If you have all kinds of time on your hands, you can search endlessly through the website on your own -- or you can let us do all the heavy lifting. We recently spent the better part of an afternoon finding as many pages as we could from local bands and then spent the remainder of the afternoon handily organizing and embedding the individual players for you to peruse all at once, in one place. Don't mention it. We're good like that.
One thing we noticed: There appears to be a fair number of bands that don't seem to play a lot of shows and instead spend their time sitting around recording music. We know we're missing a ton of groups, seeing as how Denver has something like a gazillion and bands. The oversights aren't intentional, we assure you. In fact, if we happened to miss something noteworthy, feel free to point us in the right direction by pasting a link and a short description below.
Rock
Andy Ard - What She Did Andy Ard makes bar-room rock -- the types of songs you'd expect to hear in a place with a Harley parked outside and a jukebox full of classic rock. A bunch of his releases are pay-what-you-want, so wander around to find more.
Bad Weather California - Live Jammers EP Bad Weather California has been around long enough that you should know what to expect here, but in case you've missed them: indie-Western pop.
Bedsit Infamy - Lungs, My Heart. Blood, My Stomach Indie pop filtered through the Cure, with a layer of melancholy that sits on top of pop beats.
Buffalo Supernova - Buffalo Supernova One sad bastard playing all the instruments renders indie-rock results.
Fulcrum - Quack! This album was recorded at the Blasting Room -- which should give you a pretty good idea of the sound to expect: fast pop music that closely resembles pop punk but doesn't actually cross the line.
Goodbye Timebomb - This May Break Your Heart Clearly a lot of pop-punk influence is keeping Goodbye Timebomb ticking -- and with vocals that sound strikingly similar to Jello Biafra, it's no surprise. You'll know you're in Denver when you hear lyrics like "Late night, drinking at the hi-dive."
I Am the Dot - Winter EP Denver sure does love its pianos and singing boys. That's exactly what you'll find on this free EP released early this year.
Irene's March Yarina The only tag the band used for this release that makes a lick of sense is "noise rock." Think loud guitars, buried vocals and a slight penchant for pop.
lightlooms - lightlooms You know that singing style that gals use when they actually know how to sing? Okay, put that with a guitar, piano and pedal-steel, and you get lightlooms.
Joshua Novak - Dead Letters We mentioned that Denver loves its boys with guitars and pianos, right?
Pan Astral - Pan Astral If we say Pan Astral sounds a bit like what might happen if you filtered Peter Gabriel through Daft Punk, would that make any sense? Anyway, that's what it sounds like to us.
Olivia Rudeen Until Now EP Olivia Rudeen makes upbeat Americana: Just picture the Dixie Chicks playing at a Nederland backyard BBQ.
Sandusky - The Settled Dust That Rose Sandusky capture the uniquely Colorado sound of cowboy-electro-shoegaze, or bootgazing, as they call it. In line with the likes of George and Caplin and Wentworth Kersey, this is one of Colorado's distinctive sounds.
St. Elias - Altered Beast Despite the album title, this has nothing to do with the Genesis video game -- at least we don't think so. What it does have to do with is some space-rocking jams.
Electronic
The Ancient Tapes - From Nothing, Out of Silence There's a whole collection of stuff from the Ancient Tapes up for free here -- and if you're a fan of, ahem, ambient-electronic, you'll find a wealth of content.
Disco64 - The First Estate The name should probably clue you into the sound, but just in case you're denser than Snookie: It's Disco. Electro-disco, to be specific, which is where the 64 comes in, we suppose. We were hoping for Nintendo 64 sounds, but we're happy to do a little dancing, too.
Foam Bee - You Are the Lucky One Originally recorded in 1998, You Are the Lucky One is a lovingly crafted ambient album. It has hints of the likes of Boards of Canada and Brian Eno -- making it a minimalist pleasure center. It's also worth checking out the other releases from the same artist, many of which are pay-what-you-want or free.
Jared - Unseen We're starting to notice that Denver has a lot of ambient-electronic acts hidden in the recesses of the Internet. Jared is another one -- with a dark, almost industrial sound pulsing along at a low BPM.
Signal Path - clash Signal Path makes electronic music with some jazzy riffs, glimpses of indie sensibilities and deep, deep lows. Think Ninjatune style and you'll be on the right track.
Spirit Guide - Underneath the Cracked Horizon More ambient tunes, but Spirit Guide lines up more closely with indie than it does with electronic most of time, sounding closer to something like Bibio.
Hip-Hop
Skizzaz - SkullCrack A nice collection of some absolutely funky beats. We have to say we were expecting something a bit more comical with this, but were pleasantly surprised.
Tayke One - Spoken Words We've noticed far too few of Denver's hip-hop groups aren't latching onto the free or name-your-price models. Tayke One takes to the free route, and in turn, you get some minimalist hip-hop with quiet vocals and beats.
B. Serious - Serious Business Volume 2 B. Serious is big-sounding -- really big-sounding. It might just be a bunch of studio techniques, but this is as handsome as any major-label rap release.
QKnox - Meet Mr. Q QKnox can best be described as ambient-instrumental hip-hop with a taste for funk and a little jazz.
Sir Vaant the Silensa - Guetto Livin Well, they tag themselves as crunk -- we still have no idea what that really means -- but we'll just go with that. Crunk.
Other
[formalscience] - Here and There... Denver used to be home to millions of funky noise acts, but that number has seemed to dissipate a bit over time. In any event, here's some creepy lo-fi noise for your morning drive to Hell Island.
Ken K - Maiden Voyage Pt 2 This is actually described rather well on the album's page: "it is a nice background listen for just about anything." There you have it.
Siamese Royalty - Siamese Royalty What happens when two dudes who love metal get together and make an electronic-grind record with just guitars and computers? Well, Siamese Royalty happens. Don't say we didn't warn you.
Sherman to the Fucking Sea - No Sleep 'til Buffalo If the band name doesn't clue you in, this is metal. Grimy, yelly, old-school Victory Records-style metal.
In Favor of Eliza - Dreams How often are you afforded the opportunity to hear songs that have ukulele and Moog at the same time? Not often. Now, how many times have you heard those two in combination with children's songs? Never, that's when. Until now, that is.
Ratfuck - Breakfast! Ratfuck is punk, or crust, or hardcore -- it just depends on who you talk to. We can't understand what they're screaming about, but considering the album title, we can only assume it's Cocoa Puffs.
Sense From Nonsense - An Experiment in Mischmasch Totally whacked-out non-grooves, chaos -- but it all has a sense about it that makes us think it's supposed to make sense.
