The Milk Blossoms Are Back in Full Bloom

Even after a dozen years, the Milk Blossoms aren’t done growing.

The Denver band initially made a name for itself during the 2010s through the city’s carefree, house-party circuit with a zany combo of beatboxing and ukulele. Harmony Rose, Michelle Rocqet and, later, keyboardist Blair Larson, were making some of the most interesting experimental alternative music in the city, equal parts lo-fi hip-hop and indie pop. The Milk Blossoms quickly became an underground darling.

“Michelle and I played a lot of house shows back then before we made anything,” says Rose, the uke-playing siren who has remained a constant throughout the past decade-plus.

The seedling sounds of those early days were captured on the Milk Blossoms’ 2015 independent debut album, Worrier. After releasing a much-anticipated sophomore album, Dry Heave the Heavenly, in 2018, the Milk Blossoms were officially breaking out, thanks to Rose and Rocqet’s unrivaled dual-vocal delivery that made for soul-churning songs. The group even took home the award for best pop band during that year’s Westword Music Showcase.

The musicians began writing a follow-up record in earnest, but flowers bloom in their own time. The Milk Blossoms that everyone fell in love with on those first two albums look much different nowadays. First, Larson left in 2021 to pursue other creative endeavors. “We played shows alone for a while, then we got invited to play Titwrench,” Rose recalls, name-checking the long-running local festival highlighting women and LGBTQ+ artists, “and we really wanted that sonic back of the piano, so we invited William [Overton] to play that show. We had a great time playing that with him, so we invited him to be in the band as our pianist permanently.”

In late 2021, the trio hit the studio at Youth on Record, where Rocqet worked as a teacher and part-time operations manager at the time, to record what would ultimately become the Milk Blossoms’ third album, Open Portal. As a producer, Tyler Lindgren helped the Milk Blossoms transition away from beat-boxing and incorporate live drums, essentially auditioning for a role he’d eventually fill.

“I know when we started recording it, Michelle had an inkling that she at least didn’t want to do beat-boxing,” Lindgren says. “She was singing and producing, then eventually it was like, ‘Oh, we should replace the beat-boxing with real drums.'” Six months later, he recalls, the Milk Blossoms asked if he would join the band. He happily accepted.

“That’s true,” Rose adds with a laugh. “We got a lot done through 2022. I was still writing music, still writing songs.”

David Samuelson, Rose’s musically inclined former roommate, was tapped as bassist before the band’s 2022 Underground Music Showcase set. “I’m the last one in,” he says.

The five-piece lineup was short-lived, however, as that UMS performance ended up being Rocqet’s farewell to the Milk Blossoms. Not long after, she moved to New York City. “That was our last show with Michelle all together,” Rose says. “It was a blast to do it at the UMS.”

Left with an unfinished album, the remaining four members worked at Samuelson’s home studio to polish up the nine tracks on Open Portal, which was released independently in October. “We did most of the principal recording at the Youth on Record studio,” Lindgren says, adding that his in-house mastering suite came in handy, too. “We finished it all up at David’s studio, the Sauna.”

“It’s my garage,” Samuelson interjects. “I didn’t even know it was called that. What the hell?”

The quartet comes together in a round of giggles. “It’s a lot more than a garage,” Lindgren adds, talking up the Sauna. “You fully converted your garage into a proper rehearsal space and studio.”

“It’s soundproof. There’s AC in there,” Rose continues. “There are some Diet Cokes, I think, too.”

“And a lamp. Very important,” Lindgren goes on.

“Yeah, that lamp, we really need that lamp,” Rose jokes.

The Milk Blossoms are content with evolving at their own pace, as the playful banter shows. Despite all the natural growth and pruning that took place behind closed doors, the band is exactly where it should be, and that’s evident on Open Portal, a beautiful bouquet of swooning serenades and dream-pop dirges. Hear it yourself when the Milk Blossoms perform at the hi-dive on Saturday, February 1. Denver veteran indie-rockers Dressy Bessy and sadcore crew Bellhoss are also on the bill.

With so many transitions between albums, it would be safe to assume that Open Portal, which includes upright bass by Zac Greenberg, marks a dramatic shift in sound. But while the previous hip-hop elements are gone, the Milk Blossoms are more mature at this stage. Rose still lends her soft, soothing vocals and ukulele throughout the latest offering, while Overton, Samuelson and Lindgren naturally make the songs fuller with their instruments.

“All Night My Hands” and “Moss” are standouts that span the spectrum of indie-pop. Then there’s “Thrill,” a baroque-pop piano ballad. It’s all very satisfying, and cathartic. “Anytime I felt inspired, I said, ‘I’m going to write a great tune and I’m going to put it on this record to the best of my ability,'” Rose says.

When she did bring the songs to her bandmates, finding where each musician fit into them was a seamless process. “It was more like discovering and letting the tea brew, so to speak. … I think records are kind of like a sonic puzzle as to how you’re going to fill in each frequency range, so every time there was new instrumentation it was like a new piece of the map or piece of the puzzle was illuminated for us to figure out,” Lindgren explains. “It was figuring out what needed to be there and what didn’t, and how to make it full without totally nuking what was cool about the original lineup.”

Samuelson, who had always admired the Milk Blossoms before becoming one himself, sees Open Portal for what it is: a “transitional piece of art,” he says.

“It definitely was a different band when they started the process, back when I was just a fan. I feel like the songs now, when we play them live, they sound different than what is on the record,” he continues. “It is definitely capturing a transitional moment in the history of the band. I think Harmony’s songs are so great that they’re malleable to so many different ways to orchestrate them. It’s really interesting to hear the record and how they sound now, compared to back when it was a three-piece with Michelle and Blair.”

Overton sees Open Portal as a bridge between what the Milk Blossoms used to be and would become. “It’s easy to attribute that all to the lineup change, but there are two parts of the transition,” he adds. “One is just purely wanting the music to be a different thing, and I think that was really cool. Then it was really fun, like when Tyler was just putting drums on songs.”

This era of the Milk Blossoms comes with a new moniker, too. “What’d you call it last rehearsal, Harmony?” Lindgren asks.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she says with a smirk. “I called it ‘trailer-park pop.’ I grew up in a trailer park for over a decade of my life and lived in a few different ones. I don’t even know what I mean by that. It just felt right.”

Lindgren breaks that down. “Things are simple, but not to a fault and not to be dogmatic,” he explains.

“Yeah, it’s a feeling, not a thing,” Rose agrees.

With the chemistry solidified, the next steps are already budding.

“We’ve already started working on new music with the lineup, and it’s been really fun to be able to write thinking of what from the jump that sonic puzzle is going to be. There’s a lot of similar vibes that we’ve been working on,” Lindgren concludes. “All of a sudden, a lot more pedals showed up and a lot more gear showed up, so we’ll see where that takes us.”

The Milk Blossoms, with Dressy Bessy and Bellhoss, 8 p.m. Saturday, February 1, hi-dive, 7 South Broadway. Tickets are $22.