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Upcoming Events
Monqui Presents

Thursday, March 28
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$18

About Small Crush:

Small crush began in Logan Hammon’s bedroom when she was 13 years old writing songs on her dad’s old guitar and recording covers on garage band. In her sophomore year of high school, she found some friends in jazz band class to help fulfill her dream of playing her songs in a full band. Together the band began playing little shows at 924 gilman and other DIY spaces. In 2018 the band released an EP that caught the attention of a local Bay Area label Asian Man Records and recorded a full length the year after. Since then the band has grown to touring and playing venues she has always admired. Through it all the band has made the joy of playing music and having fun the most important thing.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Monqui Presents

with special guests HOOK and Bruiser Wolf

Friday, March 29
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages

About Danny Brown

Danny Brown’s career is the uncompromising work of a virtuosic talent who understands how to use his unique personality as a vicious instrument. There is the lingering sense of paranoia, the requisite survivor’s guilt and anxiety, but also hysterical punchlines and party anthems built to cause speakers to crumble into ashes. He is one of the most sought after global performers and offers a unique contrast of best rapper alive, reflection and celebration in each performance. – Jeff Weiss

 
 
 
Monqui Presents

with Ferngazer

Saturday, March 30
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages
$22.50

About Wicca Phase Springs Eternal:

Wicca Phase Springs Eternal has been the moniker and creative persona of Pennsylvania-based singer, songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Adam McIlwee for over a decade. The name is as enigmatic as McIlwee’s work, a fittingly esoteric umbrella for his ever-growingandever-evolving catalog of music that’s been released at a stunning quality and pace. So it’s with great intention that the name is now also the title of McIlwee’s latest full-length: Wicca Phase Springs Eternal offers the musician’s most finely honed and welcoming songs to date, but it’s more than just a self-titled album–it’s a portal, an entryway into an entire world.

As 2019 merged into 2020, the former Tigers Jaw member and Gothboiclique founder was looking to step away from the hyper-concentrated melancholic Trap of 2019’s Suffer On, and set out to breathe fresh life into the WPSE project by creating a broader sonic landscape. “Suffer On and a lot of the music I was making around that time was just so emotionally heavy,” McIlwee explains. “It felt like I was putting a lot on the listener and on myself. So I started thinking about early Wicca Phase and the world building I was doing–I was just throwing things at the wall then, but now I have ten more years of songwriting experience. I realized I wanted to just keep developing a depth to Wicca Phase, I didn’t want to just scratch the surface.”

Inspired by the musings of ‘60s and ‘70s British folk bands such as Fairport Convention and Pentangle, McIlwee hunkered down in the Western Catskills and Abington Township in Pennsylvania, absorbing the scenery and trying to translate the beauty of his surroundings into an immersive experience. He began to expand the WPSE lore and fashion a more colorful and descriptive body of work–one where he still wears his heart on his sleeve, but now all of the longing and heartache exist in a vivid space that’s strikingly real and otherworldly all at once. The sound of Wicca Phase began to grow as well: never wanting the project to be defined by a genre, McIlwee worked closely with longtime collaborator Darcy Baylis, as well as newcomer Ben Greenberg, to continue to bring new styles and moods into WPSE. Looking to incorporate his love of EDM, trance, and house sounds, McIlwee and co. created an amalgam of ‘80s and ‘90s breakbeat style drums, modernistic 808s, shimmering synths, and washes of reverberating guitar and organic bass.

The more McIlwee wrote, the deeper he went into the universe he was creating, and his heartfelt songwriting transformed into a moving and breathing sonic display of the fine line between reality and mysticism. “It felt like this could be a starting point if you don’t know what Wicca Phase is about,” he says. “You’re still getting the melodrama that’s in all my lyrics, but you’re also getting this description of the world–what it looks like, what it feels like. Why wouldn’t that be self-titled?”

McIlwee makes his intentions loud and clear from the start: Wicca Phase Springs Eternal’s latest album, Wicca Phase Springs Eternal, opens with a song called “Wicca Phase Springs Eternal.” In cinematic fashion, the track’s three distinct movements draw the listener into the themes, settings, and sounds that permeate the record. McIlwee’s instantly recognizable baritone voice croons over bubbling synth arpeggiations and thumping beats, describing a blend of the natural (a lake, pines, wild horses), supernatural (magic, mystery, a tesseract), and unexpectedly mundane (a Subaru, a puffer jacket, a Dodgers hat), offering just enough grounding to leave the listener wondering if they’re in our world or on some other plane that only resembles it. “Sometimes when I’m writing I’ll be off in the fifth dimension and realize that I need to bring it back to the real world,” McIlwee says. “I’m not interested in music that’s totally ethereal–I want to relate to music and I want people to be able to relate to my music, too.”

That inescapable emotional core and McIlwee’s sincere nature still resonate throughout Wicca Phase Springs Eternal, but this time it’s stronger, imbued with a new wisdom. On “Farm,” he sings “My love lives on a plane, and when it presents itself overwhelmed and overtaken, silent and sacred,total, unknowable in shape,” his voice calling out into the night through driving breakbeats and pulsing synth lines before being swallowed up by his own echoes. Elsewhere, McIlwee and Zola Jesus duet on the fingerpicked outlaw ballad “Mystery, I’m Tied To You,”, while “One Silhouette” is Wicca Phase Springs Eternal’s version of a dance song, its pounding four-on-the-floor beat colliding into hazy slide guitar and McIlwee’s mournful hooks to conjure up an imaginary collaboration between Robert Smith and Underworld.

On “Who’s Watching Me,” a trip hop beat and ghostly keyboards create surprising uplift, like the moon shining through the clouds as McIlwee describes his arrival to “ the doorway of desire and intrigue.” It’s a moment that sums up what Wicca Phase Springs Eternal does best: capturing both the romanticism and inscrutability of life’s biggest feelings. “I probably say the word ‘mystery’ a hundred times on this record,” McIlwee laughs. “That’s what I’m trying to bottle up–this idea of something that’s hard to know, but enticing. For whatever reason, my natural strength is writing about emotions, though my interest is always more in describing the moment and describing the intangible. I definitely will keep singing about heartbreak, but I want to do it in a different way.”

McIlwee’s devotion to traversing the unknown–both emotional and extra-dimensional–is palpable and contagious. When he sings “I spent hours trying to tap into the mystery” on the eponymous opening track, you believe him, and are also reminded of what a rare joy it is to be fully captivated by a piece of art that’s this richly detailed, while still leaving so many questions unanswered, so many twists left to be discovered with every listen. When Wicca Phase Springs Eternal ends, you find yourself compelled to play it again–to enter the portal and once more find out where it leads.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Monqui Presents

with Riki

Sunday, March 31
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
ages 21 +
$24

About King Woman:

NYC & LA-based Iranian songwriter, producer, and vocalist Kris Esfandiari, also known as King Woman, released a striking full-length album called Celestial Blues, on July 30, 2021 via Relapse Records. Kris Esfandiari (NGHTCRWLR, Dalmatian, Miserable, Sugar High) founded King Woman in 2009 as a solo project which later gained the talents of drummer Joseph Raygoza. Now wiser and holding less animosity than King Woman’s previous sentiments on 2014 EP Doubt and highly-esteemed 2017 full length Created in The Image of Suffering, the fantasy world that once plagued Kris’ psyche is dancing in a new light on Celestial Blues. Feeling compelled to reshape the biblical archetypes that once bound her, Esfandiari has created a theatrical tale of rebellion, tragedy, and triumph — a metaphor for her own personal experiences over the years — Celestial Blues was born.

Several years ago, Kris Esfandiari had the sudden urge to recount a near death experience she had as a child. This severe event was followed by a string of hysterical black out episodes. Esfandiari would wake with a feeling that she was being ripped from her body. Esfandiari’s words evolved into a poem called “Celestial Blues” which later became the title for King Woman’s long awaited full-length sophomore album. While uncovering the vision for her latest record, Esfandiari was reintroduced to John Milton’s Paradise Lost after a stranger gifted her an old copy at a party. As she became reacquainted with this epic poem, Esfandiari was transported back to her childhood. Esfandiari’s immigrant parents often held church at home, where she was exposed to exorcisms, spiritual warfare, and sermons about heaven and hell.

Esfandiari sets a dramatic tone for the record with “Morning Star” echoing the primeval account of Lucifer’s fall from grace. Esfandiari smugly whispers: “you know it could have been you / so don’t you dare judge the things that I do” — the fallen archangel in deceitful persuasion. Esfandiari is accompanied by the beastly drumming of Joseph Raygoza and Peter Arendorf’s heavy-laden guitar — masterfully stirring the listener with every sparse, emotional pluck. King Woman once again, takes us to church with hardcore gospel, “Coil”. “Five wounds you rape me / but I resurrect” declares Esfandiari in unhinged jubilation.

Esfandiari desperately begs to be absolved in the crazed offerings of “Psychic Wound”, ultimately regaining a powerful reflection of herself after a provocative yet tormenting dance with the Devil. Celestial Blues was recorded in December 2019 in Oakland, California with Grammy-nominated producer, Jack Shirley (Deafheaven, Amenra, Oathbreaker, etc).

In addition, King Woman teamed up with photographer Nedda Afsari, as well as designers Jamie Parkhurst and Collin Fletcher for visual packaging. Celestial Blues certainly feels like a play. Esfandiari changes costume and set with each distinct song, breathing new life into a magnificent, age-old tale. King Woman never ceases to transcend this mundane realm of afflictions only to plunge the listener back down into pandemonium. The curtain lifts, Esfandiari bows, making peace with her weighty past.

 
 
 
Monqui Presents

with special guest Ryan Montbleau

Friday, April 5
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
ages 21 +
$30

About Keller Williams

Virginian, Keller Williams, released his first album in 1994, FREEK, and has since given each of his albums a single syllable title: BUZZ, SPUN, BREATHE, LOOP, LAUGH, HOME, DANCE, STAGE, GRASS, DREAM, TWELVE, LIVE, ODD, THIEF, KIDS, BASS, PICK, FUNK, VAPE, SYNC, RAW, SANS, ADD, SPEED and CELL.   Each title serves as a concise summation of the concept guiding each project. Keller’s albums reflect his pursuit to create music that sounds like nothing else. Un-beholden to conventionalism, he seamlessly crosses genre boundaries. The end product is music that encompasses rock, jazz, funk and bluegrass, and always keeps the audience on their feet. Keller built his reputation initially on his engaging live performances, no two of which are ever alike. For most of his career he has performed solo. His stage shows are rooted around Keller singing his compositions and choice cover songs, while accompanying himself on acoustic guitar, bass, guitar synthesizer and drum samples; a technique called live phrase sampling or “looping”.  The end result often leans toward a hybrid of alternative folk and groovy electronica, a genre Keller jokingly calls “acoustic dance music” or ADM.” Keller’s constant evolution has led to numerous band projects as well;  Keller & The Keels, Grateful Grass, KWahtro, Keller and the Travelin’ McCourys, Grateful Gospel and More Than A Little to name a few. Keller can be found playing clubs and festivals around the U.S. with these projects throughout the year. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
Monqui Presents

with special guest Fantastic Cat

Saturday, April 6
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
ages 21 +
$25

About Low Cut Connie

“This record is all kink and no shame,” says Adam Weiner of ART DEALERS, the tough, sexy and tender new album coming from Low Cut Connie. “With Low Cut Connie, I try to create a safe space for you to just absolutely get your freak on.”

For years now, Low Cut Connie has built its grassroots coalition of oddballs, underdogs, and fun-loving weirdos with songs that celebrate life on the fringes of polite society. The band’s infamously wild, passionate live shows provide a total release – of stress, of inhibition, of shame – working up a primordial rock n roll sweat for fans to get blissfully soaked in. The new album, and its full-length companion film, sizzle with that same cathartic sweat, reminding us that it’s time to get dirty again, and to feel alive. ART DEALERS sits at the intersection of sleazy and soulful – a collection of risky, romantic, life-affirming anthems, all dedicated to you.

“I think rock n roll exists to be a red-blooded, countercultural medium,” says Weiner, who has performed under the Low Cut Connie moniker for over a decade, “You’re supposed to get your hair messed-up.” That imperative comes through in the adults-only tone of songs like the opening “Tell Me Something I Don’t Know,” a sinuous, lurid rocker that sounds like walking through depraved Times Square in 1978 – neon-lit and nasty with a snapping beat. The speedy, fuzzed-up garage-rocker “Whips and Chains” calls out Trump and the current wave of neo-fascism, without ever losing its boogie rhythm section.

But there’s also tenderness behind the curtain here, as on the yearning first single “Are You Gonna Run?” and “Call Out My Name”, which evoke the sweet sad love that punky boys like the New York Dolls and the Ramones used to have for tough girls like the Ronettes and the Shangri-La’s.

The sounds throughout the record comprise a grimy modern urban landscape, a soulful but broken place that Weiner and his band (including rock n roll guitar hero, Will Donnelly, in his 9th year in Low Cut Connie) have been gravitating towards throughout the band’s history. Weiner grew up amid the lawns and strip malls of suburban New Jersey, and his own teen dreams were lit up by the beacon of the big city, where he could shed his skin like so many artists before. “If you think about it, so many great artists who we associate with the city were actually bridge and tunnel people,” Adam said. “Patti Smith, Lou Reed, Springsteen. Debbie Harry, Robert Mapplethorpe. People who came from the burbs had this vision of what they could achieve in the city, what attracted them to this art life, who they could turn into and what impressions they could make – if they could just get there.” ART DEALERS is in many ways a tribute to that feeling at the pumping heart of the city – that enlightened buzz that can come in a packed hothouse of creativity and free expression. Songs like the Grace Jones styled “Take Me to the Place” and the penetrating title song point to all the people who cross those bridges, who choose the art life, who find their liberation on the edges of propriety.

ART DEALERS isn’t constrained by a gender binary, either. “When I’m onstage, I am the freest, most uninhibited version of myself,” Weiner explains. “It’s total freedom of spirit and body. Over the years, that freedom has given me more confidence to write songs from a perspective that isn’t necessarily male. I’ve slowly been walking toward a more gender-fluid voice with Low Cut Connie.” Weiner’s first steady gig at age 21 was as a piano-player in a drag karaoke bar in Manhattan called Pegasus, a seedy place where trans people, gay, straight and otherwise would gather around Weiner’s piano in a benevolent yet fully debauched array. “There are so many songs that came out of that bar for me. Things like ‘Shake It Little Tina [the single off of Low Cut Connie’s Hi Honey album]” But it wasn’t until ART DEALERS that he fully allowed himself to let the gender binary go so completely on songs like the upcoming single “Don’t Get Fresh With Me,” “Wonderful Boy,” and “Sleaze Me On” (with its sweet refrain “Treat me like a modern girl!”). Says Weiner, “I have no idea the gender identity of those songs. And that feels real comfy for me, the ‘not knowing’.”

ART DEALERS goes out to all the outsiders. On the no-fucks-to-give anthem “King of the Jews,” Weiner gets deep in the weeds of his personal and ethnic outsider identity. “There are just so many entry points these days to antisemitism, so my absolute unapologetic full-frontal Jewiness feels more needed now, I guess,” he says. “My Jewiness gives me an outsider perspective and humor that I wouldn’t trade for any goddamn thing, and the minute I start hiding that, I’m dishonoring myself. Shedding shame is a key element of Low Cut Connie.”

Weiner feels like a certain dark prince of rock n roll was a companion to him on this whole album and film project. “I felt like Lou Reed was riding with me the whole time I was making Art Dealers,” he said. “Lou was the toughest motherfucker out there, a subversive Jew like me – but he had a real rock n’roll heart underneath it all.”

ART DEALERS comes on the heels of a few very busy years for Low Cut Connie. During the height of COVID lockdowns, Adam and Low Cut Connie guitarist Will Donnelly did the near-impossible with their “Tough Cookies” live-streaming rock and soul variety shows. Even in a bathrobe, from his South Philly guest bedroom, Adam managed to generate the electricity of a live show – twice a week, no less – earning him the New Yorker’s newly-minted laurel of “Pandemic Person of the Year” in 2020. The broadcasts drew hundreds of thousands of viewers from more than forty countries, who joined previous appreciators like Bruce Springsteen (who invited Weiner backstage on Broadway in 2018) Barack Obama (an early adopter, who included the band on his official Spotify favorites playlist in 2015) and Elton John (who both praised the band from his own concert stage and featured Weiner as a guest, twice, on his satellite radio show) in Low Cut Connie’s de facto fan club.

In the midst of all this, Low Cut Connie also released 2020’s acclaimed PRIVATE LIVES album. The album’s title track finished the year in the top 20 nationally for non-commercial radio and was praised by NPR as “the freak anthem we need right now.” PRIVATE LIVES was praised for the vivid interiority and intimate detail of its songwriting and was included on many best-of-the-year lists that year (Rolling Stone, NPR/Fresh Air, PopMatters, Glide, AllMusic, etc). For that album and ART DEALERS, Weiner sat solo in the producer’s chair.

Further exploring new media, Weiner co-directed (with filmmaker Roy Power) an 80 minute feature film that will premiere late this year as a companion piece to ART DEALERS. The film is a hybrid-genre documentary that combines a stellar run of NYC concerts from 2022 shot at Sony Hall and the Blue Note, as well as 15 years of performance footage and musical and personal misadventures that led up to ART DEALERS. There will be limited festival screenings of the ART DEALERS film late in 2023, in tandem with this Fall’s US tour, and the film will see wider release in 2024.

Ahead of the release of this new album and film, Adam Weiner aka Low Cut Connie explains what motivates him to keep pushing deeper into art life.

“I’m always trying to get back to the heart and soul of things with the intention of my music and my performances,” says Adam. “I don’t know what’s hip. I don’t know what’s in fashion. I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing to be accepted by whatever’s popular or trending. I have no idea – I don’t care anymore. I just want to turn people on with what I do. The world is a dirty and broken place… we might as well live it the fuck up while we’re here.”

Monqui Presents

with Caleb Hawley

Thursday, April 11
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
ages 21 +
$25

Andy Frasco & The U.N. have long been the high-flying DIY renegades of the touring scene known and loved for their kaleidoscopic musical fusion and one-of-a-kind onstage audacity. Now celebrating their longevity, the band is shaking things up with L’Optimist (Fun Machine Records/Soundly), as its title suggests, Frasco’s most hopeful and enthusiastic collection thus far. A testament to Frasco’s wide-ranging influences and boundless energy, his band’s sixth released studio album sees the magnetic frontman continuing to chart his path of self-exploration and personal discovery through increasingly introspective lyricism and musical adventure. Songs like “Everything Bagel (Feat. Artikal Sound System)” and the deeply moving “Iowa Moon” touch on matters of the heart and mental health, emotional struggle and the sheer vulnerability of the human experience, all relayed through a wildly eclectic approach navigating funk, jazz, surf rock, blues, swing, gospel, reggae, exotica, and more with horn-blasted positivity and soulful power.

“I fight depression every single day,” Frasco says, “and the only way to fight depression is through optimism. I try to write optimistic songs because optimism keeps me going. As humans, I don’t think we’re all that much different. Everyone needs a little optimism to keep going.”

Having spent the first part of his career making his bones as a fun-loving frontman with a self-proclaimed “gift of gab,” Frasco pushed his songwriting in more personal directions with 2020’s Keep On Keepin’ On and 2022’s Wash, Rinse, Repeat.

“I wanted to write songs that I actually feel,” he says, “not just songs that would be fun to play live. I wanted to learn about myself, I wanted to break myself a little bit to approach a different way of songwriting.”

Frasco once again challenged himself to explore difficult lyrical terrain, spanning relationships and chronic depression, empathy and alienation, inspired in part by his first real girlfriend. For a brief, shining moment, Frasco was settled romantically, a new development that informed songs like the aforementioned “Iowa Moon,” in which the hard-traveling songwriter ponders the possibility of getting off the road to remain at home with his beloved.

“She was the first girl I ever really committed to,” Frasco says. “It’s like, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, this is a new world to me, but I know that I love being with you and I love you teaching me how to love. I’m not really a good communicator outside of my art, so I wrote ‘Iowa Moon’ to say, I know that I’m difficult. I know that I’m on the road all the time. But I love you.

“I’ve worked in the music industry ever since I was 14,” he adds, “booking bands and just following my dream. I left LA in a van, left all my friends, my family, and have been on the road for 16 years. I started thinking, will I just keep drinking in bars and having one-night stands and living the rocker life until I’m 80? It’s not a bad life, it just gets lonely out there. So, it’s like, I need to have some roots somewhere. I need some weight, some stability. I can’t do this forever.”

With so much constant activity, Frasco delegated just 30 days to making L’Optimist, traveling to Nashville, Los Angeles, and other cities to work with friends and top songwriters until he had a cache of 10 songs of which he felt truly proud. In summer 2022, Frasco and the core U.N. roster – comprising guitarist Shawn Eckels, saxophonist Ernie Chang, drummer Andee Avila, and bassist/multi-instrumentalist Floyd Kellogg – set to work, taking a sweeping approach towards the recording with production and writing contributions from friends and studio collaborators including Kellogg, Kenny Carkeet (AWOLNATION, Anti-Flag), Chris Gelbuda (Robert Randolph Feat. Darius Rucker, Meghan Trainor), Cason Cooley (Needtobreathe, Ingrid Michaelson), Paul McDonald (Grand Magnolias, Vince Herman), and Harlem-based singer-songwriter Caleb Hawley, along with guest appearances by alternative hip-hop duo Little Stranger and the Southern Florida-based reggae collective Artikal Sound System.

“I like moving around,” Frasco says, “finding different inspiration. I can’t just sit in the same room for a month and have an existential crisis with my guitar player about a guitar tone or something. I’ve got to keep it poppin’.”

Restless though it may be, L’Optimist sees Frasco fully in command of his craft, more comfortable and confident than ever before, his notorious party-animal persona giving way to a wiser, but no less enthusiastic, artist and band leader. Songs such as “Oh What a Life (Feat. Little Stranger)” and the ebullient “You Do You” are direct and honest, avowing to drown out negativity by staying true to his core beliefs and not conforming to the wishes, needs, and demands of others.

“‘You Do You’ is basically a call to arms to myself,” Frasco says. “Like, what is success? We built success through being outlaws and being ourselves. I did it my own way and it worked out for the best, I think. Could we have been way more successful if I just conformed? Maybe, but that’s boring. It sounds like cheating in a race and I’m not trying to cheat. I want to do it my way. Hopefully I’ll look back when I’m 80 and realize that, like Frank Sinatra, I did it my way.”

Empowering and energizing from its very start, Frasco’s dopamine-raising approach that has made Andy Frasco & The U.N. a much beloved live outfit renowned for unbridled improvisation, audience interaction, surprising covers, special guests, and animated antics unlike any other. The band has long spent seemingly all their time on the road, performing more than 200 shows each year, as Atwood Magazine wrote, “spreading their bohemian philosophy of finding joy from existing in the moment.” Truly a creative force not to be reckoned with, Frasco also somehow finds time to host Andy Frasco’s World Saving Podcast and cater to his nearly 1M monthly dance party views on Twitch.

“With so much bad news in the world, why not try to figure out a way to get out of the darkness,” Frasco says. “We’re not going to be able to change the world, but at least we can change the mind state we have moving forward. We can at least help the process along by being optimistic that the future will turn itself around. And if everyone changes their mind state about the future, then maybe we can change the world.”

L’Optimist sees Frasco continuing to develop as a songwriter, band leader, and human being, his restless spirit giving way to something more firmly grounded yet no less adventurous. Having built a still-expanding career on forward motion, Andy Frasco remains positive in his determination to keep on keeping on, pushing himself and his music to grow and improve with every passing day.

“My superhero, Kobe Bryant, used to say don’t be bitter, be better,” says Andy Frasco. “So, I’ve always tried to be better every year. I’m not trying to stay still, I want to get better at everything in life. I’m not just plateauing. I’m going to keep fighting to be the best songwriter I can be. Because if you’re not evolving, you’re dying.”

Monqui Presents

The Colors Experience

Sunday, April 14
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
ages 21 +

About Between The Buried and Me:

Time may move in a circle, but we pick up wisdom along the way. When we face similar situations further down the line, we’re armed with the experience to not only survive, but actually thrive. Between The Buried and Me built their influential 2007 album, Colors, on an unwavering commitment to artistic integrity. They’ve only fortified that commitment on its 2021 sequel, Colors II [Sumerian Records]. The circumstances surrounding both records bear key similarities, yet the North Carolina quintet—Tommy Rogers [lead vocals, keyboards], Paul Waggoner [lead and rhythm guitar, backing and lead vocals], Dustie Waring [rhythm and lead guitar], Blake Richardson [drums], and Dan Briggs [bass, keyboards]—once again stretch the boundaries of their signature sound and heavy music at large.

“Especially with 2020, we really wanted to give it all we could and show the world we’re still here,” explains Tommy. “That’s part of the reason we named it Colors II. We were in a similar spot when we did the first Colors. Back then, we had just gotten done with OZZfest. We were wondering, ‘Where do we belong in this music scene?’ We still struggle with that. At both of these moments in our career, we decided to just be ourselves and write the best album we can. We came out guns blazing, and I feel like it’s some of our most creative material in a long time.”

Colors was very much our attempt at a do-or-die statement,” recalls Paul. “We had to establish our identity and be who we really wanted to be in order to have a career. This time around, our industry was shutdown for a year. Once tours were cancelled due to the Pandemic, we were like, ‘We’ve got to write a record, and it’s got to be good’. We had to do something next level.”

They did so with nearly 20 years of hard-earned experience behind them. Their fourth offering Colors represented the first in a series of high watermarks. It graced numerous tastemaker lists, including KERRANG!’s “The 21 Best U.S. Metalcore Albums of All Time, Prog’s “The 100 Greatest Prog Albums of All Time, ThoughtCo’s “Essential Progressive Metal Albums, and Loudwire’s “Top 25 Progressive Metal Albums of All Time” and “Top 100 Hard Rock and Heavy Metal Albums of the 21st Century.In its wake, 2015’s Coma Ecliptic opened at #12 on the Billboard Top 200 and received a perfect rating from The Guardian. During 2018, they unleashed the two-part Automata I and Automata II to further acclaim. Along the way, the group toured with everyone from Mastodon and Coheed and Cambria to Lamb of God and Devin Townsend in addition to selling out headline shows around the globe.

Throughout 2020, the band members wrote remotely before congregating in Winston-Salem, NC with longtime producer Jamie King. Instead of adhering to a conceptual thread, the conditions gave the concept meaning.

“Musically, it flows like a sequel to Colors, but it wasn’t just another version of that album,” Tommy goes on. “On the original, I was analyzing myself and analyzing humanity. With last year, I was in a perfect position to do that. I wrote lyrics in the same way, but they felt new. It was more of a real-world concept by virtue of making a continuation.”

They introduce the album with the pummeling single “Fix The Error.” Galloping thrash drums collides with a wah-ed bass solo and carnival-esque keys before launching into gritty verses. It twists and turns towards a hardcore chant punctuated by topsy-turvy vocals and mind-numbing fretboard fireworks underpinned by drum solos by an ironclad trifecta of Mike Portnoy, Navene Koperweis, and Ken Schalk.

“The intention was to write a metal song with a big gospel vibe,” smiles Tommy. “It turned into this monster. It’s a small story on the record about this guy who lives in a big apocalyptic city. He retires from his job, but he wants to take down this huge corporation. The song is a celebration of taking down corruption and saying, ‘Fuck you’, to the man. It’s about as punk as we’ll ever get.”

Meanwhile, the nine-minute “Revolution In Limbo” steamrolls through frenetic keys with fascinating guitar movements and a head-spinning vocal ebb-and-flow. “The songs are meant to flow in and out of each other like one big chunk of music, creating a seamless and chaotic musical journey, the frontman observes.

Between The Buried and Me encode various “easter eggs” for fans of the original Colors inside of the opening salvo of “Monochrome” and “The Double Helix of Extinction,” while “Bad Habits” calls back to the lyrics of “Ants Of The Sky” with the line, “Sleep on…fly on.

“There are a lot of fun nuggets,” Paul continues. “You’ll hear certain instrumental parts and lyrics that remind you of Colors. Everything comes full circle.”

In the end, Colors II sees Between The Buried and Me make a similar connection.

“Music’s purpose is to help,” Tommy eaves off. “That’s a big theme of this album. Once our songs are done, they belong to our listeners. Maybe this will help them move forward creatively or in life.”

“I hope audiences get a feeling similar to what they got when Colors came out,” Paul concludes. “This is a full 80-minute album experience. For years, fans have told us how much they loved Colors. I hope they feel the same way about Colors II.”

Monqui Presents

with special guest Peel Dream Magazine

Tuesday, April 16
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
ages 21 +
$20

In their decade-plus together, Chastity Belt—Julia Shapiro (guitar/vocals – she/her), Lydia Lund (guitar, vocals – she/her), Gretchen Grimm (drums, vocals – she/her), and Annie Truscott (bass, vocals – they/them)—have created a resonant body of work. The early days of “Nip Slip” and “Pussy Weed Beer” (hits from their iconic debut full-length No Regerts, which recently celebrated 10 years) and the “Cool Slut” era of 2015’s Time To Go Home were raucous bonanzas of dry wit and self-evident feminism.

A newfound gravity on 2017’s I Used to Spend So Much Time Alone shifted the lyrical mood toward introspection as they continued to refine their trademark sound: lush intertwining guitars, meticulous rhythms, a careful balance of melancholy and optimism. Two years later, the dreamy Chastity Belt marked a renewal of vows to their musicianship and friendship, each member coming into their own as artists, convening with a fresh perspective on collaboration.

Live Laugh Love, their fifth studio album out March 29, 2024 on Suicide Squeeze Records, is a natural continuation. Against the bizarre backdrop of the past few years, Chastity Belt remained a supportive space for the members to grow and experiment, drawing on the ingredients most essential to their process since the beginning: authenticity and levity.

Monqui Presents

With special guest Jens Kuross

Wednesday, April 17
Doors : 7pm, Show : 8pm
all ages

About Palace:

Leo Wyndham, Matt Hodges and Rupert Turner have been friends since they were thirteen and released their debut album ‘So Long Forever’ in 2016. In 2019 they released their second album, ‘Life After’. Following extensive touring of the festival circuit and a sold-out UK and European headline tour including London Roundhouse, the London based three-piece have since returned from a sold-out North American tour and continue to write and record from their studio space in North London