Montreal Rocks

Bad weather, legions of the disaffected, a civic love of hedonism, Anglophone outsiders, government grants for musicians — these are just some of the reasons Montreal has emerged as one of the 21st century's rock hotbeds, a breeding ground for the world's most vital sounds. To kick of this city-centric collection, we span the years between April Wine — formed 1969 and responsible for the pile-driving "Roller" — and '00s indie heroes Arcade Fire ("Keep the Car Running"). Montreal's most innovative musicians will blow your mind . . . in Next Steps.

Continue your rock tour of Montreal with electronic punk mash-masters We Are Wolves, whose second album, Total Magique (2007), features the radioactive single "Fight & Kiss," and the Unicorns, formed at the dawn of the new millennium by school friends Nicholas "Nick Diamonds" Thorburn and Alden Penner — the band's lo-fi experiments on 2003's Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone? include the myth-milking "I Was Born (A Unicorn)". Pick up several doses of Montreal punk, in Deep Cuts.

Here we tickle Montreal's great, grubby underbelly with the still-active, '80s-founded punk outfit Ripcordz, who titled its year-2000 album/manifesto It's Never Too Late to Annoy Your Parents; the muscular electro-squelches of Lesbians on Ecstasy ("Tell Me Does She Love the Bass"), whose self-titled debut was released on the city's lynchpin Alien8 indie label; and Fly Pan Am ("Brûlez, suivant, suivante!"), who meld French-Canadian and avant-garde influences.

Indie rock of all hues — from punk to prog via lo-fi and experimental electronica — can be found in this eclectic homage to the city that picked up where Seattle and Brooklyn left off . . . then conquered the world. A melting pot of resident nationalities has produced a fascinating variety of artists, many of them snapped up by key labels Alien8 and Constellation, and showcased at the annual Pop Montreal festival. Here you'll find gruff Francophonic rocker Éric Lapointe ("Les Boys") alongside the lush orchestral stylings of the Dears ("Lost In the Plot"), the noise rock of AIDS Wolf ("Spit Tastes Like Metal"), and much more besides.