While Coney Island's distractions are many -- especially the ancient Cyclone rollercoaster, for which one SPIN editor made at least two detours -- there's always plenty of incentive to stay glued to the annual Siren Festival's dueling stages, and the 2009 installment was no exception. These four performances stood out as the best of this year's wild ride.

Like a menacing wave, Brooklyn noisemakers A Place to Bury Strangers washed into Portland's Doug Fir Lounge Saturday night and won over a small but devoted audience of goths and post-punkers with an impressive combination of mangled, industrial-grade sounds and visually arresting, black-and-white video clips projected against the club's backdrop.