Gil Scott-Heron w/Zin Sunday, May 3rd, 2009 Fox Theatre, Boulder Better Than: The actual extended winter in America. When I got to the Fox, Zin played a set of funk and jazz mixed with soulful, hip-hop-inflected R&B. While the act sounded a bit like a jam band, with the requisite…

Although the lo-fi quality of this recording rivals releases on the Siltbreeze imprint, its songs are similarly worthwhile for their earnest sonic character. Matt Sage, formerly of Castles and Swordfight, is the sole performer and songwriter in M. Pyres, and he brings with him an undeniable knack for superlatively catchy,…

The noise- and experimental-rock scene in Vancouver, British Columbia, seems to produce bands with a flavor distinct from that of their American cousins. Two things that unite them, however, are a palpable grittiness and a fearless use of disparate elements to create an often disturbingly, always startlingly compelling sound. Like…

In 1970, Gil Scott-Heron became one of the godfathers of hip-hop with the release of his debut album, Small Talk at 125th & Lenox. His playful wit and incisive rhetoric developed more fully on later releases such as Pieces of a Man and Winter in America, establishing him as a…

Originally hailing from North Carolina, the members of Future Islands have come to call Baltimore their home in the last year. The band brought its energized live performances and native enthusiasm to that city’s rich underground music scene. Future Island’s sound features heavy rhythms mixed with dark atmospheres and powerfully…

While Vivid Imagination is probably ancient history to most, bandmates Mike Buckley and Ben Williams went on to play in the more-familiar Nightshark (Buckley) and Ghost Buffalo (Williams). But back in the early ’90s, when these guys were punk teenagers, they realized a dream by opening for the infamous and…

My Bloody Valentine, Kurt Heasley and Bright Black Morning Light Friday, April 24, 2009 Fillmore Auditorium, Denver Better Than: Mere nostalgia for the band could account…

The latest release by this extremely prolific singer-songwriter from Bailey, Colorado, isn’t universes removed from his previous material. Smiley’s finds Porter speaking about life near Colfax in Capitol Hill as a poor, creative person trying to survive with his soul and creativity intact. Standout track “Wait for Another” is so…

The sonic scions of Crash Worship and Arab on Radar, Arkansas’s Church of the Snake eludes easy classification. Heavily rhythmic noise rock characterizes one strain of the band’s sound, while another is marked by hypnotic, psychedelic drones, conceived in the shadowy recesses of a witch doctor’s visionary travels among his…

Ascaris is the genus of a variety of intestinal roundworm. Appropriately enough, the Denver band adopting such a gruesome moniker brings together the abrasive outrage of death metal and the aggression of hardcore. Instead of that resulting in a giant ball of razory bad vibes, however, Ascaris (due at the…

In music annals, 1991 is most often remembered as the year Nevermind came out and changed the commercial-music landscape for the next half-decade. That was also the year, however, that an up-and-coming band with a luridly suggestive name released an album of sublimely expressive, dreamy guitar songs that became a…

Peña, Cougar Legs and Eyes Caught FireSaturday, April 18, 2009The Rocket Room, Colorado SpringsBetter Than: Missing such a beautiful show due to Colorado’s Jeckyl and Hyde weather. Dave Kurtz and Joshua Trinidad opened the show as Cougar Legs, with the former performing arhythmic jazz percussion in masterful time with the…

Iuengliss, BDRMPPL and Josephine and the MousepeopleFriday, April 17, 2009hi-dive, DenverBetter Than: The mixture of snow, slush and thunder that barraged the city all day. In spite of one of the most schizophrenic patches of weather in recent memory, the show went on at the hi-dive and came as a…

From the guy who did Kiss covers at a Devo convention a few years ago comes this latest offering of absurdist humor blended with bare-bones synth-pop. Putatively filmed live and broadcast via satellite to other parts of the country from the Quad Cities, this “digital” VHS release looks and feels…

As a core member of the Anticon collective, Sole is arguably one of the most influential hip-hop artists alive today. Anticon artists aren’t generally on Top 40 radio. Instead, the imprint has been involved in developing, promoting and otherwise shaping — unwittingly, perhaps — the sound of cutting-edge hip-hop around…

Evan and Paige O’Meara have been at the punk-rock thing with the Eight Bucks Experiment since the mid-’90s. To say this project has changed its sound over the years is a bit of an understatement. In the late ’90s, Eight Bucks (due at the Gothic Theatre on Saturday, April 18,…

On its debut, the Bronze sets itself apart from the other bands drawing similar inspiration from the fusion of sludgy, heavy rock and thrash. Mixed in with the undeniable bite of these songs is a playfulness that suggests these guys are as much into having fun as they are into…

Bruce Springsteen is one of a handful of rock musicians to have aged gracefully while also growing as an artist. Instead of burning out and fading away, Springsteen had a remarkable fourteen-year streak of eight great albums, starting with 1973’s Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. What has made him special…

Perhaps too cleverly named, this Glasgow-based band had fans among the likes of Lisa Marie Presley and former Creation Records head Alan McGee before releasing a proper record. Superficially, Glasvegas sounds like a lot of atmospheric rock traversing the world these days. But there is a grace and gorgeousness to…

When you call your band “The Bull of Death,” you have to excuse people for thinking you play some variety of metal-core. This Colorado Springs quintet is almost as far removed from that kind of thing as possible — except that a couple of these guys were once in heavy-as-heavy-can-be…