Best Long-Winded Metal Album Title 2005 | Stormbringer: Conjuration of the NighthordeThrocult | Best of Denver® | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Denver | Westword
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Best Long-Winded Metal Album Title

Stormbringer: Conjuration of the Nighthorde
Throcult

Metal bands usually get straight to the point when it comes to naming their albums: Morbid Angel had Domination; Kreator issued Endless Pain; Venom put out Welcome to Hell. Then there's Throcult's second full-length, Stormbringer: Conjuration of the Nighthorde. Even without umlauts, it's a real mouthful, sporting two compound words, eleven syllables and one pesky colon. Saying it out loud seems to take forever -- and only makes you wish you could speak in a really deep voice like Lurch. Then again, Throcult could get even wordier before it steals the crown from English symphonic metal band Bal-Sagoth's reigning long-winded 1996 title: Starfire Burning Upon the Ice-veiled Throne of Ultima Thule.

Best Side Project

Wovenhand

Denver Gentlemen alum David Eugene Edwards hasn't left 16 Horsepower behind, but as an extremely prolific songwriter, he needed another venue for his efforts. Wovenhand fills this particular bill very well, and on Consider the Birds, Edwards's third disc under the moniker, he takes advantage of it. Like all of his compositions, the Wovenhand offerings are striking expressions of the themes and topics that obsess him -- love, faith and retribution among them. He's a unique talent, no matter what guise he's toiling under. Denver's lucky to have him.

Best Swan Song

Antidote
The Gamits

Area artists always try to make their discs sound as professional and high-quality as those put out by major record labels, but very few succeed. With Antidote, pressed by Suburban Home Records, the Gamits joined this rarefied company, exciting fans who hoped the disc would propel the band into the bigtime. Instead, Chris Fogal's creation splintered mere months later -- but if the Gamits had to perish, at least they left behind something great to remember them by. What a way to go.

Best Spoken-Word Disc

Love, Death and Poetry
Art Compost and the Word Mechanics

With the occasional exception of standup comics, most people who use common speech as their main form of creative expression don't fare well when it comes to compact discs. So give veteran wordsmith SETH credit for combining poetry and music in a singularly bold way. The sounds whipped together by Bob Peek, Scott Seeber and Edward Marshall are simultaneously accessible and adventurous -- the ideal match for SETH's sometimes highfalutin but frequently arresting turns of phrase.

Best Toga-Party Soundtrack

Pledge Kappa Epsilon Gamma
The Orangu-Tones

CU's sex-and-booze scandals make Animal House look like Romper Room. Still, the 1978 John Belushi film popularized a relatively raucous time in American pop culture: the era of frat rock, that surf-drenched bastardization of R&B that blared across university campuses in the early '60s. The Orangu-tones have frat rock down to a science, from the buzz cuts to the bleating saxes, and they've captured the whole thing on Pledge Kappa Epsilon Gamma. "Monkey Boy," a savage reworking of the Premiers' "Farmer John," is just one of the disc's cuts that would have fit seamlessly on the Animal House soundtrack. Toga! Toga! Toga!

Best Music DVD

Drop the Fear
Drop the Fear

It's hard enough finding bandmates who are in the same musical headspace as you. But when Ryan Policky formed the shoegazing Drop the Fear, he discovered that not only were his cohorts -- Gabriel Ratliffe and Sarah Marcogliese -- sympathetic sonic collaborators, they were also fellow filmmakers. Fittingly, the trio's eponymous debut comes with a DVD featuring a self-produced documentary called Questioning Fear. Shot during a road trip across the West, it captures the responses of random passersby when asked what they fear the most -- with profound, occasionally chilling results. More than just the album's wallpaper, the DVD is an arresting experience all by itself.

Best Blues CD

Rise
Eddie Turner

Blues aficionados from Colorado and beyond know Eddie Turner best for his contributions to many of Otis Taylor's recordings. Yet as Rise demonstrates, he's also a fine frontman, with an expressive voice and guitar skills that blast through genre boundaries as if they were nonexistent -- which, in his mind, they are. The disc was produced by Kenny Passarelli, another longtime Taylor ally, and the sound on cuts such as "Resurrection" and a cover of Jimi Hendrix's "The Wind Cries Mary" is stunning: deep, eerie and evocative.

Best Free Music Project

52 Songs
Tyler Potts

The year 2004 was a very good one for electronic composer Tyler Potts. Beginning in January, he set out to record a new song every week, and not only did he stick to his Sisyphean schedule all the way through December, but the music he made over this span was consistently fascinating: imagistic electro-ruminations on his world and what was happening in it at that particular moment. The entire opus can be experienced at his website, www.tylerpotts.com, which is outfitted with an audio player that randomly plunges listeners into Potts's ambitious undertaking. It's a beautiful place to hang out.

Best Formerly Free Music Project

The Denver Gentlemen
The Denver Gentlemen

Last December, this very publication saluted the new self-titled full-length by the Denver Gentlemen for several very good reasons. The group, led by the enigmatic Jeffrey-Paul Norlander, helped establish the gothic-roots sound that distinguished the Denver scene during the '90s, with former members going on to found 16 Horsepower, Slim Cessna's Auto Club and the Kalamath Brothers. Moreover, the new songs stood among the band's best work, and they could be downloaded for free at www.denvergentlemen.com. Unfortunately, that's no longer the case: The tunes are now on discs for sale at area stores, and are well worth the purchase price. As consolation, the first Denver Gentlemen long-player, the equally stirring Introducing...the Denver Gentlemen, is now available on the site at no charge. Gentlemen, start your search engines.

Best Compilation Dedicated to a Demonic Dachshund

Halloweiner Dog

Forget vampires, mummies and werewolves. Last Halloween's most frightening spectacle was an evil dachshund flying on oversized bat wings, shooting death rays from a pair of black, lifeless eyes, transforming the Front Range into a smoking crater. Amusing cover art aside, Sparky the Dog's spooktastic holiday compilation was a fun, apple-bobbing affair cobbled together by Soapy Argyle, Matt Shupe, Brett Duesing, Andy Gross, Jeff Cohen and others from the homespun collective. Boasting fourteen tracks that range from "Booty Pirate" to "Decomposing Beethoven," Halloweiner Dog has a bark worse than its bite -- but don't ever look it in the eye if you want to live to see another footlong.

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