astral realms are more focused and vivid as though coming out of its musical dreamstate into a phase of making those dreams real.

Autechre | Sign | Warp Records
Cleanses the mind with textural tones and hypnotically immersive, abstract rhythms.

Bambara | Stray | Wharf Cat Records

Bestial Mouths | RESURRECTEDINBLACK | RUNE & RUIN

Bison Bone | Find Your Way Out | self-released

Black Wing | No Moon | The Flenser

blackcell | Burn the Ashes | self-released
Denver-based EBM/IDM band Blackcell returns with its first full- length album since 2013’s In the Key of Black. Matt Jones’ processed, distorted vocals sound as ever like a dispossessed human resisting an ever increasing mechanization of life. These dark dance songs articulate so well the struggles of the human condition and seem so resonant for today as meaningful choices and control over your own life are leeched away into increasing labor defined by a gig economy, subscription and streaming services in the modern equivalent of pay-per-view, and a failing political and economic system that has channeled all the world’s wealth into fewer and fewer hands, nickeled and dimed to death and expected to take it like it is or not to streamline the technocratic wealth pipeline. Blackcell offers no answers but this time, its Gary Numan-esque end of the world techno feels particularly cathartic right now.

BleakHeart | Dream Griever | Sailor Records

Body Double | Milk Fed | Zum
Vignettes of personal psychological horror expressed as seething, angular post-punk pop.

Body Negative | Fragments | Track Number Records

Bootblacks | Thin Skies | Artoffact Records
Soaring synths and guitar sketch a vivid image of a deep yearning for personal transcendence and rebirth.

Boris and Merzbow | 2R012P0 | Relapse Records
Alien soundscapes of stunning immediacy that challenge preconceptions of all artists involved.

Botanist | Photosynthesis | The Flenser

Cabaret Voltaire | Shadow of Fear | Mute

Camila Fuchs | Kids Talk Sun | Felte Records
Avant-garde, psychedelic synth pop for tropical vacations in parallel dimensions.

Causer | Hellebore: Demos | self-released

Chicano Batman | Invisible People | ATO Records
Un-ironic, un-corny psych Tropicalia love songs for an inclusive future of unified humanity.

Choir Boy | Gathering Swans | Dais Records
Every song is an introspective Goth R&B ode to radical self care.

Church Fire | Some Lonely Wip | self-released
This collection of “unfinished/unmixed/unmastered/instrumentals” bridges the gap between Nine Inch Nails and Crystal Castles with their raw, lo-fi, maximalist glitch. Without the highly emotive and cathartic vocals that have been part of Church Fire’s signature sound we are invited to visit the soundscapes that give those vocals a powerful musical context. What is obvious here is the band’s playfulness and gift for pairing dark tonal choices and buoyant rhythms anchored by spare textural elements. On “pixie death tickle” there are wisps of voices but they serve as more a musical aside from the strong, bright, urgent main passages. The “wip” in the title may refer to “works-in-progress” but these songs would work as mood pieces in a soundtrack to the inevitable English language Inio Asano manga film in mirroring that artist’s talent for simultaneously expressing melancholia and joy.

cindygod | EP 2 | Fire Talk

Clipping. | Visions of Bodies Being Burned | Sub Pop
Brooding, seething, menacing industrial hip-hop horror stories from an all too near future.

Cyclo Sonic | Pile of Bones EP | self-released

Damn Selene | Nobody By That Name Lives Here Anymore | self-released

Dan Deacon | Mystic Familiar | Domino Records

Dead Voices On Air | Stone Cross Shuttle Worn | self-released

Deafbrick (Deafkids + Pet Brick) | s/t | Rocket Recordings

Death Bells | New Signs Of Life | Dais Records
Atmospheric post-punk brimming with an infectious sense of hope after a time of struggle.

Death Valley Girls | Under the Spell of Joy | Suicide Squeeze
Acid jazz flavored garage psych with an ear for emotionally rich infinite horizons.

Deerhoof | Teenage Cave Artists | Joyful Noise
Reliably Beefheartian, lo-fi No Wave-esque, boundary-breaking avant-pop.

Down Time | Hurts Being Alive | self-released

Drew Danburry | Icarus Phoenix A Sides and B Sides 2020 | Telos

Drew McDowell | Angalma | Dais Records

Dyad | Dormant | self-released
Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt are perhaps better known for their participation in acts like Howling Hex and Esmé Patterson’s live band respectively as well as their production work for Echo Beds. But DORMANT from their long-running collaborative project DYAD showcases their mutual knack for genre-bending IDM-esque soundscapes. DYAD freely blends elements of non-Western polyrhythms, intricate and textured instrumentation, luminous jazz keyboard progressions and tasteful electronic arrangements that convey an eclectic and international flavor. Imagine music equally influenced by Herbie Hancock, 80s Ethiopian synth pop, Daft Punk, Warp Records artists and informed by a deep sense of play, and you will have some idea of the soothing and imagination stirring quality of this music and its brilliantly new age downtempo future jazz sounds.

eHpH | Infrared | self-released
This Denver-based electro-industrial duo minces no words on the opening track “Idiot” in its introductory sample “I’m gonna say one thing, fuck Trump.” And then on to choice sampling of 45s words and those of journalists cataloging some of his offenses against humanity. The menacing descending synth bass progression and minimalistic percussion puts the focus on the words. The rest of the album is less explicitly and specifically topical but it is the band’s most fully realized and focused effort yet. The pulsing pace and Fernando Altonaga’s distorted vocals draw you into meditations on the perils of creeping authoritarianism on “Tarnished.” The pastoral pace and deep melancholy of “Forever Haunted” resonates with the artfully despairing tones of the Closer period of Joy Division the way its circular guitar line and synth melody rides a wave of personal revelation and the contemplation of an unrelievedly bleak future. EhpH has long been one of the more interesting modern EBM bands but Infrared demonstrates that the group of Altonaga and Angelo Atencio have fully integrated those roots with a more contemporary post-punk and darkwave sensibility, thus never sounding stuck in the past.

Emerald Siam | Inventions of Ascension | self-released

Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou | May Our Chambers Be Full | Sacred Bones Records

Emmy The Great | April / 月音 | Bella Union

Entrancer | Decline Vol. 4 | Multidim
In constructing this latest installment in Entrancer’s Decline series Ryan McRyhew utilized Rob Hordijik’s DIY synth, the Benjolin, as well as the Make Noise Shared System. Though both are modular synthesis devices and visually look complex, McRyhew, in naming the equipment on the Bandcamp page, takes some of the technological mystery out of music making with synths and puts the emphasis on the creativity end. For twenty-seven minutes forty-four seconds of the single track of this album, “Decline XVI,” we travel with McRyhew through the sonic analog of the distorted ebb and flow of civilizational decay that we seem to be experiencing right now. Yet at the heart of the piece we hear a separation of more industrial sounds and those more organic like the inevitability of nature reasserting its primacy in our own consciousnesses and in the entire world.

Equine | Light Wa/orship | Noise Pelican

Eve Maret | Stars Aligned | White Supulchre Records

Eyebeams | It Means Trouble | Hot Congress

Eyedress | Let’s Skip to the Wedding | Lex Records

Eye of Nix | Ligeia | Scry Recordings
Uplifting, psychedelic, blackened noise doom journey to a pagan underworld and back.

Facs | Void Moments | Trouble In Mind
The post-punk equivalent of crime jazz’s subterranean menace.

Faim | Hollow Hope | Deathwish

Fearing | Shadow | Funeral Party

Fire-Toolz | Rainbow Bridge | Hausu Mountain Records

Flaming Lips | American Head | Warner Records
Overflowing with compassion and musical salves for the pain and despair of the fractured American psyche.

French Kettle Station | Spirit Mode | Slagwerk

Future Islands | As Long As You Are | 4AD
A soulfully soothing and transporting examination of the roots of one’s melancholic impulses.

Galleries | Resolve | self-released

Ganser | Just Look at That Sky | Felte Records
Incandescent yet contemplative post-punk dense with conceptual content and poignant social commentary.

Gold Cage | Social Crutch | Felte Records

Hard to Be a Killer: A Tribute to Ralph Gean
In an alternate universe Ralph Gean is a beloved rock and roll hero widely known for his brilliantly unique and off-beat songwriting. But the British Invasion derailed that trajectory and Gean instead has since become a bit of a legendary figure with a cult following in Denver music who has periodically played shows and championed by figures as politically disparate as Boyd Rice (who compiled a collection of Gean’s work in 2007) and Jello Biafra. That fandom is reflected on this sprawling tribute album assembled by Arlo White of Hypnotic Turtle Radio and bands like Deadbubbles and The Buckingham Squares. Every interpretation of Gean’s songs is a worthy listen and a fine showcase for his sheer breadth as an artist. Contributions from local, experimental eccentrics like Little Fyodor & Babushka, Claudzilla and The Babysitters lovingly capture Gean’s essential appeal as an artist with an unvarnished charm and humor. Eric Allen of The Apples in Stereo fame highlights the science fiction cowboy persona that Gean could convey while White’s band Diablo Montalban with the late, great eccentric DJ and Denver cultural figure Frank Bell give “Switzerland” a real dark exotica treatment reminiscent of weirder moments in Tom Waits’ catalog. A fascinating portrait of an important yet often overlooked artist.

H Lite | Green Youth Heattech | self-released
Anton Kruger has been known for his inventive, hyperkinetic electronic and experimental music. But for this new EP he took a deep dive into contemplative realms of sound. Elegant, heavenly strings, luminous swells of tone and crystalline percussion embody the title of the song “Light Language.” The spacious sound design aspect of all the song’s on the album are reminiscent of Plaid in the enigmatic playfulness and the stretching consciousness to find inspiration through creative work. Every song brings forth a singular and imaginative portrait of tone, texture and rhythm that takes you on a journey to alien spaces that strike one as familiar and ultimately comforting like a dream. It is post-glitchcore IDM that dispenses with the anxiety in favor of a soothing spirit.

Houses of Heaven | Silent Places | Felte Records
Gloomy street tribal dance anthems fortified with dark, minor chord melodies.

Human Impact | s/t | Ipecac Recordings

In The Company Of Serpents | Lux | self-released
In the Company of Serpents has long been a band that has aimed to infuse its music with its interest in cinema, esoteric knowledge, literature, and with all of those come out of directi human experience, emotion and an attempt to make sense of life and imbue it with meaning. Lux is the fullest manifestation of those aims written into its most sonically dynamic set of songs to date. The crushing yet fluid heaviness of its sound is paired perfectly with elements of song that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Spaghetti Western soundtrack. “The Fool’s Journey” opens the record as a sort of map for the path set before us ending with the enigmatic “Prima Materia.” It’s a musically diverse and rich album that places In the Company of Serpents apart from a mere doom band and more in the realm of Swans’ and Neurosis’ own heavy explorations of the human psyche.

IDLES | Ultra Mono | Partisan
Pointed yet loving politi-punk built on a hip-hop framework.

Insect Ark | The Vanishing | Profound Lore Records
A seething and entrancing hybrid of a Junji Ito manga and industrial psychedelic doom.

Jarv Is | Beyond the Pale | Rough Trade Records

jOoHS UhP | Big Glasss | Records
This record is so irreverent and self-deprecating it uses the swagger language of much of hip-hop to make statements that are the opposite of anything some other artists would brag about. The irony runs so deep even the elements of the music sounds like swagger. There is a song called
“NoWeDon’tWannaMakeGoodMusic.WeTriedAndIt’sBoring.” The glitchy, industrial beats are so unconventional and eccentric you would never confuse this duo with anything resembling traditional hip-hop. It all has more in common with Renaldo & The Loaf and The Residents than even a weirdo like Kanye. Though often confrontational and obnoxious there’s no denying the relentless creativity of the production and glorious seeming lack of regard for how a song is supposed to sound.

Juliet Mission | Surren | self-released
Surren is the third EP from Denver-based post-punk band Juliet Mission. As with previous releases the trio’s command of blending layers of atmosphere with strong rhythms and a contemplative melancholy is impressive. The short title track actually has three movements that flow from existential introspection to passages of dark realization to a mood of uneasy acceptance. All four songs in their brooding beauty demonstrate, as have the most recent albums from The Church, that you can write vital and engrossing rock songs from an adult point of view with elegance and grace, and without defaulting to an adolescent, and thus thematically limited, perspective.

Jupiter Sprites| Holographic | Jupiter Sprites Records

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith | The Mosaic of Transformation | Ghostly International

Killd By | Neotropical (tape reissue) | Noumenal Loom

King Krule | Man Alive! | Matador
Like The Fall gone hip-hop chillout lounge post-bad trip horror movie dreaming.

Klara Lewis | Ingrid | Editions Mego
Distorted melancholic cello drones like the glitched image memories of past life regression.

KoKo La | Curriculum Vitae | self-released
Koko La has long already established herself as an artist of note as one of the MCs and producers in the hip-hop group R A R E B Y R D $. Her soulful voice and presence often draws out subconscious emotions and gives them form in the music and performance. Curriculum Vitae finds Koko La exploring the experiences that have shaped her. Aided by Machete Mouth and Kitty Opinion$ on a couple of tracks, Koko La excels here with shining a light on those experiences that challenge you in various ways, while at the same time, giving you a better sense of self and the boundaries you must draw the border for people who might seek to dismiss you as a human or otherwise put you in your place. The trap beats and hushed atmospheres provide a fascinating listening experience, like you’re honoring the subconscious thoughts and feelings that affect your waking life by giving them an identifiable form that also allows you to comprehend, embrace and reconcile the wounded sides of yourself.

Lazarus Horse | Oh the Guilt! | self-released

Lithics | Tower of Age | Trouble In Mind
Surreal, minimalist post-punk funk disintegrating into disorder like American democracy.

Lone Dancer | Temporal Smearing | Multidim

Mamaleek | Come and See | The Flenser

Many Blessings | Emanation Body | Translation Loss Records
Ethan McCarthy of Primitive Man renown returns to his ongoing noise soundscapes with the enigmatic and forbidding Many Blessings. In typical fashion this set of five pieces stretches beyond what McCarthy has done with the project in the past. Throughout this album there is not the harsh noise and deconstructed drones of some earlier work. Rather, it is layered collages of sound that give voice to the raw angst and anxieties that sit as a background hum of modern civilization eating away at our collective unconsciousness. The concluding track “Harm Signal” is like a symbol for the whole effort — a flow of sounds, a frequency, that we usually ignore but which causes untold destruction to our existence. These songs identify and give expression to energies and forces we’ve bypassed our whole lives but which are now impossible to ignore, like a sound art metaphor for the social and political forces that have come home to roost of late.

Marissa Nadler | Moons | self-released

Melkbelly | PITH | Carpark Records/Wax Nine

Memory Bell | Solace | self-released

Metz | Atlas Vending | Sub Pop

Midwife | Forever | The Flenser
Madeline Johnston wrote Forever during one of the darkest times of the Denver DIY music and art community. Her community was scattered and challenged in the wake of the Ghost Ship fire with so many lives seeming to be on hold with no hint about when thatdespairing period would end. And the 2018 death of Colin Ward hit everyone whose lives he touched so deeply that it seems like the kind of hurt that will never fully heal. Johnston’s almost ghostly, delicate and vulnerable vocals and distorted, ethereal guitar seem to drift together in an effort to make some sense of those feelings with a nuance and sensitivity that always comes across as emerging directly from those places of acute pain and ache and loss, and honoring the need to just feel all of that whenever the need strikes and for however long into your life it lasts even if that is, indeed, forever. An especially touching and evocative tribute to a uniquely restless and creative yet sensitive and emotionally refined person in Colin Ward, Forever is a tender and heartbreaking, healing catharsis in the listen.

Mild Wild | Mild Wild, Vol. 1 | self-released
Intensely personal, imaginatively lo-fi aural snapshots of daydreams and poetic observations.

Mint Field | Sentimiento Mundial | Felte Records
Dream pop slow burner illuminating and warming the inner regions of the melancholic heart.

Moby | All Visible Objects | Mute Records
Retro rave and chillout lounge songs mourning our collective loss, yearning for a hopeful future.

Molchat Doma | Monument | Sacred Bones Records
Introspective, elegantly minimalistic, lo-fi, Belarusian gloom pop.

Mong Tong | Mystery | Guruguru Brain

Moodie Black | FUZZ | Fake Four

Moon Pussy | Hurt Wrist | The Ghost Is Clear Records
Guitar riffs like swarms of angry insects sweeping through. Syncopated percussion like start- and- stop jackhammers. Bass lines like a half- ton coil being struck and emitting a menacing fluidity. Tortured vocals erupt with Brutalist, post-hardcore poetry. All of this helps to make this latest Moon Pussy record the perfect companion and reaction to a radically uncertain world seemingly in perpetual crisis mode and on the verge of we know not what. Fans of bands on the Amphetamine Reptile imprint or Touch and Go will be thrilled with the band’s seemingly endless supply of inspired, aggressive and savage noise rock riffs and the ability to articulate directly from a place of desperation and outrage. “Fail Better” should be the theme song of these United States.

Mr. Bungle | The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny Demo | Ipecac

Mr. Gnome | The Day You Flew Away | El Marko Records

Mrs. Piss | Self-Surgery | Sargent House

Napalm Death | Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism | Century Media

New Standards Men | I Was A Spaceship | self-released

Night of the Living Shred | Return of the Night of the Living Shred | self-released
The name of this album of course invokes the title of the 1985 horror comedy Return of the Living Dead. And the Colorado Springs-based metal group has taken the opportunity to give us an unusual and eclectic record that not only reflects its members’ broad taste in music but a deeply healthy sense of humor about the world and themselves. “Shred Shoppe Quartert” is an a cappella song in the style of a barbershop quartet. There are rap, punks, death metal, doom and grindcore songs. All of it performed with a charming exuberance even though the entire track list reads like something out of a heavy metal version of Mad Magazine. “We Get it, Mike Patton Is a Musical Genius” with screaming like a cover of something by Naked City with lyrics mocking that? That’s genius. Even though the record is largely a put on in one way or another, the fact that it has so much variety makes it eminently listenable.

No Age | Goons Be Gone | Drag City

Of Feather And Bone | Sulfuric Disintegration | Profound Lore Records

Oneohtrix Point Never | Magic Oneohtrix Point Never | Warp Records

Otzi | Storm | Artoffact Records
Emotionally intense post-punk at the intersection of Sleater-Kinney and The Cure.

Perry Weissman 3 | Backlog | self-released

Plack Blague | Wear Your Body Out | self-released

Plague Garden | LEFT IN THE GRAVE | self-released

Pod Blotz | Transdimensional System | Dais Records

Pole | Fading | Mute Records

Primitive Man | Immersion | Relapse Records

Princess Dewclaw | Wild Sugar | Glasss Records
On the Wild Sugar EP Princess Dewclaw has reinvented itself as a gritty, industrial darkwave band. That element was there on its 2017 album Walk of Shame (in fact the songs “Walk of Shame” and “Into the Words” have carried over in a significantly different form), but there seems more of an edge here. The vocals come more directly from channeling anxiety and pain into catharsis. Rather than acoustic drums the electronic and programmed drums sync more closely with the cutting synth work. The effect is like a caustic and politically charged take on a pop song with mainstream appeal. In that way it has an appeal similar to that of Alice Glass’s emotionally raw solo offerings.

Protomartyr | Ultimate Success Today | Domino Records
Burning poems songs evoking a Jim Thompson-esque modern America in slashing/clashing post-punk.

Public Memory | Ripped Apparition | Felte Records
If Tarkovksy and Jarmusch could team up to make a cyberpunk movie this would be the soundtrack.

Rafael Anton Irisarri | Peripeteia | Dais Records

Raspberry Bulbs | Before the Age of Mirrors | Relapse Records

Reverb And The Verse | RESONATE | self-released
Since 1999 Reverb & The Verse has been developing and writing some of the most imaginative hip-hop out of Denver. The groupput their songwriting on this ninth record through a rigorous process of experimentation and weeding out the material deemed not quite there. Though steeped in classic MC wordplay, the beats and expertly crafted synth work and rhythms seem as informed by the likes of Minneapolis alternative hip-hop that came out of the 90s as it does 80s and 90s synth pop. All of these elements make for a sonically rich and diverse listen a bit like a cross between Clipse and Meat Beat Manifesto.

Riki | s/t | Dais Records
Goth synth pop for skate rink parties in abandoned malls.

Run The Jewels | RTJ4 | Jewel Runners

Shabazz Palaces | The Don of Diamond Dreams | Sub Pop

Shitkid | 20/20 | PNKSLM
An unlikely and fascinating hybrid of garage rock and soulful synth pop.

Shocker Mom | The Mediocre Depression | self-released

Sightless Pit | Grave of a Dog | Thrill Jockey
Sublime and caustic, often claustrophobic, soundscapes of terrifying and transcendent beauty.

SNAD/Jackson Lee| Jargon/Syntax Error 12” EP | Deep Club Records

SPELLS | Stimulants & Sedatives | Snappy Little Numbers
This record is raw even by SPELLS standards. But it’s perfect for 11 songs about the messiness of adulthood with lyrics that frankly go for the jugular. This isn’t new for this pop punk band and its anthemic choruses, but it’s always interesting to hear the contrast between the primal pop of the songwriting and incisive portraits of American life that dispense with the soul-destroying niceties. “We Can’t Relate” is a pointed declaration of the disconnect between the culture of the wealthy and the working class. “I’m Sorry I’m Not Sorry” is something of an apology song for being how you have to be in a world that demands essentially unacceptable compromises. Imagine an amalgam of Blatz, Stiff Little Fingers and The Replacements and you have an idea of the sound, the vibe and the sentiments expressed throughout.

Spice | s/t | Dais Records

Sprain | As Lost Through Collision | The Flenser
Colossal, sprawling, slowcore deep dives into the catharsis of anxiety and rootlessness.

Spunsugar | Drive-Through Chapel | Adrian Recordings

Squarepusher | Be Up a Hello | Warner Records

Stay Tuned | Remote Control | self-released
Brilliantly sampling from American media and entertainment culture, both musically and thematically, Stay Tuned has produced not just a signature song with this arc of eleven tracks but a signature album. Dense with content each song uses the format of autobiography to comment on aspects of society like the shallowness of celebrity culture and the way we formulate our dreams and aspirations in terms and frameworks taken from preexisting constructs like television shows, movies, video games and other media — of course expressed through the corporate controlled channels we most often use to communicate with one another. But in free associating musical and other media references in a collage of sounds in the beat, Stay Tuned uses media tropes and collective myths and imagery to showcase how we can subvert the prevailing power relationships and the monopolistic paradigms of our time.

Stephen Malkmus | Traditional Techniques | Matador

Studded Left | Sidewalk Vitamins | Girlgang Music

Stūrī Zēvele | Labvakar | self-released
An endearing indie pop manifestation of the essence of close and warm friendships.

Sumac | May You Be Held | Thrill Jockey

Suo and Data Rainbow | s/t | Multidim

SUUNS | FICTION EP | Joyful Noise

Syko Friend | Fontanelle | Post Present Medium

The Drood | Totally Comfortable | self-released

The High Water Marks | Ecstasy Rhymes | Minty Fresh

The Microphones | The Microphones In 2020 | P.W. Elverum & Sun

The Paranoyds | Pet Cemetery EP | Suicide Squeeze

The White Swan | Nocturnal Transmission | CockThermos

Through Flames | Through Flames | self-released
Riveting, radical experiments in political poetry and sound design.

TI-83 | Demo | self-released

Time | These Songs Kill Fascists | Dirty Laboratory
Hip-hop artist Chris “Time” Steele displays a true gift for fusing autobiography and lived experience with historical context and knowledge of political theory on this album. He’s always been a brilliant lyricist whose expert wordplay has seemingly effortlessly combined his sharp sense of humor with a wide ranging curiosity about the world and a growing body of knowledge of history, culture and politics. On These Songs Kill Fascists, Steele works with Daiba, Mick Jenkins, long time producer AwareNess, Giuseppe, Ron Miles, JXSHYB, Cat Soup and Psalm One to create a jazz-inflected story cycle commenting astutely on social issues now getting some focus. While a riveting listen purely as a well crafted album, These Songs Kill Fascists does not function as merely socially conscious entertainment, it seems to have been crafted as a form of praxis that challenges artist and listener in a dialectic of critical pedagogy that mutually encourages ongoing personal growth and social transformation.

Tobacco | Hot, Wet & Sassy | Ghostly International
Bright, bombastic, noisy synths paired with darkly humorous musings disrupt the album’s aesthetic of nostalgic comfort sounds.

Torres | Silver Tongue | Merge Records

Uniform | Shame | Sacred Bones Records
Scorching and thrillingly diverse industrial hardcore inspired by noir literature.

Usaisamonster | Amikwag | Yeggs Records

Vivian | The Warped Glimmer | self-released

Voight | s/t | self-released
Maybe it’s Chase Dobson’s treatments and mixing and mastering after Adam Rojo and Nick Salmon wrote and recorded this album, but the self-titled Voight album is the closest the duo has come to sounding like it’s blurring the line between its rock and electronic aesthetics. Guitar chords burn and shimmer out, percussion flurries and traces out a minimalist beat and Salmon’s vocals float through the songs like a person who was once lost but is now rediscovering his ability to feel and to express those emotions with a coherent self-awareness. Every song has an expansive quality reminiscent of Clan of Xymox and The Twilight Sad. The tone of the album perfectly walks the line between urgency and introspection without ever compromising an underlying delicacy of spirit and emotional refinement.

Wayfarer | A Romance With Violence | Profound Lore Records

Wetware | Flail | Dais Recordings

White Rose Motor Oil | You Can’t Kill Ghosts | self-released

Windy & Carl | Allegiance and Conviction | Kranky

WL | ADHD | Beacon Sound

Wolf Parade | Thin Mind | Sub Pop

Yves Tumor | Heaven To A Tortured Mind | Warp Records
Futuristic, effervescent, downtempo, synth pop-inflected, R&B informed non-binary funk.