@ZackTeibloom For those sick of fake Bonnaroo line-ups, we have a real new batch of SXSW 2010 bands. And they’re pretty damn good. Of the 55 new bands, I’ve seen 6 and have rave reviews for all of them. Balkan Beat Box used to fly in from Israel just to headline the under-appreciated Lotus festival in Bloomington, In. and they’re a force with a mix of gypsy punk and hip hop. Yeah, be excited for that one. !!! is deserving of all the exclamation points, Les Savy Fav tore you a new one when he was here for Fun Fun Fun and you can expect more of the same from their bulbous front man. Miike Snow put out one of the best albums of last year and their live show matches the album. We saw hometown heroes, Spoon last week and it’s never too soon for more.

Here’s the bands I’m hyped about on initial glance: (score for bands I’ve seen)

• !!! 9.1/10
• Balkan Beat Box 9.3/10
• Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
• Broken Social Scene
• Chamillionaire
• Cymbals Eat Guitars
• Deer Tick
• Fucked Up
• Les Savy Fav (9.6 for spectacle, 7.4 for songs)
• Miike Snow 9.2
• Murs
• Spoon 9.1
• Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings 9.5
• The Drums
• The Soft Pack
• The xx

And now for the bands, a few highlights selected out of over 10,000 music applications include:

!!! (Brooklyn, NY), Amaral (Madrid, SPAIN), Anita Tijoux (Santiago, CHILE), Apoptygma Berzerk (Oslo, NORWAY), Athlete (London, ENGLAND), Bajofondo (Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA), Balkan Beat Box (Tel Aviv, ISRAEL), Band of Skulls (London, ENGLAND), Bear In Heaven (Brooklyn, NY), Black Milk (Detroit, MI), Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (Los Angeles, CA), Bomba Estereo (Bogota, Colombia), Broken Social Scene (Toronto, CANADA), Chalie Boy (Hearne, TX), Chamillionaire & Paul Wall (Houston, TX), Cymbals Eat Guitars (New York, NY), Deer Tick (Providence, RI), Evan Dando (New York, NY), Frightened Rabbit (Selkirk, SCOTLAND), Fucked Up (Toronto, CANADA), Grant Hart (St. Paul, MN), Hauschka (Dusseldorf, GERMANY), Here We Go Magic (Brooklyn, NY), Hudson Mohawke (Glasgow, SCOTLAND), Invincible (Detroit, MI), jj (Gothenburg, SWEDEN), Killer Mike (Atlanta, GA), LA Riots (Los Angeles, CA), Les Savy Fav (Brooklyn, NY), Maldita Vecindad (Mexico City, MEXICO), Marina & The Diamonds (London, ENGLAND), Mayer Hawthorne & The County (Ann Arbor, MI), Midlake (Denton, TX), Miike Snow (Stockholm, SWEDEN), Mr Hudson (London, ENGLAND), Mundo Livre SA (Recife, BRAZIL), Murs (Los Angeles, CA), Natalia Lafourcade (Mexico City, MEXICO), Pretty Lights (Charlottesville, VA), Rye Rye (Baltimore, MD), Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings (Brooklyn, NY), She & Him (Los Angeles, CA), Shwayze (Malibu, CA), Spoon (Austin, TX), Steve Aoki (Los Angeles, CA), Systema Solar (Taganga, COLOMBIA), Texas Tornados (San Antonio, TX), The Drums (Brooklyn, NY), The Middle East (Townsville, AUSTRALIA), The Soft Pack (San Diego, CA), The Very Best (New York, NY), The xx (London, ENGLAND), Trae (Houston, TX), VV Brown (London, ENGLAND), and Wolfgang Gartner (Austin, TX). This list is subject to change.

Related posts:

1. First six SXSW bands announced
2. Saturday Edition: 5 bands to see @Pitchfork
3. Top 10 ACL Bands Not on Zack’s List
4. Pitchfork Bands You May Not Know…
5. Sunday Edition: 5 Must See Bands @ Pitchfork