Put It on Your Playlist: The Best New Music From Denver and Beyond

In this week's roundup, we’ve got math rock, darkwave, hardcore, folk and shoegaze for your listening pleasure. Colorado progressive rock/math rock outfit Jellyfish Farm drops a five-song EP of time-signature experiments that will untie the knots in your head. Church Fire sets your synapses ablaze with a witch set of industrial darkwave madness. Denver coyote folksters Creekbed riff on Cake for a good cause. Totem Pocket drops nine long tracks of shoegazing, neo-psychedelic nuggets by which to bomb your eardrums.

And don't just listen: Support your local musicians and pay for the music if you can. Go to their shows and buy a T-shirt, too.

These releases are available on all major streaming platforms unless noted otherwise.



Jellyfish Farm
Jellyfish
Colorado band Jellyfish covers a lot of sonic territory on its Jellyfish EP. The band considers itself in the progressive rock or math rock category, but the songs have a playful quality that those genres can lack. The band slips clean, jazz-like sections in between metal riffs and drum blasts, and songs like “Coriolis” boasts melodic hardcore qualities, so the genres veer all over the map. Overall, Jellyfish Farms’ sound is akin to Explosions in the Sky stealing Metallica’s gear and playing variations on the instrumental sections of “One,” from … And Justice for All, to a very high audience.



Church Fire
puppy god
Someone must have told Church Fire to make something witchy when it was getting ready to record its latest record, puppy god. And the Denver band delivered. Although the music fits neatly in the darkwave or industrial world, the songs on puppy god conjure images of a spring equinox celebration out in the forest. Just wear headphones, lest you disturb the other witches. It could just as easily serve as the soundtrack to a midnight panic attack that sends you out walking dark streets for hours. It could also play in the action-movie scene when the hero busts into the crowded dance club, extracting information from the head gangster. The music is synth-heavy, technological, angular and often quite dissonant, but has moments of pensive beauty. It's altogether a very well-rounded set of compositions.



Creekbed
“You Part the Waters”
Denver band Creekbed plays music it prefers to call "coyote folk," and appears on Covers of Cake Vol. 1: WE ARE BUILDING A RELIGION, from Horse Complex Records. The five-song EP skews toward electronic — but not dance-music electronic. Vaxxers, the Lowest Bitter, Lydia Loveless, Lifters and Owen Matthew Fitzgerald turn in tracks in that vein. Creekbed breaks the mold with a version of “You Part the Waters” off Cake’s debut record, Motorcade of Generosity, that sounds more similar to the slow songs on Beck’s Mellow Gold album. The EP is $5 on Bandcamp, and proceeds go to the National Network of Abortion Funds, which helps people with financial woes pay for the procedure. Fork over a Lincoln for a good cause.


Deadpan
Scythe
Denver hardcore punk band Deadpan worked over the summer on its nine-song album Scythe. The title track goes almost completely off the rails at points, much like an early-’80s-era Black Flag song. The vocals, which sometimes veer into full-on metal territory, are reminiscent of later-period Fang, while the song “Rita Sarah” opens with a classic ’70s punk riff. With song titles like “Knives Are Fun,” “Functioning Alcoholic” and “Bugsy Got Smoked,” the band appears to revel in gleeful introversion. The record is now available on Bandcamp, and the band expects it to be on major streaming platforms in a few weeks.



Totem Pocket
Totem Pocket
Totem Pocket lives in the shoegaze/neo-psychedelic realm, where reverb-soaked tracks with long instrumental sections reign supreme. It’s music that works on laptop speakers as well as at deafeningly high volumes; the latter is preferable, so break out the earplugs like you're at a My Bloody Valentine show. “Not Even Real” opens the album with a long ambient wash slamming into a groove that's smack dab between head nodding and head banging. “Shifter” begins with a buzzsaw guitar line that evokes a feeling of seasickness, a sensation of time slowing before speeding up and repeating. The music can feel distorted and blown out at points, but lurking within the textures is plenty of subtlety that listeners may miss the first or even second time listening. The word "shoegaze" gets tossed around a lot these days, but this is the real thing.

Are you a Colorado musician with new music? Send submissions to [email protected].