Hailing from Portland, Oregon, the Decemberists burst onto the indie-rock scene in the early 2000s, weaving complex, literary narratives (courtesy of singer/songwriter Colin Meloy) through layers of chiming, acoustic-based folk-rock. Meloy's literary…

One of the most celebrated new bands of 2004, the Arcade Fire came out of Montreal's vibrant music scene with a melancholic, cinematic sound equally redolent of '80s heroes like the Cure and Echo & the Bunnymen and latter-day orchestral-rockers Mercu…