Since his fanfare-less introduction to Washington, D.C. almost four years ago, Bon Iver's star has taken a meteoric rise -- and he's brought the production value of his live show along for the ride. more ›

If Bon Iver's album, For Emma, Forever Ago, is the product of one man's introspective exile from human contact and civilization, the band's live music is something completely different. The songs now take on the hopeful timbre of a man who has digested and embraced the series of sad circumstances that sent him fleeing to a cabin in the cold Wisconsin wilderness. After ending two serious relationships, one personal and the other with his former band, Justin Vernon, the man behind Bon Iver, said that the cabin was the only place he could really go. The songs he crafted there are not complex or remarkable in their structure, and yet, Bon Iver has emerged in 2008 ahead of many other bands with a similar acoustic folk sound. more ›

How do you feel about rock? How about songs about The Hobbit? While Black Mountain don't play any obvious ones, they do play rock that's been compared to Tolkien-loving Led Zeppelin. The five British Columbians play thunderous psychedelic (some say stoner) rock that sometimes drops to a whisper, sometimes is toe-tapping, and sometimes is just heavy. And sometimes that's all in the same song, like the 8-minute "Tyrants". more ›