ANTHRAX Cephalic Carnage • Havok 10.18.10 | Summit Music Hall, Denver Cephalic Carnage talks a lot about its love for THC-related products on stage. “Lucid Interval,” for example, is evidently about being totally stoned and sober at the same time. Just the same, most of the songs written by the…
Among the most popular and successful of the bands associated with the Elephant 6 collective, Of Montreal started off as a sort of indie pop band with an experimental edge. Instead of sticking to a strict formula, however, the band evolved dramatically across several records, fearlessly exploring lyrical themes of…
If the term “industrial” wasn’t already fairly synonymous with the heavy, dark electronic music made popular in the late ’80s and early ’90s, it would certainly apply here. It’s as though Ethan Ward, while living in big cities across the country, heard the clashing ambience of construction and factory production…
Like labelmates MSTRKRFT, Bloody Beetroots have a penchant for performing live in costume. Instead of looking like psychotic ax murderers, though, Bloody Beetroots prefer that their “Death Crew 77” looks like Spider-Man villain Venom. Although joined on stage by a variety of musicians, including a live drummer, producer Bob Rifo…
Ralph Gean’s storied life can best be read about on his eponymous website. Before that site existed, most people who knew about him probably either saw him at warehouse spaces like Monkey Mania or learned of him through those affiliated with the DIY underground. Often seen wearing a thin mask…
Pomegranate Place is in one of those old mansions you find throughout the Capitol Hill neighborhood, a relic of another era. It looks like a place where a benevolent secret society might meet. But it’s a women’s center and on the cool dusky evening of Friday, October 15th, it was…
PS I LOVE YOU With Van Louvin and Paean 10.17.10 | hi-dive Van Louvin opened this show. Those who have been around the Denver scene long enough would recognize its members from some of best indie pop bands of the past decade, namely Kent Phillips and Al Rich from Thank…
Considered one of the “big four” of the thrash metal era, Anthrax (see our preview here) put New York on the map with its inventive take on infusing metal with a punk rock spirit. When singer Joey Belladonna joined in time to record 1985’s Spreading the Disease, that band had…
Last year, PS I Love You, from the university town of Kingston, Ontario, made some waves beyond its immediate environs with the release of a split 7-inch with Diamond Rings. The energy and spiky sound of the duo’s songs are at times reminiscent of Hüsker Dü and Pavement. Singer and…
Chrissie Hynde is not one to romanticize the past, but she’s done plenty that almost anyone else who has done even a tenth as much would be right to feel proud about. In the mid-’70s, Hynde moved from her home town of Akron, Ohio, to London, England, and landed in…
“More Sunlight” begins this EP sounding like Twitch-era Ministry gone disco, almost like Bronski Beat if it had gone in a much darker direction. The Flashlight guys have figured out how to perfectly mix Ethan Converse’s light and expertly executed falsetto with vintage synths and percussion that sounds like it…
Fred Cole was a teenager in Las Vegas in the early ’60s when he recorded with his band, the Lords. For the next decade and a half, Cole soldiered on through various projects, forming the Rats with his wife, Toody, in the wake of punk rock. But Cole wasn’t following…
One of the Big Four of thrash metal, Anthrax was formed in 1981 by Scott Ian and Danny Lilker. It wasn’t until a few lineup changes later that the act hit its stride with the addition of talented vocalist Joey Belladonna in 1985. Long before it became fashionable, Anthrax introduced…
“When there’s no god left to pray to, you’ll see what I mean.” In singing those words from “Build a Wolf a Cage,” Benjamin Buttice probably doesn’t mean any harm, but that’s just a taste of the bracing lyricism to be found in his songwriting. Like Bill Callahan in a…
Houston is like any other city if you were to take away outside interest, camaraderie and hope,” says Tex Kerschen about the town he calls home. “That is to say, it is a vast, overwhelmingly alienating and inherently negative place. There is no money, no glory, and no future to…
SURFER BLOOD With the Dewars and the Drums 10.10.10 | Bluebird Theater From the moment the Dewar brothers took the stage and opened with “Life is Like a Merry Go Round Until the Burial Ground,” it was clear that they had ample personality and presence, something one of the brothers…
Based in Brooklyn, the Depreciation Guild made prominent use of the Nintendo Famicom early in its career to build electronic rhythms to underlay founder Kurt Feldman’s luminously melodic guitar pop. Inspired in part by artistically ambitious synth-pop bands of the ’80s as well as experimental, melodic guitar bands like Cocteau…
Listening to Our Slow Decay, Black Sleep of Kali’s latest effort, calls to mind easy comparisons to Torche because of the heavy melodicism and aggressive vocals, while the progressive structures and densely layered, expansive guitar work recall mid-era Isis. Rather than clutter the songwriting by hitting the listener with as…
Before forming Helmet in 1989, Page Hamilton had been active in the New York underground scene in the ’80s. Partly because of his jazz background and partly because he wasn’t afraid to explore the possibilities of the creative use of distortion with guitar, Hamilton worked with Glenn Branca before joining…
Migrating from the East Coast and Midwest underground music scenes, Sonya Decman played nervy, aggressive, angular punk with the Symptoms, her first Denver band, an outfit with a pointed yet playful sense of humor. When that band called it quits, Decman joined the ranks of the darkly intense and literate…
These days, the legendary folk-rock band Fairport Convention isn’t as widely known as it once was, and yet Richard Thompson, the band’s most storied guitarist, is often cited as an influence by a wide range of musicians and frequently included on the short list of the most talented living guitar…
HIGH ON FIRE Torche • Kylesa • Kingdom of Magic 10.03.10 | Bluebird Theater With a punishing low end that rumbled like thunder, Kingdom of Magic filled the Bluebird with heavy music that can no longer be called “stoner rock.” What the guys are doing now is just so much…
