If you're not familiar with the 1988 album Vivid by Living Colour, you're either a hermit living in the wilds of Appalachia, or simply too young to remember. Vivid not only hit No. 6 on the Billboard 200 that year, it also went double platinum.

Since 1999, Killswitch Engage has been widely recognized as one of the bands that helped propel metalcore into the mainstream with its 2002 album, Alive or Just Breathing. That very same year, however, lead vocalist Jesse Leach decided to part ways with the group rather unexpectedly, leaving the rest of the band scratching their heads.

If you want to break out, you have to hustle, at least according to hip-hop artist Grieves. Before signing with independent hip-hop label Rhymesayers Entertainment in 2010, Grieves (real name Benjamin Laub) was simultaneously writing new music, playing gigs and trying to get his material heard by as many people as possible.

We haven't heard much from Cymbals Eat Guitars, the NYC-based indie rock outfit responsible for 2009's Why There Are Mountains and the 2011 follow-up Lenses Alien. What's a young band to do after getting stamped with a "Best New Music" label by the hype machines? For CEG, personnel changes and relocating back to Brooklyn have kept the group busy and given them something of a new look.