This year’s South by Southwest Music Festival featured a ton of great bands. Between day parties and official night showcases, we managed to catch 27 bands in four days. Here’s the music we heard, from favorites to forgettables.

1. Sam Roberts Band
As the Canadians hanging out in El Sol Y La Luna told us, this group sells out arenas north of the border, but here they played to a bar full of fans. The music was definitely arena-worthy, with a huge wall of sound that was reminiscent of U2 or a good Bon Jovi. They closed their set with a monster guitar rave, and then topped it with their encore. A great show.

2. The She Creatures
The She Creatures claim to be from Venus, but their homeworld is really Planet Garage. The all-women band’s blue wigs and space silver bodysuits could be concept overkill with another group, but the group kept it fun with killer fuzz-rock songs like “Sexy Robot” and “She Creatures Invade.”

3. Slow Club
A British boy-girl band—he picked away on guitar, she banged on the drums, and both of them sang high, beautiful songs. It wasn’t all sappy stuff, though—they had some drive in their pocket, and could kick it up to a joyous, jump-along tempo. The crowd loved them.

4. The Golden Arm Trio
Set in a dark, cavernous jazz club, Golden Arm Trio bandleader Graham Reynolds led his group through a tribute to Duke Ellington. A piano, trombone, tenor saxophone, bass and drums all chimed in for a precise, beautiful set, full of small wonders and easy breathing.

5. The Peekers
We stumbled on this group at a day show while reconnecting with high-school friends, and they stood out above all the happy BSing. They had a perfect outdoor sound, with a bright organ, perky harmonies and a happy, skipping uptempo feel.

6. Wooden Birds
Featuring a former member of the American Analog Set, this group offered sweet-voiced guitar rock, a la the Velvet Underground’s self-titled album. They’re soft without receding, and moody guitar licks throughout gave the sound some welcome flavor.

7. Dead Confederate
Dark Southern guitar rock with dirty, dirgelike guitar and mournful, wailing lyrics. They’re powerful without being traditionally “heavy,” making good use of soft-loud dynamics to create a dreamy, reverb-filled atmosphere.

8. The Mae Shi
Musical pranksters, this group offered a hodge-podge of lively sounds and shouted lyrics. Interaction with the audience was a big part of the show: they climbed to the top of their amp stacks, passed a parachute over the crowd and set an electro-harp adrift in the crowd to see which sounds resulted. The experimental, eclectic sound conjured images of the Polyphonic Spree with video game orchestration. A fun live act.

Apparently, they played 15 shows at SXSW. Tip of the hat to them!

9. Hollerado
Another surprise day-party find, these Canadians kicked out lively, mellow two-guitar rock. The vocals were tight and friendly, with some nice harmonies, and they even tried their best not to swear in front of the gathered toddlers. (There were a couple mishaps.) You can download their whole album at Hollerado.com.

10. Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers
Shilpa Ray had a screamer’s voice, all shrieks and rough edges to set your neck hairs up. Pumping her harmonium for a backing drone, she howled in the best Jim Morrison “wailing my way to dissolution” tradition. Her backing band was lively and tight, keeping the sound from imploding as her voice barreled along.

11. King Khan and the Shrines
A big, joyous seven-person band did their best stab at a soul revue as chief exhorter King Khan stood and shouted above them. The live show jumped, with a pom-pom dancer shaking throughout the set to keep the energy up. King Khan ended up in his undies, having blown of his clothes with his raw, rocking power.

12. Amazing Baby
These guys look like they were barely out of high school, but the “Amazing” part of the name was true too. Cocky as hell, this five-piece band blew out Guns ‘n’ Roses-style guitar rock, with some killer two-lead songs. They need to fill out the set a bit more, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they make it big.

13. Beach House
A mood band, offering dreamy guitar leads over lush, high-register drones. The female vocalist wasn’t bad, but her voice didn’t quite deliver the ethereal sound the music demands. It was a nice, reaching sound, but it wasn’t transcendent.

14. Titus Andronicus
A big-energy shout band, Titus Andronicus flexed their best muscle on their title track and the bestial “The Airing of Grievances,” with its shouted, “Your life is over!” chorus. The other songs bled together, even if the sincerity and energy never wavered.

Bonus points for covering “Surfin’ Bird.”

15. This Bike is a Pipe Bomb
Straightforward, political, short-blast punk. The vocals soared and dove, warbling over a driving three-piece set-up. They definitely had the most enthusiastic crowd of the festival, a pogoing mob of punk kids who rushed in, sweated on one another and fled the scene.

16. The Uptown Bums
Fun, sweaty jump rock—nothing especially innovative, but there were some nice organ lines and a good drummer keeping the beat.

17. Shellshag
This art-garage rock duo howled through a branching, Y-shaped microphone, with a guy banging away at a guitar and a woman beating the hell out of a snare-tom combo. (Little bells on the back of her pants provided a cymbal line as she jumped to shake them.) They offered a lot of energy, but the sound felt thin at times. The set ended with the destruction of their instruments; she punched through her drum heads while he severed his strings from the neck with a broken stick.

18. Melissa Auf de Maur
The former Hole bassist offered polished grunge rock, riding a definite Smashing Pumpkins or Nirvana sound, but with less bombast. Her vocals were steady and controlled, but a little extra flare would give the set some needed life.

19. Two Hours Traffic
Uptempo, clean-channel pop rock, with harmonized vocals and well-matched riffs. The sound resembled Ryan-Adams, with a little more rock and roll.

20. Bell
A more experimental act, featuring organ, two percussionists (one on the kit, one fiddling with gadgets), and looped-delay vocals. The sound was intriguing, but the electronics made it hard to entirely process as a live performance (an increasingly common SXSW experience). The trance vibe, coupled with floating female vocals, evoked Stereolab, but the band could benefit from a few more pieces.

21. Abe Vigoda
This young-looking band offered some enthusiastic punk, but aside from a few reverb surf-guitar flourishes, there wasn’t much to really make it stand out. They weren’t bad, but they felt pretty meat-and-potatoes.

22. Charanga Cakewalk
A multi-instrumental world-music band, complete with the interminable sound check that entails. They had a strong sound, with keys, accordion and bongos providing frills over a muscular guitar and bass, but their presentation lacked the lightness and joy the music required.

23. Easy Star All-Stars
A good band rendered unlistenable by a terrible mix (don’t ever try to catch a live act at Vice. They also killed TV on the Radio a few years back.) This reggae group offers soaring, atmospheric reinterpretations of rock classics such as Dark Side of the Moon and O.K. Computer. But while their sound is transcendent on record, it came off as merely cover-band live, especially with the big, sloppy bass overwhelming everything else.

24. Health
This is “I can appreciate what they’re doing without enjoying it” territory. Health offered a stop-start metal barrage: multiple percussionists, buzzsaw guitars and a healthy dollop of industrial noise made for a band that was too heavy for me. Echoey lyrics floated over the grind beneath, but the sound didn’t vary enough throughout.

25. Mika Miko
A nearly all-girl punk band (the drummer was a fella), this group put out straight-ahead 80s style punk. Two vocalists chimed in over Descendents-inspired guitar and rhythm section, but while the group had good energy, there wasn’t much to make them stand out. They seemed to be doing a bit of performance art on female stereotypes—singing into a telephone, offering superficial “gossip” style banter between songs—but I may be reading too much into that.

26. The Hickoids
These guys had one of the most hummable tracks of the week (“Brand New Way”), but they’ve been around for a while, and their live show just seemed rote. They were polished but too comfortable in riding a familiar groove. The singer loved his gross-out gestures—shoving the mic in his armpits and down his ass—but they seemed tired too. We might have just caught them on a bad night, but it seemed like they needed to surprise themselves some.

27. Japanese Motors
These guys weren’t bad, but their sound was dying for another wrinkle. They played jangly, head-bobbing guitar rock, a little reminiscent of an up-tempo (but more grounded) REM, but it was just chords, bass, drums. Nothing stood out, and it wasn’t hard to walk away in search of something more lively.