By Tim Querengesser

Since I dig both music and the North, I notice that two are colliding a lot in band names lately. Some make you scratch your head -- what's so "Arctic" about the Arctic Monkeys? -- but some are genuine. Most, though, just show how the world romanticizes Northern remoteness. Or uses it to be ironic.

If you look at a day's playlist on Sirius XM U or CBC Radio 3, the hippest of the hipster stations, you could be forgiven for thinking you're peering at books in the Northern section of the library. Here's a few example bands and where they're from: Yukon (Baltimore), Caribou (Toronto), Wolf Parade (Montreal), Deerhunter (Atlanta), Bear Hands (New York), Neon Indian (Texas), Woods (New York), Sleigh Bells (New York), Woodhands (Toronto), Snowblink (Toronto).

Band names are trendy. Remember when The Strokes were big? Every band put a "The" in their name, just to play along. Well now it seems they all want to play up a feeling of isolation or romanticize ruggedness -- if only to highlight the sadness or irony of their urban existences. Some are quite literal about this -- consider The Wilderness of Manitoba, a band from downtown Toronto.

But in my opinion, the best of this group is Arctic. The Vancouver-based band is led by Marcus Martin and has a legitimate claim to the name: Martin grew up on the land in the NWT. The band's website plays with Arctic exploration imagery and some of his album covers do, too.

Closer to home, Northern-themed band names are less ironic and more about history. The best band to come out of Yellowknife in ages was Giant Con, which was also a brilliant name, a name-combination of the two former gold mines in the city. Now, a few of the guys from that band have formed another called Erebus and Terror -- the two ill-fated ships from the Franklin Expedition searching for the Northwest Passage.

Now that's cool.

What are some other cool band names using the North as inspiration? Propose a few in the comments section below.