One of 2006s most unexpected indie success stories Beirut combines a wide variety of styles from pre-rock pop music and Eastern European gypsy styles to the alternately plaintive and whimsical indie folk of the Decemberists and the lo-fi homemade psy…

While Hot Chip were one of many bands from the early 2000s to have adopted an electro-pop sound, they stand apart from the pack both for their melodicism and for their fully live, band-oriented approach to the genre. Shortly after emerging from their…

This Belgian rock band was formed in 1994 by brothers Stephen (b. 4 July 1970, Belgium; vocals, keyboards, percussion) and David Dewaele (b. 24 May 1975, Belgium; guitar), the offspring of well-known Belgian DJ Zaki. The brothers were initially joine…

One of the many accomplished indie pop bands in Sweden in the 2000s Gothenbergs Sambassadeur make beautifully wistful hazy music along the lines of the Go-Betweens Belle Sebastian and the Magnetic Fields -- all of whom the band cites as influences a…

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…

Few rock singers of the 90s were as original and instantly unforgettable as Thom Yorke as his band Radiohead became one of the biggest bands of the 21st century after making a career out of specializing in challenging and unpredictable rock Born Octo…

Bearing a hyper-stylized and glitzy graphic design sense a pretty and petite Japanese female singer who sings alternately in Japanese and English and a band name with a hint of nod-and-a-wink naughtiness its claimed to be a Tokyo-based slang term tha…

Nashville post-hardcore trio Apollo Up blends punky aggression with a fondness for tricky song structures and unexpected dynamic shifts creating a cerebral but impassioned sound equally akin to the deceptively accessible experimentalism of Ted Leo t…

Musically minimalistic and visually outrageous, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were at the center of the revival of post-punk and garage rock that made New York City a rock & roll hotspot again in the early 2000s. After the success of the Strokes, the trio (led…

Proof that one fantastic single is all it takes to make a bands name the Rakes burst onto the London music scene in 2004 with 22 Grand Job a pithy punk satire of crappy entry-level office jobs Various stories swirled about how the band -- which featu…