Even though the band has been around for five years, Metz just released its self-titled debut full-length on Sub Pop this year. Even prior to that, the Toronto-based trio only released a few seven-inches. Mostly these guys have spent their time focusing on developing as a group by touring and…
A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS @ LARIMER LOUNGE |11/11/12 It’s never boring when you go see A Place to Bury Strangers play, and last night at the Larimer was no exception. The band overwhelmed the senses for the bulk of the set. A tasteful layer of fog drifted around the…
A Place to Bury Strangers makes the kind of guitar rock that doesn’t just carry melody but is rather a palpable, elemental presence in the room. From early on, the act drew immediate comparisons to My Bloody Valentine, Jesus and Mary Chain, the Cure and Big Black, as critics searched…
THE FAINT @ OGDEN THEATRE |11/8/12 Even though this was a tour in support of the reissue of Danse Macabre, late in the set, the Faint treated us to a rare cover of “Mote” by Sonic Youth from that band’s 1990 album Goo. The haunted vocal delivery was in the…
The Faint was one of the main bands among the small wave of underground artists that emerged out of the unlikely environs of Omaha, Nebraska, a wave that included noteworthy acts such as Cursive, Bright Eyes and Azure Ray, all on the Saddle Creek imprint. The Faint was one of…
With his signature smooth, deep voice, Bill Barwick presents a collection of story songs reminiscent of what Jimmy Dean was doing in the early ’60s. Barwick has a similar gift for vocal cadences, and in a similar tradition of country music, where such nods to your roots are often expected,…
Even though the band has been around for five years, Metz just released its self-titled debut full-length on Sub Pop this year. Prior to that, the Toronto-based trio released a few seven-inches. Mostly, though, these guys have spent their time focusing on developing as a group, and on touring and…
Andy Falkous and Jeff Egglestone were half of the caustic noise-rock juggernaut mclusky. When that band split, the pair formed the decidedly more political Future of the Left, whose songs are filled with the kind of incisive, biting invective you’d expect to hear from bands like Gang of Four or…
Warren Bedell is one of the co-founders of Rhinoceropolis. But before helping establish that long-running DIY space, Bedell had been in the experimental post-punk/noise-rock band Zombie Zombie. And while living at Rhino, he had his hand in numerous projects, including Spellcaster, which showcased his towering guitar experiments; the post-punk quartet…
The River has run dry. After playing together for nearly a decade, first as Pillage My Village and later as the Legendary River Drifters, Curtis Wallach, Suzanne Magnuson and their current bandmates in the River Drifters have simply run their course. And as timing would have it, they’re just about…
Lauded Sub Pop recording artist Sera Cahoone grew up in Colorado — Littleton, to be exact. By the time she was in middle school, she was playing drums for gigging bands, and in the early ’90s, she formed the experimental-rock band Idle Mind with her friend Roger Green. Although one…
LEONARD COHEN @ 1STBANK CENTER | 11/3/12 There were no low points in Leonard Cohen’s perfectly paced show at the 1STBANK Center — impressive, considering it went on for three and a half hours. The high point came when Cohen and his band went into “Hallelujah.” The crowd sang along;…
Although the great majority of our interviews take place in advance of a show, every now and then, we get a chance to hang out with an act when it comes through town. Such was the case yesterday with affable and intelligent Dan Deacon, who took time out of his…
DAN DEACON @ BLUEBIRD THEATER | 10/31/12 Before going into “Guilford Avenue Bridge,” Dan Deacon told us to gather as much to the west side of the theater as possible to create a pathway on the left side stage ramp to the back of the theater. He then told us…
When Scott Uhl first formed Forgotten Serenade about five years ago, everyone hated the name, so it was changed to Glass Delirium, after one of the act’s earliest songs. Now, following a handful of lineup changes and as many stylistic evolutions, the band has arrived at a style that’s informed…
Kicking off with the bubbling and feisty “Bigger,” this EP finds the mostly instrumental Bizarre Learning Center channeling the distorted, glittery melodies of the Pastels or Black Tambourine, only at double speed. Robin Walker’s soothing vocals are mixed at a level comparable to the rest of the instrumentation, resulting in…
Sera Cahoone grew up in Colorado — Littleton, to be exact. By the time she was in middle school, she was playing drums for gigging bands, and in the early ’90s, she formed the experimental-rock band Idle Mind with her friend Roger Green. Although one of the more promising local…
Doo Crowder (due at West Side Books on Sunday, November 4) first gained renown as a member of indie-pop outfit the Dinnermints. But he’s most well known for his tenure as frontman of the anarcho-orchestra Pee Pee. Since Pee Pee went on indefinite hiatus a few years ago, Crowder has…
THE AFGHAN WHIGS @ OGDEN THEATRE |10/30/12 Probably the biggest surprise of the Afghan Whigs show last night at the Ogden came right before the end of the set when Greg Dulli revealed that his band had a Colorado connection. He told us how more than two decades ago, the…
While the Afghan Whigs are probably not the first band people think of when they think of the ’90s, album for album, the band consistently put out quality material. The outfit’s soul-inflected rock, which could just as easily be called power pop even though it packed a lot more punch…
Dark Dark Dark from Minneapolis makes music that draws from folk, jazz, modern classical and pop without showing favor to any of those elements in particular. Although the band’s earlier material was largely written by singer/pianist Nona Marie Invie and fellow singer/clarinetist/banjo player Marshall LaCount, Dark Dark Dark is a…
“Thus Pat Garrett on the Battlefield,” which appears on the Wonderful Evils side of this split cassette, combines the shimmering vibrancy of the late-afternoon air in summer with a sense of motion. The intricate guitar work is reminiscent of John Fahey, or Jorma Kaukonen’s instrumental “Embryonic Journey.” There’s an organic,…
