Despite being the 11th annual UMS, the 2011 Underground Music Showcase was my first. It was not quite as crazy and packed as South by Southwest, but I was definitely impressed with the number of music fans and bands that attended.

Many of the bands I saw at UMS were ones that I had heard of and/or seen before, but one band that was neither of those things was In The Whale.

This two-piece band put on an incredible show to some of the top musicians in Denver. In the crowd were members of My Body Sings Electric, The Photo Atlas, Epilogues and more. In The Whale did not fail to impress us all. Their raw, garage sound has been described as “as an angry cousin of The White Stripes,” which I find to be a nice compliment to the normal pop-rock I find myself listening to.

See for yourself with this video I took of their song Heels from their show at the Hi Dive last week.

This is definitely a band to check out, and soon! They are playing with Petals of Spain and Eldren this Friday at Moe’s BBQ in Denver.