“Madison & Angelus is a garage rock EP because it’s rock and roll. And it was literally recorded in a garage in LaPorte, Colorado,” Bevin Luna says. True to the garage band ethos, the 6 tracks mesh originals, covers and co-writes with big, fuzzy guitars, overdriven vocals and bashing drums. But the garage has a heart and some depth behind its door. Much of the writing discusses the turmoil of being a musician in the digital age, and as Luna puts it: “In the middle of a pandemic sandwich: never knowing where to begin or if it’s ever going to end – constantly trying to reassure ourselves that everything was gonna be OK.”
Denver’s femme trio, mon cher, explore synth-driven dream pop in their new EP tell me baby. It’s meditative and vibey, reminiscent of synth-pop groups like Washed Out (the group that wrote the “Portlandia” theme) and the Minecraft’s ethereal composer, C418.
Fort Collins based identical twin sisters Sophia and Jo Babb, otherwise known as Companion, release their debut folk/americana album Second Day of Spring with vocal harmonies that match as perfectly as their DNA.
They find creative ways to use their voices throughout, processing the trauma of their father taking his own life and their own feelings of isolation. Their unisons are striking, the balance and the carefully constructed harmonies giving the illusion that they are coming from the same person.
Alysia Kraft can keenly use nature as a metaphor in her music. But in the case of “Little River,” a song with rich layers of meaning and potential interpretations, the inspiration was frighteningly literal.
“I almost drowned in the river by my parent’s ranch in the summer of 2020,” Kraft tells BandWagon. “It was a freak accident. The railing snapped on a bridge I was standing on and I was instantly tossed into a very high, very debris-choked river raging with freshly thawed spring snow.”
She lived to tell the tale. And in turn, make some of this year’s most resonant music.
A Wyoming native, Kraft’s is known in Colorado as one third of folk-rock favorites Whippoorwill and the voice of The Patti Fiasco. With therapeutic guidance, she came to an epiphany following the river trauma.
“It is SO FUN,” cellist Joy Adams says of Big Richard. “We’re always laughing until we cry, and there’s no competition. It’s just genuine, supportive fun.”
Big Richard formed specifically to be the token all-female band at McAwesomefest in Colorado in May of 2021. Lucky for fans of bluegrass, authentic vocals and a little something different, what started as a token quickly alchemized into gold.
Following the passing of her mother, Greeley’s Bekka Jean independently released her folky, shoegaze single “What If I Forget About You ='(” in the vein of Phoebe Bridgers.
When The Velveteers (Demi Demitro, Baby Pottersmith and Jonny Fig) pulled up to a hip, all-ages venue in Detroit, they didn’t expect anyone to recognize them.
“Most of the last two years we’ve just been doing the same thing we always do, which is the three of us practicing music alone in a tiny garage,” Pottersmith tells BandWagon.
As soon as they stepped out of the tour van that day, the illusion of isolation was shattered. Maybe shattered is the wrong word. A fan, sporting Adidas flip flops, a Johnny Cash t-shirt and playing air guitar on a squash racket, was pacing outside of the venue and screaming the lyrics to the lead single “Charmer And The Snake” from their deliciously sinister hard rock album Nightmare Daydream.
