I Mother Earth Essentials

Based around the roiling guitar riffs and thundering drums of the Tanna brothers, these Toronto alt-rockers work up a mighty storm. With such mammoth tracks as “Levitate,” their 1993 debut, Dig, arrived with a soaring post-grunge sound that rocketed in a trajectory alongside Smashing Pumpkins and Alice In Chains. Their original frontman, Edwin, is a powerhouse, with raspy edges around his titanic roar—whether he's howling about what he's feeling (“The Devil's Engine”) or what he can only imagine (“One More Astronaut”). On later albums, he was replaced by the similarly dynamic Brian Byrne.