Hot New Band: The Heavy

West Country Brits leave England to find love for their raucous stompers.

Two years ago, something finally went right for the Heavy. After almost a decade of inexplicable U.K. indifference to their swaggering garage rock and sweaty R&B, the then-intermittently gigging quartet found an appreciative audience -- 5,000 miles from their tiny hometown of Noid, England -- when the band was invited to Austin, Texas, for the South by Southwest festival.

Coldplay Launch 'La Vida' Live in London

The world's biggest band begin the first of three free shows around the world in support of Viva La Vida, out today in the U.S.
Chris Martin at Brixton Academy in London / Photo by Simone Joyner/Getty Images

It's been a momentous week for Coldplay in the U.K. They've sold 300,000 copies of their new album, Viva La Vida, in just three days, but a seemingly anxiety-wrecked Chris Martin has stormed out (albeit politely) of two press interviews.

Pete Doherty: Man Out of Time

Is Pete Doherty a uniquely gifted musician with an underappreciated body of work or just a reckless junkie tabloid magnet looking for his next fix? Or both?
Photo by Hedi Slimane

Screwing a cigarette into his mouth, which he clamps between his teeth like a cowboy Clint Eastwood, Pete Doherty prowls around his suite at London's K West hotel as if scouting for potential escape routes.

"The Hottest Band on Earth Should Get Everything They Want, No?"

Of course they should -- but three years after their last album stiff, the Hives are working to regain that title with a little help from unlikely friends.

All told, 2002 was a vintage year for the Hives. Nearly a decade after their inception in Fagersta, a pinprick-size Swedish town (population: 12,000), the quintet found themselves hailed as part of rock's young new ruling class.

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