Music

With enough breakneck shifts in tone, style and pacing to confuse and confound anyone looking for more conventional songwriting, Action Friend’s debut clearly has its roots in the wildly experimental guitar music of John Zorn. This can be disconcerting to anyone not willing to follow the band’s sharp turns through…

One of a band’s biggest challenges is finding its own sound, and the World Romantic has done it. But the players are so locked into this style that their EP gets the redundancy blues by track two. Granted, the first cut, “Pop Culture,” is distinctive: Lead singer James Dzuris caresses…

Inevitably, this band gets lumped into the post-rock category thanks to that whole notion that any epic instrumental music with energy and drive must be post-rock. But San Francisco’s Beaten by Them has more in common with modern classical music and minimalist German bands like Kraftwerk and Neu! than it…

Over the years, categorizers have shoved My Morning Jacket in numerous pigeonholes: jam band, Southern-rock band, Americana band and more. Group leader Jim James doesn’t much like being labeled, though, as Evil Urges, the act’s latest disc, makes clear. The CD begins with the title track, “Touch Me I’m Going…

John MacLean made his first major musical mark as the guitarist for Six Finger Satellite, a onetime Sub Pop signee that merged traditional rock with synthetic filigree. Then, after lying low for a few years, he reemerged with 2005’s Less Than Human, a full-out electronic opus released under the twisted…

The state of Texas has sure given us some interesting and innovative musical figures over the years, including the likes of Roky Erickson, Gibby Haynes and Randy Turner. Erika Thrasher and Brandon Davis are certainly sound pioneers in their own right, and whether performing under the name of Indian Jewelry…

After 1997’s Urban Hymns proved to be a breakthrough for the Verve, frontman Richard Ashcroft went solo prematurely — and he was punished by having quite a bit of strong music be largely ignored. Now Ashcroft is back in the band, and on “Sit and Wonder,” the lush opener, his…

While it might be tempting to overanalyze why this record is released under the given name of Omaha’s favorite sad son instead of his customary Bright Eyes appellation, any such analysis misses the point — which is that Conor Oberst is a deftly written, beautifully performed collection that might finally…

One-thirty in the afternoon on a blistering Monday in late July, and the Flobots are hardly forming like Voltron. The tour bus was supposed to leave from this Save-A-Lot off Federal Boulevard at 12 p.m. sharp to make it to a gig tomorrow night in Dallas as part of the…

Pssst… this just in: The Democratic National Convention kicks off next week here in Denver. After nineteen months of hyperventilation in all the fishwraps (including this one), on talk-radio shows and on the evening news, it’s hard to believe it’s finally upon us. Don’t get me wrong, I’m as stoked…

During his three-decade tenure at Los Angeles radio station KROQ, legendary DJ Rodney Bingenheimer has helped break a slew of bands, everyone from the B-52s and Duran Duran to Social Distortion and the Ramones. Over the past month, he’s been spinning cuts from Cramp Your Style, the new album by…

Wale might seem like the kind of rapper only a blogger could love, but music-industry titan Jimmy Iovine’s betting he can move units to the masses. His recent signing with Iovine’s Interscope Records has been the culmination of a startlingly rapid ascent for the Washington, D.C., rapper, who, after catching…

The Dandy Warhols, …Earth to the Dandy Warhols… (Beat Records). Every other album or so, Courtney Taylor-Taylor decides that the best way to prove he doesn’t care about being a rock star is by taking a bunch of otherwise accessible tracks and goofing on them until they seem like impenetrable…

“You’re not wearing your hat tonight,” the bartender says to the guy who just walked in with a gal and sat next to me. “I don’t think I’ve seen you in here without your hat on.” And this guy doesn’t even need a hat — he has a full head…

Anyone who’s been paying attention to Denver music for the last several years has probably seen or heard of Voices Underwater and Streamlined. The latter’s Luke Goodhue had written memorable space-rock riffs, while Chris White had been the impressively talented bass player in the former. For his part, White was…

In the halcyon days of the Denver dance scene, circa the late ’90s, Vitamin D was everywhere. It was rare, in fact, to see a party flier that didn’t have his name on it. These days, Vita’s focused primarily on label work, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t still find…

Which song will electrify the crowd next Thursday? In a little more than a week, 75,000 lucky ticket-holders will head for Invesco Field, ready to usher in a new era of photos for their Facebook pages. They’ll walk through the closed (and possibly burning) streets of Denver, arriving hours early…

Hippie Werewolves, Old Man Stu, Assault Monday, August 18, 2008 Herman’s Hideaway There was a time when the notion of mating rap with metal seemed vital and groundbreaking. At first, there was an admitted novelty factor attached to hearing unlikely collaborations between disparate acts like Run DMC and Aerosmith or…

To Be Eaten, Dead Child, Munimula, Adai Monday, August 18, 2008 hi-dive Better Than: Most music that entertains the conceit of being heavy. Adai got the evening started off right with pieces of epic, surprisingly rich and diverse, experimental metal. Comprised of just two guys, a drummer and guitarist, the…

Just confirmed that following its just-announced show the night before at the Boulder Theater, Public Enemy is slated to appear at 2 p.m. at Civic Center Park in the Greek Amphitheater as part of an event sponsored by Recreate 68. To quote my man, Flavor Flav, yeah, boooyeee! It’s going…