Sarina Simoom has existed in various forms since 1995, when Jenna Herbst started the band in Washington, D.C. Herbst has been in Denver more than ten years now, and the band has been sort of on and off during that time. Currently, Sarina Simoom is Herbst on guitar and vocals,…

This one’s almost all guitar — big, distorted, consuming guitar, the kind that you’re forced to brace yourself against. Cassidy Gates’s vocals must be shouted to compete with the noise. He keeps it simple: This is rock and roll, not poetry, so long vowels and exclamations work just as well…

Post-punk is sneaking up on exactly no one these days, but that doesn’t stop a great album from being great. The reference points here are a (much) more muscular Yo La Tengo, a less high-pitched Buzzcocks and the Replacements — all meant as compliments, obviously. This is just to give…

Living in the margin between the Postal Service and Sufjan Stevens is an awfully adorable business, but Freelance Whales manages to do it without being too vomit-inducing. Scant praise, and that’s about right for the Queens quintet. There’s some wonderful songcraft here, which keeps the Whales out of Owl City…

I remember staying up all night just hanging out with my friends, and randomly there would be gunshots and cop cars everywhere,” recalls José Bonilla, aka Zé of Diamond Boiz. “That’s just something we took for granted.” Remarkably, the MC, who grew up in Denver’s Westwood neighborhood, never got involved…

DAS RACIST With Pictureplane • Hollagramz • DJ Synergy • Kentdub • DJ Nikka T 11.19.10 • Casselman’s Bar & Venue It really seemed like the whole thing might fall apart. It was well past midnight. Travis Egedy as Pictureplane, who followed two hours worth of dubstep, started his set…

Last night’s Remedy Relief event, headlined by Das Racist and Pictureplane, got a little ridiculous. Das Racist didn’t even take the stage until 1:15 a.m., and the booze had been flowing freely for roughly five hours at that point. The venue shouted everyone into the street after the show because…

RRIICCEE 11.17.10 | Larimer Lounge Vincent Gallo: Not an asshole. First of all, assholes, especially assholes who have starred in movies, do not play music at places like the Larimer Lounge. And they definitely don’t express gratitude when 38 people show up to watch them. There was a certain distance…

The song that put Das Racist on the map was “Combination Taco Bell and Pizza Hut,” which could not be simpler, and the generally accepted story is that the band made it up while performing it at a show. Yet the ensuing online analysis would have us believe that Das…

Poor and in love is a deep vein for singer-songwriter types, and the Oak Creek Band does it particularly well. The opening song on the outfit’s debut EP, “1934,” is touching and sincere, beautifully sung by Arizona natives Jenna Cunningham and Daniel Watters. The two moved to Denver in July…

Pink Floyd’s The Wall has sold over 19 million copies. In scope, sound and cultural impact, it is practically without peer in the history of American music. Its primary writer, Roger Waters, hasn’t made the cleanest of breaks from his old band: There was a nasty legal battle over the…

We’ve lauded the evolution of Action Packed Thrill Ride. Turns out the band’s outgrown itself: Co-frontman Lucas Johannes tells us the record the group is currently working on will be its last. There’s still quite a bit of work to do, he reports, and they won’t release it until sometime…

Do not misinterpret Brandon Flowers’s solo album as malcontent of any kind. He’s said the material on it would have been for the band he usually fronts, the Killers, had the rest of the group not decided to take the year off. So if it sounds like his previous work…