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…

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…

Playing smartly crafted indie-pop that is instantly accessible yet defies easy categorization, Brooklyn, NY's Clap Your Hands Say Yeah took the music world by storm in 2005 on the strength of a single self-released album. Seemingly overnight, the ban…

Canadian indie pop combo Wolf Parade formed in 2003 in Montreal where their first show was opening for Arcade Fire From there Dan Boeckner Spencer Krug Hadji Bakara and Arlen Thompson recorded and self-released a four-song EP and followed that with a…