Music

Denver scenesters have long believed that the across-the-board success of even one local band would draw A&R reps to the area in droves. Well, the Fray has finally turned this trick, and as a result, acts like Lazyface, another sensitive, piano-heavy combo, may get a sniff. But while Smile is…

Seeing Michael Reisinger without his hands down his pants is like attending a birthday party without cake. Motheater’s unabashed vocalist has made the dirty deed a staple live — one that’s immodestly hard to pry your eyes from. Reisinger says its an entirely subconscious, I’m-just-totally-lost-in-the-moment thing. Whatever the case, it’s…

Bound Stems, Appreciation Night (Flameshovel). Appreciation Night, the giddy, hopelessly awkward and delightfully messy full-length debut from unhinged indie-pop quintet Bound Stems, features snippets of samples, boy/girl vocals, twee keyboards and guitars that go from jangly to jarring without warning. There’s an all-over-the-map aesthetic at work here; even so, the…

When Kenny Rogers began promoting his latest CD, Water & Bridges, earlier this year, he was treated like a walking punchline thanks to hideously botched plastic surgery; he looked as if he’d inflated his head using a bicycle pump. Despite all the guffaws, however, the disc’s lead single, “I Can’t…

With wide-eyed innocence and cockeyed optimism, the 1090 Club — straight outta rock mecca Billings, Montana — invites you to its loose-limbed, attitude-at-the-door pop-rock party. Guitarist Sean Lynch, pianist Mike Galt, violinist Megan Dibble and drummer Steve Serfazo enthusiastically attack their songs with a refreshing lack of assumption and an…

There are tribute bands, which focus all their energy on replicating somebody else’s music. And there are outfits that play “original” material that sounds exactly like that of their heroes. Then there are those genius auteurs who wear their influences on their sleeves yet still manage to do their own…

Not too terribly long ago, the Darkness turned heads with flashback metal delivered with tongue so far in cheek that the damn thing must have been severed at the root. DragonForce, appearing with All That Remains and Horse the Band, draws from the same inspirational well, but with a major…

Snowden’s Jade Tree debut, Anti-Anti, instantly transports listeners to the dark, electro-infused ’80s rock of Joy Division, Bauhaus and the Cure. So, naturally, comparisons to Interpol, She Wants Revenge and the Editors are inevitable. However, none of that name-checking helps much, except to hint at the dark drama, intensity and…

Converge had the good fortune to tour through Boulder a few years back during the heyday of sports riots and couch-burning. One particular show fell on the same night as CU versus Somebody (like it mattered who was playing), and as hardcore kids stormed the inside of Tulagi, football maniacs…

Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention. In the beginning, synth-pop pioneers like Bronski Beat, Soft Cell and Heaven 17 collectively shared the DNA of American soul, ’60s pop and funk, coupled with a limited ability to re-create that music on conventional instruments. To make up for this shortcoming,…

Kurt Cobain loved the Melvins. And if he hadn’t shot himself into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, then biographers and dutiful note-takers of music history might not have paid any attention to this small fact. And here’s another one: Without the influence of the Melvins, there would be…

Get Three Coffins Ready doesn’t need no stinkin’ vocalist. The Denver-based purely instrumental band makes dance-floor toe-stepping goodness that’s as much sock-hop shtick as it is rockabilly crass. Riding the waves of ’50s and ’60s beach-bum pop and crashing it into mid-’70s grungy garage, Get Three Coffins Ready offers an…

Mike Doughty is not your boyfriend. Maybe there’s one woman in New York who can say he is, but that’s it. If you think you’re his girlfriend, that makes you a stalker. And that’s just creepy. “I get a lot of them, that’s for sure,” says Doughty from his home…

Matt Fecher would make a great politician. When asked even the most innocuous of questions — like how the upcoming South Park Music Festival will be different from last year’s, for instance — he pauses, then carefully chooses each word of his response so as not to alienate anyone even…

The notion behind France’s Nouvelle Vague — ’70s- and ’80s-vintage new-wave songs as crooned by sexy femmes over acoustic, bossa-nova-inflected grooves — could hardly seem more gimmicky. So the biggest surprise about the group isn’t its success, which is at least partly due to the cleverness of the concept. Rather,…

The Queers have been around forever — or so it seems. Any snot-nosed kid who’s ever dipped into the punk scene, even if it was only for a summer, has probably elbowed a few faces in the pit at a Queers show, or at least bought (and later sold) an…

Jurassic 5 is known for its throwback sound, which harks back to hip-hop’s golden age. Although purists have always gravitated toward the group’s old-school-inspired music, the crew is looking at gaining a wider audience with its latest effort, Feedback, which features collaborations with Dave Matthews and super-producer Scott Storch, as…

Idlewild is a disappointment when compared with OutKast’s Speakerboxx/The Love Below double-header. But it’s also an entirely different animal — a soundtrack yoked to the like-titled film’s strained attempt to transplant hip-hop to the 1930s. Given this unwieldy concept, André and Big Boi deserve a few props for producing an…

Even when Primal Scream didn’t match the creative heights reached by Screamadelica’s rave-worthy blissouts or the electro-punk of XTRMNTR, the group never lacked self-confidence. After all, it coaxed (and kept) My Bloody Valentine’s reclusive Kevin Shields out of hibernation and had the courage to embrace sinewy dark wave long before…

So how does an album like Port of Miami — built on run-of-the-mill drug-trafficking tales, odes to dead presidents and standard street-life themes — debut at number one on the Billboard charts? Apparently, it’s all in the delivery. Fact is, Rick Ross isn’t saying anything that hasn’t been said a…

On 2004’s Consider the Birds, Wovenhand’s David Eugene Edwards made the Old Testament new again via lyrics that doubled as fierce and unforgiving divination. This time around, his intentions are just as prophetic; the title may reference an artistic style, but it’s also an allusion to Moses. Musically, though, Mosaic…