brought their blues-influenced jams to the on Tuesday, playing a mix of fan favorites from their 2009 release “Broken Side of Time,” as well as a slew of unreleased new tracks from their upcoming album.
Opening the set with one of their best known songs, “The Thief & The Heartbreaker,” the band quickly transitioned into new material that showed the future direction of the band. While “The Thief & The Heartbreaker” is bluesy, slow, and purposefully driving, new songs such as “Money for the Weekend, Pocket Full of Change” takes the band in a decidedly more pop-like direction. Itap a song meant for immediate radio play.
While previous efforts were heavy on long vocal and instrumental build-ups followed by heavy distorted payoffs, new songs had more immediate hooks and lighter instrumentation. The songs are good, but lack the emotional appeal of previous works such as “Low Man” and “Devil’s All You’ve Ever Had.” No matter what the material, vocalist Petter Ericson Stakee still proves a soulful and heartfelt frontman.
Shining moments in the set were the new song “Ghosts of City Life” with its moody overtones and guitars that sounded like whale songs peaking into impressive crescendos that immediately gave way to thoughtful instrumentation and lyrics, and the crowd favorites “Lucy Rider,” “ATX,” “Old Man Chicago” and “Devil’s All You’ve Ever Had.”
The band came on for a one song encore rendition of “Rise from the Shadows” that provided the perfect end to the set by providing a slow build up, and then a pounding wall of distorted guitar and driving drums.
Denver-based Boys opened the set with catchy rock ‘n’ roll riffs and powerful female vocals from lead singer Kyle Simmons. Their set was impressive, and brought nearly the entire crowd in attendance to attention. Simmons vocals soared over chunky bass lines from bassist Zach Newton, and crunchy guitar riffs crafted by lead guitarist Ross Ryan. While formed less than a year ago, this definitely a Denver band to watch.
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