Amidst a field overcrowded with teen-pop and nu-metal, Detroit's White Stripes emerged at the tail end of the 1990s as a new hope for gutsy, no-frills rock & roll. Their doggedly minimalist sound--just one guitar and a drum kit--heralded a return to …

There was no shortage of new post-punk inspired outfits emerging in the early 2000's. However, Scottish band Franz Ferdinand had a slightly different take on things, bearing the marked influence of countrymen Josef K and Orange Juice as well as usual…

When the garage rock revival hit big in the U.S. in 2001 with the Strokes, White Stripes, et al., it came as a surprise to many fans that a number of Swedish bands had been doing it longer and arguably better. Of these, the hyperactive Hives broke th…

Depending on how you look at it, the Vines are either the Australian Hives or the Australian Strokes. In either case, their hyperactive neo-garage rock sound endeared them to the huge audience infatuated with that style in the early 2000s. Their 2002…

Like so many underground NYC rock bands, the Strokes first generated publicity in the U.K., though it didn't take long for their no-frills sound to catch on at home. Paying homage to their influences, the group purveys a mix of Velvet Underground/New…

Combining the influences of new wave, post-punk, and lo-fi, Washington's Modest Mouse spent the second half of the 1990s becoming one of the most renowned indie-rock bands in America. Though often tagged an emo group, Modest Mouse transcends sub-genr…

In 2002, Interpol helped lead the charge of New York bands influenced by the post-punk and new wave sounds of the early 1980s. With Cure-like moody guitar and synth riffs and dour, Ian Curtis-style vocals, they conjured up a dark but infectious sound…

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…

Coming out of the grass-roots Gilman St. punk scene of the early-1990s Bay Area, Green Day exploded into the mainstream with their third album, 1994's DOOKIE. The trio's punk energy and pop hooks, influenced by first-generation punks like the Buzzcoc…

New Zealands smartass retort to Sum 41 Steriogram honed its hodgepodge of heavy metal chuggery white-boy hip-hop and outsized funk tomfoolery around its hometown of Auckland before hitting international pay dirt in 2004 with the low-culture anthem Wh…

Formed in 1999 in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, Hot Hot Heat looked back nearly 20 years for inspiration, as they fashioned their sound after quirky post punk outfits such as XTC and the Cure. After a number of personnel changes, the line-up se…

Generally, the punk-inspired generation of bands that came to prominence in the late '90s fell into two camps; cred-soaked aesthetes in thrall to the art-punk approach of emo godfathers Fugazi and radio-friendly pop-punks following in the footsteps o…

Weezer's 1994 debut yielded the band two big hit singles in "Buddy Holly" and "Undone - The Sweater Song," whose quirky appeal gave the initial impression that the group was some kind of novelty act. Despite the wiseacre veneer though, Weezer went on…

Glasgow-via-Belfast indie-rock ensemble Snow Patrol have played everything from shambolic noise-pop a la Pavement, to a slightly droney post-rock in the vein of Mogwai, to epic lovelorn anthems modeled after Coldplay. While the band's influences are …

Equally influenced by the artier rock of the 1990s (Radiohead, Jeff Buckley) and the '70s (Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd), Muse emerged as one of the more grandiose progenitors of latter-day Britpop. Their 1999 debut album SHOWBIZ, produced by John Leckie…

Separately, synth player Jimmy Tamborello and singer Ben Gibbard were known for their work in electronica and emo, respectively, with Dntel and Death Cab For Cutie. Together, they became a powerful pop duo, combinining Tamborello's melodic knowhow an…

In the late 1990s, the Albuquerque indie-rock band Flake Music morphed into the Shins, led by vocalist-guitarist James Mercer. Upon the release of 2001's OH, INVERTED WORLD, the Shins garnered a landslide of critical acclaim with their amiable, 1960…

Best known for the iPod commercial-soundtracking single Jerk It Out Swedens Caesars -- originally known as Caesars Palace -- formed in 1995 Singer Csar Vidal and guitarist Joakim Ahlund who had known each other since kindergarten began playing with b…

In the second half of the 1990s, there was no shortage of bands eager to resurrect the heavy-rock musical values of the '70s. Unlike many of these, whose methods were either slavishly derivative or too post-modern/jokey, the Queens of the Stone Age m…