Don’t let the veneer of Americana fool you: Akron/Family is a weird band. Mixing folk with a broad palette of experimental pop and avant-garde improvisation, the act’s songs are reminiscent of the darker, more hushed yet blissed-out moments of Sun City Girls. It’s not that this outfit is overtly inventive;…
Colorado has certainly had its fair share of bands with sprawling memberships. Fortunately, most of those groups have brought us some of the better music of the past several years. Boulder’s Fellow Citizens (due at the Larimer Lounge on Friday, May 14) are no exception. Somehow all nine Citizens manage…
A few years ago, a band called Small Objects changed its name to Blue Million Miles. Inspired by a new lineup and a slightly modified sound, the core songwriting team of guitarists Sam McNitt and Jeff Shapiro issued Of Building Walls, a dreamy yet forceful album of emotionally charged, cathartic…
Largely released digitally, this latest full-length from Sandusky includes different artwork for each song when played on the computer. “A Prayer for the Unification of Bootgazers” opens the album as a statement of purpose: Much of the album’s material is post-rock, yet it manages to be genuinely haunting rather than…
Scott Hutchison started Frightened Rabbit in 2003 as a solo project. The name came from Hutchison’s mother, who saw how he would retreat into a corner like a “frightened rabbit” in social situations. Clearly, Hutchison has managed to leap the hurdle of social anxiety enough to perform in front of…
Originally something of a long-distance songwriting partnership, Mutemath eventually based itself in keyboardist Paul Meany’s home town of New Orleans. Artists from that town seem to be able to pull off eclectic without seeming like musical dilettantes, and Mutemath is no exception. Its popularity with fans of jam bands and…
Tyler Snow is deservedly best known for his various DJ gigs over the years, most easily witnessed every second Friday at the Meadowlark, during the Disco Nouveau event. But on rare occasions, he’ll perform as Ate Bitten and display his facility with putting together rich layers of sound using bent-circuit…
Denver Noise Fest 04.30.10-05.01.10 | Old Curtis St. Friday, April 30, 2010 New Mexico’s Raven Chacon performed with the expected harsh noise soundscaping at first — a combination of pummeling and shrill sounds textured like a nearly intangible sculpture that flooded the room and made the walls and the floor…
Forget trying to decide whether or not this music is just grind or a combination of crust and grind. What this record does from beginning to end is comment on the horrors of the modern world by embodying them in feral, distorted vocals and slashing yet pummeling guitar riffs. Where…
Champaign, Illinois, hardly seems like a catalyst for noteworthy bands, but Hum came from there and so does Common Loon, an act that occupies similarly atmospheric territory. A quick listen to any of the music from the band’s new album, The Long Dream of Birds, reveals that these guys might…
As one-third of Hüsker Dü, Bob Mould would have been important solely for having been in one of the most influential bands of the 1980s — a band that arguably established “alternative” music as commercially viable in the world beyond the American underground. But after the group’s breakup, Mould went…
Jazz has long been music reserved for the best players and has produced some of popular music’s most memorable eccentrics and rebels. While not a jazz show in the purest sense, Jazz at the Root (taking place this Thursday, April 29, at the Meadowlark with a wealth of talent on…
That a person could be in two hugely influential bands is rare enough, but John Lydon also became something of an icon for punk rock and experimental music. The Sex Pistols were instrumental in bringing punk rock to the attention of people worldwide, whether they liked the music or not…
Comprising veterans of Denver’s punk-rock scene, the Pitch Invasion took its name from the phenomenon of a crowd at a soccer game getting unruly and invading the field, also known as “the pitch,” and taking events into its own hands. This weekend, the band — made up of Mike McCrory…
The same year the Sex Pistols broke up, John Lydon dropped the stage name of Johnny Rotten and formed what was arguably the most influential band of the post-punk era with Public Image Ltd. The band’s second album, 1979’s Metal Box, still seems brilliantly out of place and out of…
From the opening track, the comically harrowing “Cemetary,” through the playful nostalgia of “Pac-Man,” the Lust-Cats have carved a new chapter in outsider punk rock by updating riot grrrl for the current era. “Stand-up Gal,” especially the chorus (“Can’t wait to see her/Kinda want to be her/She’s a real stand-up…
Even though this Brooklyn-based band took its name from an article in The Onion about the location of Donald Rumsfeld’s secret hideout, there’s nothing sinister about the act’s music. If anything, Fang Island, not unlike White Denim, figured out how to bring together styles that shouldn’t work side by side…
Someone should seriously kill the term “shitgaze” — but it’s not going to be these guys. Given the scatological name and the release of their 2009 Woodsist Records release, Shitgaze Anthems, it’s clear that they embrace the designation. In 2008, Psychedelic Horseshit was part of an MTV2 mini-documentary about lo-fi…
When Kevin Wesley and Darren Kulback started Hot White, it was more of an experimental noise-rock instrumental duo, with guitar and drums laying into seemingly improvisational pieces that were as angular as the were incendiary. With the addition in the fall of 2008 of Tiana Bernard on bent circuits, Hot…
Retribution Gospel Choir • The Life There Is • Rubedo Larimer Lounge | 04.17.10 Rubedo, a fairly new band, opened this show, and while the three members of the band seemed to be coming from different musical directions, somehow they managed to bring it all together. It was obvious the…
Opening track “Harvest of the West” has the kind of blue-eyed soul sound favored by English bands of the early ’80s — the kind that is clearly written to be catchy and poppy but with an underlying element of darkness and sharply observed commentary. “The Film Society Is Watching Me”…
With the release of 2009’s It’s Frightening, White Rabbits took a darker turn in its musical path, with songs about uncertainty and human frailty. Even though the music was moodier, the frenetic energy of the Rabbits remained firmly in place, as evidenced by their fiery and forceful performances. Sometimes lumped…
