As far as we know, a starmaker/Svengali didn’t have anything to do with the formation of Hey Monday, currently touring with Stereo Skyline, the Bigger Lights, the Friday Night Boys and This Providence. But the Florida group’s members seem to have been as carefully cast for their roles as the…
Deriving its name from a song by Japanese art terrorists Hanatarash, Minneapolis’s Cock E.S.P. is one of the premier noise bands in the United States. The trio, which counts among its collaborators Thurston Moore and Merzbow, has inflicted its mixture of power electronics, field recordings, white noise and distorted ambient…
With her 2009 release, I Can Wonder What You Did With Your Day, Julie Doiron continues the sonic arithmetic she began in 2007 with Woke Myself Up. Doiron joins forces once again with former Eric’s Trip bandmate Rick White for an amalgam of the low-key folk meanderings common to her…
Unlike the series of interchangeable reality-show heroines of the same name, this particular Bachelorette — New Zealander Annabell Alpers — isn’t constantly surrounded by randy dudes eager for hot-tubbing, hooking up or any other activity that might earn them a little extra camera time. In the studio, she’s a one-woman…
Fell mastermind Josh Wambeke spends much of this new album in deadly earnest, Beck-circa-Sea Change depressive space-folk mode, which would probably be welcome if he didn’t seem so content to coast on opiated guitar strums and bland reverb-heavy vocals. Atmosphere at the expense of melody is the eternal Achilles’ heel…
Nervesandgel’s albums are incredibly varied; sometimes they tend toward pop exploration, other times it’s an exercise in the avant-garde. It Was All Just a Waste leans toward the latter. Opening track “Her Presence Was Felt by All” starts with shaped white noise that evolves into a dark, menacing electronic song…
“They say it gets better with time,” Eric Sanders sings on “They Say All Kinds of Things,” It Ain’t All About You’s fourth cut — and in this case, whoever the hell “they” are is right. The first three tracks initially underwhelm, and no wonder, since two of them feature…
The quotient for another undistinguishable, melodic hard-rock outfit made up of pretty boys has been filled: Fulcrum is here. On Quack, we’re treated to six tracks of generic, repetitive guitar riffs, tough-yet-sensitive vocals singing brain-numbing lyrics and the rest of the usual derivative modern alt-rock claptrap. The damn thing even…
The music of local dubstep artist Alert is dark, deep and a little bit scary — kind of like the man himself. “My tracks are a personal diary. There is no ‘me’ in the bigger picture, only a catalyst for the listener’s personal evolution,” he explains. “Also, I am a…
Twenty years is a long time to do anything, but that’s how long Terrance Hobbs has been playing guitar for New York-based death-metal legends Suffocation — well, aside from a five-year group hiatus between 1999 and 2004. Suffocation is about to release its sixth full-length studio album, Blood Oath, which…
Seriously, just punch me in the fucking head. Severe cranial trauma delivered with extreme malice would’ve been less painful for me than watching What We Do Is Secret. The 2008 film was, or at least marketed itself as, the story of the Germs — the legendary L.A. punk band that…
Damn it! What a punch in the gut. Seriously. If this isn’t a sucker punch, we don’t know what is. Earlier this afternoon, one of Denver’s more visceral live acts, American Relay — the subject of this week’s Critic’s Choice — announced its split. The soul-drenched, positively combustible duo comprised…
The Flaming Lips know all about putting on a hell of a show, and the Monolith Festival gig at Red Rocks in 2007 was one most phenomenal things to happen to that venue in the last few years. Lets hope for a repeat performance when the Lips return to Red…
Join us in praying for a Faith No More American tour that includes a stop in Denver, won’t you?…
Obviously there are tons of photos of the Showcase on our slideshow page, if, like us, you’re having trouble letting go. But we’d be remiss to not share with you the one above, which was shared with us by Gabe Rovick of Focus4Design. Click to enlarge the photo. If that’s…
See more Showcase photos at westword.com/slideshow. Arby’s, 6:30 p.m. The most insane, out-of-control venue at the Westword Music Showcase? No, it wasn’t Broadway’s with the metal bands or The Garage for the punkers. It was at the fucking Arby’s. Never before have I witnessed a fast food restaurant in a…
See more photos from Curious Theatre at westword.com/slideshow.Elin Palmer, 12 p.m.Overcoming technical difficulties and an initially cumbersome stage setup (the stage manager had to find room for a drum riser amid the creative and complicated set — including a desk, a bed and a road — for Curious Theatre’s latest…
See more photos from Dazzle at westword.com/slideshow. The Culhanes, 12:00 p.m. The Culhanes may be most straight-ahead country I’ve ever seen live. This is no ironic alt-country posturing; this Longmont-based act could be Merle Haggard’s backing band, with the guitarist nailing it on the twangy leads, and the pedal-steel player…
KS-107.5 Summer Jam Fiddler’s Green June 12 By their very nature, hip-hop radio station festivals like KS-107.5’s Summer Jam (the station’s twelfth consecutive sell-out) tend to promise more than they can deliver. The lineups are generally stellar — proof that despite changes in the music industry, terrestrial radio remains so…
See more photos from Sutra at westword.com/slideshow.Ideal Fathers, 12 p.m.Ideal Fathers kicked off the Sutra stage with a high-charged set of post-punk that included some keyed up takes on songs from its new brand new EP, A Complete Waste of Time Travel. Frenetic frontman Jesse Hunsaker screamed and wailed over…
See more photos from the Bannock Street Garage at westword.com/slideshow. Red Stinger, 12 p.m. One of the defining characteristics of punk is guys who love the people in the room exactly as much or more than they hate the System. No one who played Saturday at the garage embodied this…
See more photos from Broadways at westword.com/slideshow. Havok, 12 p.m. This four-piece band sounded like classic Bay Area thrash, stuff reminiscent of Testament and Exodus with a splash of Anthrax. The guitar work owed a clear debt to a death metal influence, and the vocalist’s wail and singing was akin…
