Squeaky Feet is not your average jam band. Known for their complex compositions and improv-fueled live shows, the Denver-based quintet merges the raw power of progressive heavy metal with infectious dance grooves, a keen melodic sensibility, and virtuosic musicianship—a formula that finds full expression on their new album, Overview Effect.
While Squeaky Feet has quickly become a fixture of the Colorado jam scene, their story begins some 2,000 miles east, in the classrooms and basements of Berklee College of Music. “Three out of five of us went to Berklee,” drummer Kevin D’Angelo recalled. “Me and [guitarist/vocalist Colin Shore] met like the first week in one of our first classes… After we graduated, our bands at the time got a house together, and then eventually [guitarist Greg King] moved in and the three of us lived under the same roof and started jamming together. That was kind of the first time we developed a musical rapport between the three of us.”
Those early sessions in Watertown, MA were formative—a laboratory for experimentation that hinted at the group’s eventual fusion of progressive structure and open-ended improvisation. Their chemistry was undeniable.
After graduation, the trio moved west. “It was a slow migration to Denver starting with me, then Greg, then Colin,” D’Angelo explained. “It kind of materialized between 2016 and 2019.” Shore and King formed the first iteration of Squeaky Feet with bassist Jimmy Finnegan, but D’Angelo was unavailable at the time so they had a different drummer. Denver, already a hotbed for jam and electronic hybrid acts, proved to be fertile ground for the band’s adventurous approach—but then COVID hit and put the brakes on everything.
Like many bands, Squeaky Feet emerged from the pandemic with a renewed sense of focus and purpose. When their original drummer and keyboardist wound up leaving the band, they called upon Kevin to round out the lineup. Around the same time, they caught keyboardist/saxophonist/flautist Brian Keller performing at a party with another band and immediately knew he was the right fit.
“That’s when me and Brian hopped on, as well as our sound engineer, Ben Gartenstein, and all six of us got in the van and did the first tour,” D’Angelo recalled. “That’s kind of when the band took its final form.”
That “final form” quickly proved formidable. Squeaky Feet’s live shows are equal parts precision and abandon—a heady mix of progressive rock chops, jazz fluency, and dancefloor drive. Their compositions feature sharp turns, odd meters, and explosive improvisation, yet they never lose sight of the groove. It’s this combination of technical mastery and emotional immediacy that has earned them a loyal following across the jam circuit and set them apart from their peers.
“I think we appeal to the jam band audience because when we’re improvising, it’s not progressive rock,” D’Angelo observed. “We lay into trance music, electronic drum programming, lots of psychedelic guitar effects and delays and ambience—even some Latin and jazz stuff. It quickly strays away from prog rock and becomes a psychedelic dance party. So we kind of have a foot in both worlds musically.”
“There’ll be some people that discover our music and just think of us as this straight-up prog band, but then when they come see us play a four-song set, they’ve been extremely receptive to it,” King added. “I think, if anything, we’re kind of turning some of the prog guys into the jam music a little more than vice versa.”
“[Our] critics are in the jam world if anything,” Finnegan agreed.
“I think there is an expectation when you’re going to see a jam band that it implies a certain type of vibe—love and light positivity, maybe some choreographed dance moves, and, you know, some Dead covers. We’ve started doing a Dead cover recently, so we have that going for us,” Shore noted. “But what we do is a little bit different. I’ve seen people react online saying things like, ‘These guys weren’t really my vibe,’ which is totally okay. Surprisingly, I haven’t seen too much from the progressive side of our fanbase saying, ‘Man, these guys noodled for too long,’ or anything like that. I think we’re progressive enough that the prog fans really like us—and I agree that we’ve maybe turned some ‘prog guys’ on to jam band music.”
Overview Effect, the band’s full-length follow-up to its 2023 debut Cause For Alarm, captures the group’s unique energy while expanding its sonic and thematic horizons. The title, borrowed from the term astronauts use to describe the shift in perspective when viewing Earth from orbit, feels apt for a band seeking to see its music—and the world—from a higher vantage point. But if you’re looking for long improvised jams, you won’t find them on this record.
“We’re an extremely improv-heavy band live, maybe to a point that’s overboard for some people,” explained Colin Shore, the band’s principal songwriter. “But it’s really fun in my opinion to take a completely different approach in the studio and really focus on the composition and the arrangement and really get down to the micro details of the songs.”
“If you listen to our recorded material, we don’t sound like a jam band,” D’Angelo concurred, “but we turn into a different band when we improvise.”
Across the album, Squeaky Feet threads together ferocious riffs and moments of sublime introspection. Tracks evolve like living organisms—complex yet fluid, structured yet unpredictable. While the band’s influences span everything from prog fusion pioneers Mahavishnu, King Crimson, and Porcupine Tree to modern heavy jam acts like Umphrey’s McGee, TAUK, and Spafford, Squeaky Feet’s distinctiveness lies in their balance of intellect and instinct.
For the band, Overview Effect is more than a collection of songs; it’s a statement of identity and arrival. Culled from the group’s ever-expanding live repertoire, the project showcases not just their instrumental dexterity but their growing command of dynamics, space, and melody. Where earlier recordings leaned into intensity and experimentation, Overview Effect finds confidence in contrast, letting moments breathe before lifting off again into intricate instrumental flights.
“It’s still a progressive rock album, just to put a blanket term on it, but it’s maybe more cohesive than our first album in terms of the tracklisting. It’s more succinct as a body of art,” Finnegan said. “Our first album was kind of just scrounging together songs, whereas this one is more calculated. … Each song kind of feels connected to the last, and that was something we really aimed for.”
“This album is a lot more vocal-driven than our last album,” Shore added. “The lyrics mostly all relate to going through tough times and how that impacts your perspective. Some of the songs are a little bit more positive and about overcoming adversity, while others are a bit more wallowing and self-deprecating. But to me, that’s what all the songs on the album have in common, at least lyrically.”
With the new album in tow and a tour on the horizon, including shows with Spafford, TAUK, and Dizgo, Squeaky Feet stand poised to take their rightful place among the next generation of forward-thinking jam bands. But labels only go so far.
If Overview Effect is any indication, Squeaky Feet are only just beginning their ascent. Listen to the album below or on your preferred streaming platform, and click here to order the double LP vinyl. Find a full list of the band’s upcoming tour dates here.
Squeaky Feet – Overview Effect