Spacemen 3 very well may have taken drugs in order to make music to take drugs to. Action Packed Thrill Ride, on the other hand, appears to drink to deal with problems caused by drinking. Although Thrill Ride is firmly rooted in the country tradition, its songs don’t twang as…

Though the members of Division Day cite noise-rock auteurs Unwound and Drive Like Jehu as influences, their music has more in common with the atmospheric inclinations of acts such as Boards of Canada and Smog. Singer Rohner Segnitz’s voice carries a hint of Travis Morrison’s plaintive expressiveness, and Division Day…

The Haggardies’ debut full-length, So Good You’ll Think You’re Eating! (scheduled for release this Saturday, November 25, at the Bluebird Theater), will make you feel like you’ve jumped into a time machine and, for whatever reason, dialed up 1996, a time when ska-core seemed incredibly relevant and when hearing the…

Originally named after an early Brian Eno and Robert Fripp song called “Swastika Girls,” this Seattle band wisely settled on the more congenial moniker of Parenthetical Girls. Along with a shifting membership that includes Jherek Bischoff and Sam Mickens of the Dead Science, the Girls’ core consists of Jeremy Cooper…

While it may be an overstatement to say that Sepultura is the most influential death-metal band of all time, you’d be hard-pressed to find a likelier candidate. If nothing else, the act, which recently celebrated its 22nd anniversary, is certainly among the oldest death-metal outfits still going. One thing that…

Yerkish is a language created by experimental researchers to facilitate communication between chimpanzees and humans using geometric forms. And that’s about as apt a metaphor as you’ll find for this band’s approach to creating its music. Just as mathematics is the most direct approach that humans have devised to communicate…

The men of Johnny Knows Karate (due at the Larimer Lounge on Monday, November 20) cite the calculatedly offensive Hate Fuck Trio as an influence (perhaps it’s the Evergreen connection). But rather than going even further to establish their local punk cred by, say, covering a hilariously disturbing Frantix song,…

Tom Heinl’s music is either inspired kitsch or demented satire. Like Gene and Dean Ween (a pair of admirable oddballs to whom he’s often compared) on their 12 Country Greats album, Heinl takes a twisted approach to classic country. An offbeat mixture of Hank Sr., Tom Waits and campy lounge…

Whether Lee “Scratch” Perry got his nickname through some association with the Devil or because he’s well known for being more than a little crazy and likely to lash out like a feral cat is up for debate. Regardless, that ornery disposition may be the reason he’s outlived almost all…

The music of Day Dissolved Dream evokes images of Denver’s night skies in November: Clouds drift across the face of the moon while the ambient orange glow of the city lights burns into the midnight blue, limning the clouds with an eerie fire. By turns measured and contemplative, insistent and…

Like a non-bluesy Johnette Napolitano seething with righteous venom, Sherry Fraser is back with a new album after a seven-year hiatus. Her band, Two Ton Boa, often gets compared to Sleater-Kinney, mainly because they’re both on Kill Rock Stars. And while Fraser and company exhibit a similar type of passionate…

These days, it seems like anyone with even the slightest notion of getting down to their roots — particularly ex-punk rockers, for whatever reason — have formed some kind of Americana band. But few have approached it with the sincerity and grace of Portland’s Hillstomp. Although blues and its bastard…

Existing somewhere at the crossroads of complete abandon and tightly controlled psychosis, the music of the Blue Blooded Girls jerks the limbs and contorts the face of frontman Jme White. And he doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, he appears to be swept up in the electrifying embrace of a…

Oftentimes a band waters down its artistic vision by incorporating too many disparate elements into its sound. Although Austin’s Sound Team has absorbed an array of influences — listen closely and you’ll hear splices of Spoon’s frayed edges alongside ABC’s cheesy but earnest pop — it has managed to create…

Taking Pulp’s more orchestral moments and sewing them to the dark, experimental synth pop of Macha, Now It’s Overhead crafts what could be termed “space rock.” That is, if the emphasis of the music were placed on utilizing the space within each song to invoke different textures rather than just…

Formed in 2003 by the members of Rivers Run Dry, To Be Eaten — which will play one of its last shows ever this Friday, October 20, at the Marquis Theater, with Cephalic Carnage, Elucidarius and AinMatter — has produced some of Denver’s most jarring and devastatingly intense metal. Evoking…

Anaheim, California, seems an unlikely place for one of the country’s better garage-rock revival bands to call home. Fortunately, the saccharine sweetness of Disneyland — the burg’s biggest attraction — hasn’t permeated the Willowz’ earnest brand of youthfully exuberant, stripped-down garage punk. Formed in 2002, when its members were still…

The field of atmospheric pop is horribly crowded at the moment. And it only gets worse every time some trendy would-be hipster kid picks up a keyboard and adds it to indie-rock instrumentation. You’d think with the glut of similarly sounding music that nothing new or interesting could emerge. But…

Avant guitarist Todd Ayers has been a catalyst for some of the best and most compelling music to ever come out of Denver. He’s performed with and engineered an array of artists, including Twice Wilted, Volplane, Space Team Electra, the Emmas, Worm Trouble and the Tarmints. These days, Ayers splits…

More than twenty years and twelve albums into its career, Yo La Tengo remains one of the few vital bands that manage to release brilliant albums on a regular basis. The trio’s material is so richly varied that it defies comparison — even though the act has been known to…

When John Roderick was a member of Harvey Danger, few would have predicted that he would go on to do bigger and better things. But after leaving Danger, he did just that by forming the Long Winters, which turned out to be the perfect vehicle for his considerable songwriting talents…

In August 1883, Krakatau, south of Java, violently erupted, producing a cataclysmic sound — the loudest ever recorded by humans. Earlier this year, Shannon Saling, bass player and vocalist for punk-rock provocateurs the Swindlers, formed Krakatau with Bailey Cecil of Core of the Earth and former members of Black Lamb…