Back to this, with part 3.

11. Okkervil River
I guess liking this band would make me kind of a hipster-type (although I assume you kind of guessed that about me already. Maybe it was offset by all the ska), but fuck, I don't even care. As a lot of critics have already made abundantly clear, 2005's Black Sheep Boy was a masterpiece level achievement, a semi-cohesive concept album bolstered by what were very possibly the best lyrics of the last couple years and instrumentation that sounded something like a more inventive Wilco covering Neutral Milk Hotel. This all was carried even further by Will Sheff's voice, which could sound even a bit grating, but any of that was made up for by the tremendous sincerity apparent in it. "For Real" was a frightening, claustrophobic, depressing look into the slightly deranged mind of the titular character, and "So Come Back, I Am Waiting" contained a peak worthy of Springsteen. Their 2007 album The Stage Names is almost as impressive an effort, with the second great indie rock song about he death of John Berryman, as well as a bunch of other sincere, sometimes depressing, almost always hopeful neo-folk tunes.

12. Old 97's
This is one of two bands (the other being the Drive By Truckers) that typified all that was dirty and right about the alt-country scene. Always a bit more romantic in their depravity than The Truckers, a little more refined. This is likely because their frontman, Rhett Miller, is one of the few musicians that fits the term "ladykiller." Don't assume that the two bands are all that similar, really. They both have lots of songs about drinking and one night stands, about lonely travel and lonelier love, but The Old 97's care much less about the mythology behind the music they make, focusing instead on the more immediate implications. Their earliest incarnation was in a more cow-punk style sound, but as they progressed, they grew closer to being a somewhat more straightforward country-rock band, although the punk element never truly left the music. Capable of putting on some of the most wild, whiskey-fueled rave-ups in music today, they can also exhibit a softer side, writing some of the better ballads that make their way around these days. Plus, as most of these bands do, they put on an explosive live show.

13. The Avett Brothers
Well, I figure I already put one punk-influenced Americana act up here, I might as well go with another. The Avett Brothers are, as the name implies, a pair of brothers who play guitar and banjo, backed up by a third member on bass. They don't really effectively occupy any single musical idiom. Too fast, loud, and aggressive to really be bluegrass, too acoustic and traditionally-influenced to be punk, plus they have a dozen or so more unusual musical tendencies. In this case though, it all comes together to make for a band heavy on good lyrics, great ballads, and plenty of howled punkgrass joints. Plus, they recorded a song called "Pretty Girl From Chile" that goes from pretty standardd Avett's punkgrass to a very Spanish/South American influenced segments, all coming to an end with crashing Crazy Horse-esque guitar squalls. If that doesn't set a band apart from most others, I don't know what does.