Denver's Kiltro Makes Unique Shoegaze on New Album Underbelly

Kiltro is no stranger to Denver audiences: The local band has been dazzling listeners with genre-bending live shows for more than five years. Since releasing its debut album, Creatures of Habit, in 2019, Kiltro has continued to evolve its unique mix of shoegaze, neo-psychedelia, ambient and South American folk. That eclectic sound is on full display across the ten tracks that make up its new album, Underbelly, which drops on Friday, June 2.

Written during the long break of the pandemic, the band’s sophomore record involved a “very different process” than its first offering, says Chilean-American singer-songwriter Chris Bowers-Castillo.

“We had a lot of opportunity to show [Creatures of Habit] to people and hone it. That dictates the process," he explains. "I think it makes it a specific kind of album. Even if you’re not directly taking cues from the audience, you work on something and bring it out to people, then you suddenly become very aware of what you feel is wrong with it and what it needs. This album, by contrast, didn’t have an audience. ... That made it a very different process, which I’m excited about: Forget trying to do it live, let’s just make a thing.”

But now Kiltro, whose moniker is Chilean slang for stray dogs or mutts, is ready to bring Underbelly to the masses. The band is kicking off a tour with a free album-release show today, June 1, at the Mercury Cafe, where the band will play the album in its entirety. Local singer-songwriter Nina de Freitas is also on the bill.

Translating the new songs in a live setting will also be a bit different, Bowers-Castillo adds. He and his bandmates — Will Parkhill (bass), Michael Devincenzi (drums) and Fez Garcia (live percussion) — worked to boil down the tracks and reimagine them for concerts. Kiltro uses a recorded “rubric” for reference, Bowers-Castillo says, but once the group hits the stage, the crowd and space are big factors in dictating where each tune ultimately goes.

“It’s definitely been a chore figuring out how to do the [songs] live. We’re at a point now where we’re really excited about them, we’re proud of them,” he says, adding that the band has workshopped some Underbelly songs live already. “There will be certain little moments where we can say, ‘Okay, the energy goes low here and turns back up.’ Some things work and some things don’t. It’s just a process of figuring out what that is. ... Sections will change in length. There will be little things that we do differently...or loops that I omit sometimes, depending on how the room feels.”

He and the band are constantly “reading and responding” to the audience in front of them to create a “connection that you’re all in this space together,” according to Bowers-Castillo.

“I always want to leave room for the songs to breathe and adapt,” he adds. “I think that’s an important dimension of live performance — having that ability to read the room a little bit and interact with the audience on a musical level. I think people appreciate that.”

Bowers-Castillo and Kiltro pull sounds from all over the world, from Latin American legends such as Violeta Parra, Víctor Jara and Atahualpa Yupanqui to more contemporary acts including Rhode Island prog-rockers The Dear Hunter and Ghanaian-American singer-songwriter Moses Somney. Kiltro songs like “Softy” and “All the Time in the World” are mixtures of danceable melodies and spaced-out jams.

Bowers-Castillo admits that “Softy” didn’t initially feel like a Kiltro song, particularly since it was one of the first the band wrote while working on Underbelly. But as the record came together, track by track, the song felt more prophetic than anything. “It was recorded early in the recording process of the album, but it was like it was anticipating where we were actually going to go,” he explains.

Like most Kiltro tunes, the song is is “rhythmic and emotive” at its core, he adds, which always translates well to energetic sets.

“Be ready to dance if you come to a show,” Bowers-Castillo says. “The live shows, at the end of the day, are almost like a different art form. I would say our shows definitely intentionally sound different than the experience of listening to the album on headphones.”

Kiltro, 7 p.m. Thursday, June 1, Mercury Cafe, 2199 California Street, free.