Wiff – Queen City Sounds and Art

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond February 2023

**Chat Pile performs with Lingua Ignota at Stanley Hotel Feb 24 and 25, photo by Bayley Hanes**

Thursday | 02.02
What: Almira Gulch, Equine, Witch Baby and Fireball Rose
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: The rare all avant-garde show at a club that normally hosts rock, pop and country including performances from musicians in the small free jazz scene in Denver as well as experimental guitar drone and jazz composer Equine.

Velvet Horns in 2023, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 02.03
What: Church Fire w/Elegant Everyone, Velvet Horns and An Antiquated Bluff
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Church Fire brings the weird and the emotionally charged electronic and industrial dance fire to the Skylark sharing the stage with the emo-folk-psychedelic Americana intensity of An Antiquated Bluff and the unabashedly queer emo of power punk trio Velvet Horns.

Friday | 02.03
What: BleakHeart w/Autumn Creatures and Fainting Dreams
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: BleakHeart’s fusion of post-punk/dreampop and doom is not much like any other band in Denver now. Autumn Creatures from the Springs is a good fit on that bill since its own music bridges the worlds of electronic industrial, darkwave, post-metal, post-punk and shoegaze. And Fainting Dreams with its own roots in hardcore and progressive death metal finds a different musical outlet with its own emotionally rich take on dream pop.

Friday | 02.03
What: Voight w/Blackcell and DJ Eli
When: 8
Where: HQ
Why: Two giants of local post-punk and industrial music that doesn’t fit narrowly into either designation share the bill this night. Voight is more on the shoegaze end but has so thoroughly threaded techno into its mix that it has become its own fusion of styles. Blackcell has been around for around 30 years evolving its own eclectic sound borne out of noise, EBM and psychedelic industrial techno.

Totem Pocket, photo courtesy the artists

Saturday | 02.04
What: VCO, Totem Pocket and Business Cashmere
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Is VCO the band from Glasgow? Who can say. Seems unlikely but if it is, it’s a kind of synth heavy post-punk pop band. But either way opening the show are two of Denver’s more promising prospects in the local underground rocks scene. Totem Pocket is a psychedelic shoegaze band that apparently wasn’t bother to listen when someone said maybe you should mix influences like Dinosaur Jr, Animal Collective and Slowdive. The idea of indie rock has become a bit of a lifestyle marketing joke in recent years but when you hear Business Cashmere it’s like they took the challenge of doing something off center from the standard pop and experimental rock and disparate retro influences formula to craft music that seems to draw on genuine emotions and dream imagery.

Wednesday | 02.08
What: Blink 90210, Reckless Nights and SPELLS
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Garage rock with a touch of soul and blues band Reckless Nights is reuniting at the request of their friend Thomas/Tom Packard who is fighting stage 4 colon cancer and wanted to see one more show. So it’ll be a bit of an extravaganza. Joaquin Liebert has been a fixture of the local music and acting scene as the frontman of The Risk/Hi-Fidelity and various other projects over the years so he’ll bring high entertainment value. And so will SPELLS with their unabashed aiming for the highly attainable and completely acceptable 80% performance level but with higher than 80% songwriting and energy punk pop.

Gabriel Albelo Band in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 02.10
What: Gabriel Albelo & The Midnight Temples, Los Toms, Galleries and DJ Eddie B
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Gabriel Albelo & The Midnight Temples is releasing its new four song EP at this show. The group lead by former Silver Face guitarist and singer Gabriel Albelo is an amalgam of heavy psychedelia and what might be called progressive garage rock. It’s the kind of music that could only really come about from an intentional study of earlier psychedelic and art rock with an aim of wanting to do something with a similar impact but without coming off like a direct imitation. Also on the bill is the like-minded hard rock psych group Galleries.

Saturday | 02.11
What: The Red Scare w/Sunnnner, Legs. The Band, Cellar Smellar
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: The Red Scare from Fort Collins sounds like it absorbed a great deal of Sonic Youth influence with its tonal and dynamic bends and favoring Lee Ranaldo’s offhand vocal style. But with a guitar palette like something born of the noisier end of The Swirlies and Lilys. Sunnnner is a little more challenging to suss out stylistically but other than a simple weirdo noise rock and scuzzy garage rock its exuberant live performances are simultaneously inviting and confrontational. Legs. The Band is another musical mutant also perfect for this bill with its unlikely and poweful combination of blues rock and punk fronted by the charismatic Marcus Macabre whose stage persona is equal parts Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and Bobby Hackney Sr. from Death.

Saturday | 02.11
What: ABANDONS, Only Echoes and Edith Pike
When: 8
Where: The Squire Lounge
Why: ABANDONS is a trio whose music has roots in post-rock, post-metal, art prog and noisy strangeness generally. Its imaginative soundscapes are arranged in cinematic fashion with figures and moods evolving and figures fading in and out as the music progresses and by the end of a show you feel like you’ve been through something more than just a rock show. Only Echoes is one of Denver’s premier instrumental post-metal bands whose relentless yet modulated flow of melodic sounds suggest epic journeys without crossing over into cheesy pretension. Edith Pike is a band that somehow brings together strands of emo and powerviolence with post-rock like a weird amalgamation of Siege and The For Carnation.

Rubblebucket, photo courtesy Grand Jury Music

Saturday | 02.11
What: Rubblebucket w/Spaceface
When: 8
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Brooklyn’s Rubblebucket returned in 2022 with its album Earth Worship, the follow up to the triumphantly soulful and heartbreaking 2018 record Sun Machine. This new set of songs find’s the art pop duo taking its mutant jazz, R&B synthpop into seemingly another vista of poetic examination of yearning, identity and saying goodbye to significant chapters and relationships in your life as they are and embracing the vitality of what is already forming and yet to come. Spaceface released one of the more lively retro psych pop records of 2022 with the self-aware Anemoia. When it toured in support of the album in clubs it was like getting to see a band making use of the space like they were both glam rock rock gods and a teenybopper pop band and made it work. It didn’t hurt the songs were also irresistible in their colorfully trippy melodies baked into solid dance rhythms.

Saturday | 02.11
What: The Charlatans and Ride
When: 8
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: The Charlatans and Ride both formed in 1988 in time to be a part of exciting movements of music coming out of the UK and across the Atlantic. The Charlatans were creating emotionally rich psychedelic pop songs wedded to some of the aesthetics of acidhouse and got lumped in a bit with the whole Madchester thing but were in many ways an early example of what came to be called Britpop. But these clumsy designations aside, The Chalatans’ songs then and now have a freshness of spirit that has meant its older songs have aged well and its new music as exemplified by its 2017 album Different Days hits with a modern resonance informed by an older person’s sense of nuance and perspective minus the ossified self-congratulation. Ride was certainly one of the flagship bands of shoegaze and its debut album Nowhere (1990) helped to define the subgenre. Its 1992 follow-up Going Blank Again pushed the fidelity of its massive guitar sound further and pointed at where the group would travel further in its songwriting with hints of electronic elements and a more evolved psychedelic pop. Its own latest album 2018’s Tomorrow’s Shore proved the band wasn’t stuck in some phase of trying to recapture old glory and demonstrated a knack for inventive melodic turns of phrase and strong pop hooks. This tour is a perfect match of classic bands who still have something to say rather than merely resting on their laurels as “legendary” acts.

Chella and The Charm in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Chella and the Charm w/Team Nonexistent and Calamity
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Michelle Caponigro is rebooting her Sweethearts of the Rodeo Valentine’s show for this performance of Chella and the Charm. The band’s music is a beautiful fusion of passionate Americana and rock poetry with uncanny insights into the intricacies and glories and pitfalls of human relationships and one’s own relationship with oneself in a world that can often put challenges that can work to dissolve anything you build. Caponigro’s lyrics in their various ways highlight how navigating these dangerous waters can reveal to you the essence of what makes one’s struggles worthwhile. Team Nonexistent is a band still exploring its sound but its jagged and scrappy energy hits as punk but with a defiant vulnerability that makes its songwriting more interesting than a lot of bands in that vein. Calamity is the brainchild of Kate Hannington and depending on the show you see you might think it’s more noisy indie rock or lushly expansive indiepop. But either way, Hannington’s commanding and expressive vocals deliver literate and imaginative tales of getting through life in challenging times without succumbing to an understanding impulse to despair.

Allison Lorenzen in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 02.11
What: Allison Lorenzen and Midwife
When: 7:30/8
Where: Chautauqua Community House
Why: Allison Lorenzen and Madeline Johnston (Midwife) have both been putting out some of the most deeply moving music in the realm of indie folk of recent years. Really, both are experimental artists whose body of work is both unpretentiously conceptual and dig deep into places in the psyche that can be challenging to bring to light and articulate in ways that make them accessible. Both recently released a collaborative cover of Bush’s 1994 hit “Glycerine” (video below) but of course make it an affecting and transformative listening experience. This rare collaborative show in a place like Chautauqua Community House will bring something raw yet sophisticated and genuine to a place that usually hosts more commercially established artists.

Tuesday | 02.14
What: Midwife, H Lite, Polly Urethane and Debaser
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Midwife follows up a show in Boulder with like-minded transcendent indie folk experimentalist Allison Lorenzen with this headlining date at the Hi-Dive. The show includes performances from glitch IDM abstract dance electronica artist H Lite, the always surprising and theatrical classical/industrial noise/musique concrète/songwriter Polly Urethane and her shows that seem to be different in fundamental ways from performance to performance and OG DIY Denver Godfather Josh Taylor (Friends Forever, Foot Village, Secret Girls, Monkey Mania, The Smell etc.) performing with his bass and drums (the instruments, not the electronic music style) etc. project Debaser.

Tuesday | 02.14
What: Matt Anderson and Mariel Buckley
When: 7
Where: Soiled Dove Underground
Why: For over twenty years Juno Award nominated songwriter Matt Andersen brings his tour in support of his 2022 album House to House to Denver. His warm and intimate performances are both passionate and informed by a gentleness of spirit that is immediately commanding and inviting with a musical style that taps into a blues and folk tradition influenced by a heaping of soul and R&B. Also on this tour is Mariel Buckley who released her own latest album in 2022 with Everywhere I Used to Be and its candid and incredibly relatable lyrics. Though known as something of a country artist the new record reveals Buckley to be a much more musically eclectic artist who weaves in sounds and styles in a way that complements well her expressive vocals and richly emotional musical delivery.

Wednesday | 02.15
What: Midwife w/Edith Pike, Viewfinder and Autumn Creatures
When: 6/7
Where: Vultures
Why: Midwife completes her journey through Colorado with a show in the Springs at Vultures just east of The Black Sheep with noise rock hardcore group Edith Pike and electro-shoegaze band Autumn Creatures.

Thursday and Friday | 02.16 and 02.17
What: Jerry Harrison & Adrian Belew: Remain In Light w/Cool Cool Cool
When: 7
Where: Ogden Theatre (02.16) and Boulder Theater (02.17)
Why: Jerry Harrison was a founding member of art punk weirdo quartet Talking Heads whose 1980 experimental pop masterpiece Remain in Light was unexpectedly its gateway into the mainstream with the broadcast of the quirky video for “Once in a Lifetime” in regular rotation when MTV launched in 1981. For the support tour of the album former Frank Zappa band guitarist and touring member of David Bowie’s band for the Isolar II Tour Adrian Belew (who went on to a long stint with King Crimson as well as Bowie again and a distinguished solo career) was brought on board for some of Talking Heads’ most memorable live performances as captured on film and live recordings. So the two musicians are performing the iconic album for these performances. While not including the other members of the Talking Heads it should be an interesting execution of the material given the musicians involved.

Weird Al Qaida in 2014, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 02.17
What: Weird Al Qaida album release
When: 8:30-10
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: Weird Al Qaida got off the ground in 2008/2009 when Eric Peterson and Ingvald Grunder formed the experimental project with the aim of being able to explore whatever musical ideas came to mind. Both had been in bands in and around the Denver music scene for years prior with Peterson having played in power pop/punk pop group The Barrys and Grunder having spent some time in Orbit Service. Weird Al Qaida doesn’t fit nicely into any Denver subscene not being quite noise enough for that world though elements of musique concrète, ambient and noise are elements of its songwriting and not quite psychedelic folk or jazz enough for a more mainstream version of that. But its fascinating body of recorded work including the 2011 seven inch Psychic Wizard, 2016’s Plastic Family and now the 2022 record The Dog & The Deer showcase imaginative soundscaping and arrangements that expand categories of what music can be while remaining essentially accessible.

Friday | 02.17
What: Plasma Canvas album release w/Cheap Perfume, SPELLS and WIFF
When: 7
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: Plasma Canvas is celebrating the release of its new album DUSK with a series of shows along the front range in February and March beginning with this show at the long running DIY space Seventh Circle Music Collective. The punk/emo/hard rock band’s heartfelt and cathartic songs has earned it a cult following beyond Colorado with anthemic lyrics and exuberant live performances. The album recorded at The Blasting Room by Andrew Berlin and mixed by Jason Livermore, produced by Bill Stevenson, is the first release to include the four piece lineup of founding members Adrienne Rae Ash (vocals/guitar) and Evalyn Flowers (drums) along with second guitarist Frankie Harlin and bassist Jarod Ford. And if you’ve been able to catch the band in the past year you’ve witnessed the power of the new palette of sounds. For this show and the performance in the Springs there will be the searing and inspirational, unabashedly feminist punk of Cheap Perfume, SPELLS whose workmanlike punk pop songwriting delivered with raw energy is always surprisingly likeable and WIFF whose blend of power pop and punk has a fuzzy tinge of 90s alternative rock.

New Ben Franklins in 2021, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 02.17
What: New Ben Franklins w/Jimbo Darville & The Truckadours (15th Annual Waylon Jennings Tribute show)
When: 8
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Waylon Jennings is one of the most celebrated figures in country music. As a young man he was hired by Buddy Holly to play bass and as fate would have it he gave up his seat on the flight in 1959 that killed Holly, The Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens. Throughout the 60s he played in his own rockabilly band but transitioned into a more country sound by the end of the decade and in the 1970s he was one of the main pioneers of the outlaw country movement. But throughout his career Jennings innovated in his songwriting craft and musicianship and while one might look askance at some of his autobiographical details his influence on the genre is indisputable up to his death in 2002. So a couple of the heavy hitters of local country and the better end of rockabilly have been doing cover sets in a show around the time of the songwriter’s passing on February 13.

Cheap Perfume in 2019, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 02.18
What: Plasma Canvas, Cheap Perfume, SPELLS and Bad Year
When: 6/7
Where: Vultures
Why: See above about Plasma Canvas, Cheap Perfume and SPELLS. Except this will be in the great dive bar off of downtown Colorado Springs.

Tianna Esparanza, photo by Shervin Lainez

Saturday and Sunday | 02.18 and 02.19
What: Tianna Esperanza (with Mick Flannery both dates)
When: 6 (2.18 and 02.19)
Where: eTown Hall (02.18) and Swallow Hill (02.19)
Why: Tianna Esperanza released her debut album Terror on February 17, 2023. The early singles revealed the singer/songwriter’s knack for fusing jazz, pop and hip-hop into a set of songs imbued with a confidence and soul one would expect from a songwriter a decade older than her 22 years. As the granddaughter of former Slits and Raincoats drummer Paloma “Palmolive” McLardy, Esperanza had a different kind of upbringing in affluent Cape Cod, Massachusetts where there aren’t a lot of people that look like her and how that plays out as you navigate that kind of environment. She lost her younger brother growing up and survived sexual assault and all of that tragedy and misfortune and struggle though not necessary to create valid art gives some context to the melancholic moods and exuberant yet tempered defiant spirit heard throughout the album. She is performing a short run of live shows including two in Colorado opening for acclaimed Irish singer/songwriter Mick Flannery.

Sunday | 02.19
What: nü-age outlaws, Fragrant Blossom, SiLT & Zər03n-A, Matt Robidoux and Kelly Garlick
When: 7
Where: D3
Why: This is a showcase for some of the more left field techno, experimental electronic and ambient artists out of Denver and elsewhere now. Includes former Pizza Time and still current Dubble Trouble musician David Castillo in nü-age outlaws, Charles Ballas of Dan’l Boone and Howling Hex and Petite Garçon’s Ben Donehower in Fragrant Blossom, Matt Robidoux from San Francisco with his finely textured soundscapes, SiLT and Zər03n-A’s chill, field recording infused prepared sound designs combined with choreographed movements and Kelly Garlick’s futuristic fusion of pop, glitch and found sound composition.

Harsh Symmetry, photo from artist Bandcamp

Sunday | 02.19
What: Harsh Symmetry w/Plague Garden and DJ Niq V
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Julian Sharwarko’s crafts moody and dark electronic post-punk as Harsh Symmetry like a more synth-driven and lo-fi Comsat Angels by way of Boy Harsher with guitar. Denver’s Plague Garden has long offered some of the local scene’s most imaginative and emotionally rich post-punk colored with deeply evocative, New Wave-era-esque electronics.

Kristine Leschper, photo by Tyler Borchardt

Monday | 02.20
What: Kristine Leschper w/Duck Turnstone and Alana Mars
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Former Mothers singer Kristine Leschper released her debut solo effort in 2022 with The Opening, Or Closing Of A Door. The album hits like the manifestation of conceptualizing music as a physical presence in the sense of a prepared environment with sound sources occupying their own spaces in the mix with a subtle dynamism in sync with Leschper’s melodious vocals. Like an indie pop Laurie Anderson, Leschper offers a peek into a playfully mysterious storytelling that challenges the standard structures of social power and cognition. For the album the songwriter draws upon the familiarity of everyday objects and and expressions and deconstructs them and anchors them with new resonances.

Friday | 02.24
What: Dressy Bessy w/Waiting Room, Friends of Caesar Romero and Pink Lady Monster
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Indie pop legends Dressy Bessy headline this night at the Hi-Dive with the dream pop-esque stylings of Waiting Room which consists of former members of The Corner Girls and TúLips, garage pop ragers Friends of Caesar Romero and the current iteration of Pink Lady Monster which has evolved from a more ethereal pop sound to one more experimental and jazz-noise-funk-art-damaged.

Friday and Saturday | 02.24 and 02.25
What: Lingua Ignota and Chat Pile
When: 6
Where: Stanley Hotel
Why: Kristin Hayter has announced she’s retiring the Lingua Ignota project and this is probably the last chance to see the ritualistic industrial noise and classical project. Across a handful of albums Lingua Ignota has subverted the musical idiom of religious music and that steeped in that tradition with the symbols and patriarchal framing of spirituality with a caustic and always thrilling commentary in sound and word and her confrontational yet cathartic live shows feel like the exorcism of collective abuse and oppression the likes of which must have taken a toll with embodying that energy for several years. However Hayter emerges as an artist after this run it will likely be informed by the high level of imagination and craft she has brought to bear with Lingua Ignota. Opening is Chat Pile whose 2022 album God’s Country immediately garnered a cult following and critical acclaim for its especially pointed and poignant noise rock that scorched the notion that modern capitalism has any effect on the environment, society and our lives other than one of erosion, destruction and corruption throughout politics and economy and how that descends into the culture and how people think of their very lives. It’s a deeply provocative and thought provoking record that seems to hit right where it needs to but with a personal note that gives it the force that one doesn’t hear often enough in modern music.

Sunday | 02.26
What: JD Clayton and Tanner Usrey
When: Oskar Blues
Where: 9
Why: JD Clayton is touring in support of his new record Long Way From Home which dropped on January 27, 2023. The record is a poignant and warm account of navigating becoming a new father and the deep impact the pandemic had on his career and the cascading effects of that on his life and that of so many people around him and his circle of friends. It’s a well crafted set of songs in a style rooted in country but with a strength of songwriting that transcends genre with performances that are rich on small details without detracting from the spare and clear songwriting that Clayton expertly brings to stories of working class life in a time when that seems so precarious yet Clayton finds a way to highlight the joys and dignity that are part of his experience as well.

Sunday | 02.26
What: Suicide Forest, Belltower and Insipidus
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Tucson, Arizona-based Suicide Forest has created the kind of black metal that combines the transcendent with the feral in a way that seems nightmarish even it expresses a vulnerability in the face of a deeply uncertain future and the turmoil of trying to hold on to something of meaning when so many social and ecological forces seem on the verge of washing that all away. Or at least that’s the sound and sentiments heard on its 2021 album Reluctantly.

Monday | 02.27
What: Viagra Boys w/Spiritual Cramp
When: 7
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Over the past eight years Stockholm, Sweden’s Viagra Boys has established itself as one of the most exciting live rock bands with its surrealistic sense of humor and brash, charismatic live performance style. And its songs that take aim with humor and incisive rhetoric at right wing politics and the conspiracy theories that fuel them as well as the cult of masculinity that seems interwoven into alt-right culture and the ways that has poisoned mainstream framing of social issues. And Viagra Boys does all of that with a sense of fun while completely obliterating the lines between post-punk, garage rock and dance music. This reached a particularly high point with its 2022 album Cave World with its front to back art punk bangers including the single “Big Boy” featuring Jason Williamson with the like-minded weirdo punkers Sleaford Mods. Anyone fortunate enough to have caught the tour for Cave Weapons got to see a band in high form with attitude to burn but one that invited you along for the ride in celebrating the dismantling of toxic ideas with creativity and wit.

The Rural Alberta Advantage, photo by Colin Medley

Tuesday | 02.28
What: The Rural Alberta Advantage w/Georgia Harmer
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Toronto, Ontario’s The Rural Alberta Advantage formed in 2005 during an era when modern indie rock was starting to form an identity in myriad forms but influenced by 90s indiepop, 60s rock and folk and a heart on sleeves approach to writing lyrics. The group’s 2008 debut album Hometowns was a warm fusion of lo-fi sonics and forward thinking nostalgia rooted in stories of life coming from places that maybe one didn’t full appreciate when coming up there but which one can look back on with the fondness you can only have once you’ve outgrown your roots some. The trio of Amy Cole, Nils Edenloff and Paul Banwatt returned in 2022 with EP The Rise, its first release since Cole rejoined the band in 2018 after a roughly two year hiatus. Intact are the lush chamber pop element and Edenloff’s earnest and gritty vocal melodies and a knack for taking an everyday story rendering it into an epic of relatable proportions.

Tuesday | 02.28
What: American Authors w/Billy Raffoul
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: American Authors has been carving a bit of a following for itself for its upbeat, sunny, posi folk pop songs since 2006 when it called itself The Blue Pages. It’s 2023 album Best Night of My Life is a bit like the brighter side of a modern update of Friday Night Lights without the football and after the weirdness of high school is left behind and you are on to building and achieving the life you want. It’s definitely the kind of thing that’ll probably find its way onto the Indie 102.3 play list if it hasn’t already. Billy Raffoul’s own brand of indie folk pop is more self-effacing and self-aware, vulnerable and delivered with his gently gritty voice that ranges widely between nearly whispered intimate moments and a paradoxically full throated introspection. His singles since the 2021 release of Olympus have revealed that Raffoul is capable of even broader vistas of vocal performance and finely nuanced songcraft.

Tuesday | 02.28
What: Cafuné w/Bathe
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Indie pop duo Cafuné met in the early 2010s while attending the Clive Davis Institute of NYC and it began as a side project that over the course of a few years became a more full time concern. Throughout the 2020 phase of the COVID-19 pandemic Noah Yoo and Sedona Schat wrote the material for their album Running which was initially released on their own imprint Aurelians Club before being picked up by Elektra in 2022 after which their ebullient single “Tek It” became something of a viral hit with its fetching blend of more classic pop and hyperpop.

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.

Hermanos Gutiérrez, photo by Larry Nlehues

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 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.