 | | Taking cues from several decades of alternative rock, Mute Math (also known as MUTEMATH and MuteMath) fuse together New Order's synth-dance epics, the Stone Roses' shambling shuffle, Radiohead's chilliness, Air's ambient pop, and the booming vocals of mainstream pop/rock. |
 | | London residents Robbie Furze and Milo Cordell formed the Big Pink in their home studio, where the two musicians began mixing the droning soundscapes of Spacemen 3 and My Bloody Valentine with the lush electronics of M83. |
 | | Metric are a band with an eclectic, adventurous outlook, whose music encompasses elements of synth pop, new wave, dance-rock, and electronica and whose hometown has vacillated between Toronto, Montreal, New York, Los Angeles, and London over the course of the group's existence. |
 | | Keyboardist Matt Johnson and drummer Kim Schifino create the giddy, punky pop music of Matt and Kim. |
 | | Brian Aubert (guitar/vocals), Nikki Monninger (bass), Christopher Guanlao (drums), and Joe Lester (keyboards) comprise the swarthy indie rock stylings of Silversun Pickups. |
 | | A combination of indie rock muscle and theatrical, unapologetic bombast turned Arcade Fire into indie royalty in the early 2000s. |
 | | It’s too facile to call the Black Keys counterparts of the White Stripes: they share several surface similarities -- their names are color-coded, they hail from the Midwest, they’re guitar-and-drum blues-rock duos -- but the Black Keys are their own distinct thing, a tougher, rougher rock band with a purist streak that never surfaces in the Stripes. |
 | | Formed by novelist Mikel Jollett during a tumultuous period in his life, the Airborne Toxic Event (named after a section in American author Don DeLillo's novel White Noise) combine literate indie rock with real literary cred. |
 | | Describing their sound as "Upper West Side Soweto," New York City's Vampire Weekend mix preppy, well-read indie rock with joyful, Afro-pop-inspired melodies and rhythms. |
 | | The French group Phoenix draw elements from their eclectic '80s upbringing to arrive at a satisfying blend of rock and synthesizers. |
 | | Mixing electronic polish with guitar-driven hooks à la Phoenix and the Postal Service, Bangor and Donaghadee, Northern Ireland's Two Door Cinema Club feature singer/guitarist/programmer Alex Trimble, guitarist/singer Sam Halliday, and bassist/singer Kevin Baird. |
 | | Long Beach, California's Cold War Kids make music with roots that go deep and wide, embracing influences as diverse as Bob Dylan, Billie Holiday, Jeff Buckley, and the Velvet Underground. |
 | | Finding an unlikely middle point between Suicide's hostile, proto-electro punk art noise and the sardonic, pop-friendly sound of the Flaming Lips, MGMT started as electroclash musical terrorists but quickly grew into an eclectic, brainy pop group with psychedelic overtones. |
 | | The gritty English trio Band of Skulls craft bluesy and ballsy slabs of atmospheric indie rock that echo the work of contemporaries like the Kills, Duke Spirit, and the Black Keys. |
 | | Half bracing post-punk and half tuneful indie pop, Glasgow's We Were Promised Jetpacks feature vocalist/guitarist Adam Thompson, guitarist Michael Palmer, bassist Sean Smith, and drummer Darren Lackie. |
 | | As led by singer/songwriter/guitarist Andy Hull, the maturity of Manchester Orchestra's songwriting belied the fact that the bandmembers were barely legal when their group sprung into existence. |
 | | Death Cab for Cutie's rise from small-time solo project to Grammy-nominated rock band is one of indie rock's greatest success stories. |
 | | Emerging in 2004 with a blend of woodsy midtempo rock and reverb-laden vocals, Band of Horses gained an audience in their native Northwest before Everything All the Time made them indie rock darlings. |
 | | With their choir boy vocals and panoramic pop/rock sound, the Temper Trap began building an audience in Melbourne, Australia, where the band first rose to local acclaim after playing St. |
 | | By distilling the sounds of Franz Ferdinand, the Clash, the Strokes, and the Libertines into a hybrid of swaggering indie rock and danceable neo-punk, Arctic Monkeys became one of the U. |
 | | Luke Pritchard (vocals/guitar), Hugh Harris (guitar), Max Rafferty (bass), and Paul Garred (drums) generate the rubbishy garage rock sounds of the Kooks. |
 | | Equally inspired by classic tunesmiths like Buddy Holly and John Lennon and the street-smart attitude and angular riffs of fellow New Yorkers Television and the Velvet Underground, the Strokes were also equally blessed and cursed with an enormous amount of hype -- particularly from the U. |
 | | The Boston, Massachusetts-based Passion Pit began as a one-man project of singer and songwriter Michael Angelakos to produce a Valentine's Day gift for his girlfriend. |
 | | New Zealand indie electronic ensemble the Naked and Famous make driving, melodic pop with an '80s post-punk influence. |
 | | Although chart success in England was an unlikely first step to fame for a band from Bowling Green, Kentucky, mainstream rock band Cage the Elephant achieved just that. |
 | | Discovered in the wake of the Strokes' popularity and the subsequent garage rock revival, New York's art punk trio the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are comprised of singer Karen O, guitarist Nicolas Zinner, and drummer Brian Chase. |
 | | Modest Mouse were one of the most surprising commercial success stories of the new millennium -- while their music was by turns taut and elliptical, and the lyrics sometimes cryptic and introspective, the band broke through to the mainstream audience with the platinum-selling Good News for People Who Love Bad News, and they became genuine rock stars at a time when their musical peers remained cult figures. |
 | | Formerly known as the Jakes, Young the Giant began making eclectic indie rock in Irvine, CA, where bandmates Sameer Gadhia (vocals), Jacob Tilley (guitar), Eric Cannata (guitar), Payam Doostzadeh (bass), and Francois Comtois (drummer) all met each other during high school. |
 | | Muse's fusion of progressive rock, glam, electronica, and Radiohead-influenced experimentation is crafted by guitarist/vocalist Matthew Bellamy, bassist Chris Wolstenholme, and drummer Dominic Howard. |
 | | Indie rock trio Foster the People make atmospheric, psychedelic, and dance-oriented pop. Formed in Los Angeles in 2009, the band features keyboardist/guitarist/vocalist Mark Foster, bassist Cubbie Fink, and drummer Mark Pontius. |
 | | Hailing from South London, Florence Mary Leontine Welch writes songs that occupy the same confessional territory as gossip-loving, genre-bending contemporaries like Amy Winehouse, Kate Nash, Adele, and Lily Allen and the moody, classic art rock of Kate Bush, blending pop, soul, and baroque arrangements into a sound that earned the young artist considerable buzz in 2007. |
 | | Led by songwriter Michael Fitzpatrick, Fitz & the Tantrums brew up a retro sound inspired by Motown and Stax Records. |
 | | With their heady blend of precision punk and serpentine classic rock (the band has drawn comparisons to everyone from the Pixies and Sonic Youth to Elvis Costello and Tom Petty), enigmatic, Texas-based indie pop outfit Spoon went from underground press darlings to one of the genre’s premier commercially and critically acclaimed alternative rock acts. |
 | | Inspired by folk, rock, country, and bluegrass, the London-based Mumford & Sons feature singer/guitarist/drummer Marcus Mumford, vocalist and banjo/Dobro player Winston Marshall, vocalist/keyboardist Ben Lovett, and vocalist/bassist Ted Dwane. |
 | | A dark-edged trio hailing from London, White Lies take sonic cues from the likes of Joy Division, the Teardrop Explodes, and Echo & the Bunnymen. |
 | | Toronto's quirky, high-energy indie rock outfit Tokyo Police Club features vocalist/bassist Dave Monks, keyboardist/vocalist Graham Wright, guitarist/percussionist Josh Hook, and drummer/percussionist Greg Alsop. |
 | | A classic guitar pop group almost nine years in the making, Albuquerque, New Mexico's the Shins began in 1997 as the side project of singer/songwriter and guitarist James Mercer's primary band, Flake. |
 | | The handclapping indie pop of Freelance Whales was born on the streets and subways of New York City after the band's formation in Queens at the end of 2008. |
 | | The Gaslight Anthem rose out of the fertile punk scene of New Brunswick, NJ, flaunting a unique style that melded the influence of Bruce Springsteen, Wilson Pickett, and various Motown groups with the rough, emotional grit of Hot Water Music and Jawbreaker. |
 | | Few bands in the early 2000s rose so quickly to the forefront of pop music as the Killers. With a mix of '80s-styled synth pop and fashionista charm, the band's street-smart debut, Hot Fuss, became one of 2004's biggest releases, spawning four singles and catapulting the group -- particularly their dandyish, 22-year-old frontman, Brandon Flowers -- into the international spotlight. |
 | | Noah and the Whale became a leading light in the British folk scene with the release of 2008's Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down, their popular debut that cracked the U. |
 | | British indie rock trio the Wombats make driving guitar post-punk and electronic-influenced pop. Formed in Liverpool in 2003 while the members were all attending the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts, the Wombats feature vocalist/guitarist Matthew Murphy, drummer Dan Haggis, and Norwegian-born bassist Tord Øverland-Knudsen. |
 | | Assembling in the late '90s, in the town of Kilmarnock, near Glasgow, Scotland, Biffy Clyro featured a three-piece lineup, fronted by vocalist and guitarist Simon Neil along with James Johnston (bass) and drummer Ben Johnston. |
 | | Led by Montana native Colin Meloy, the Decemberists craft theatrical, hyper-literate pop songs that draw heavily from late-'60s British folk acts like Fairport Convention and Pentangle and the early-'80s college rock grandeur of the Waterboys and R. |
 | | There has to be some credit given for this band's name alone -- co-founder John Gourley once explained it as an attempt to create a demi-mythic entity bigger than the individual members. |
 | | Atmospheric English indie pop group the xx formed in London in 2008 around the talents of Romy Madley Croft, Oliver Sim, Baria Qureshi, and Jamie Smith, when the bandmembers were still in high school. |
 | | Standing firmly on the middle ground between the quirky, staccato attack of Modest Mouse and the spirited, arena-ready roar of Arcade Fire, Los Angeles-based indie rock outfit Grouplove came to fruition in the late 2000s around the talents of Hannah Hooper, Christian Zucconi, Sean Gadd, Ryan Rabin, and Andrew Wessen. |
 | | Initially embraced as "the Southern Strokes" for their resurrection and reinvention of Dixie-styled rock & roll, Kings of Leon steadily morphed themselves into an experimental rock outfit during the 2000s. |
 | | Although formed during the late '90s, Interpol rose to international attention in 2002 as part of New York City's post-punk revival. |
 | | Combining indie rock with chamber pop flourishes (courtesy of a small string section), Ra Ra Riot formed while the band's six members were attending college in Syracuse, New York. |