Maximo Park charted five UK singles from A Certain Trigger, hitting the Top Twenty four times. "Our Velocity", the lead single from Our Earthly Pleasures, is their most successful release yet, breaching the Top Ten, and continuing the group's ascent to the top echelon of contemporary British rock. "Our Velocity" shares much with the singles from A Certain Trigger: daring, unpredictable songwriting, energetic performances by the bandmembers, and a wide-eyed howl of a lead vocal from one-of-a-kind frontman Paul Smith. But producer Gil Norton (Pixies, Foo Fighters) has toughened and tightened the sound, and brought out something elemental and undeniable in Maximo Park's skewed art-pop. The band is as literate and urgent as ever, but there's a newfound fierceness - and seriousness - to "Our Velocity" and the other songs on Our Earthly Pleasures that seems perfectly calibrated to appeal to fans of Britpop and American indie alike.

Midtown was an American pop punk and alternative rock band from New Brunswick, New Jersey. Formed in November, 1998 by three Rutgers University students, Midtown soon became a quartet. The band took advantage of the fertile New Jersey punk scene to develop a sound that combined elements of emo and punk rock and began recording shortly after their formation. Their first EP, Sacrifice of Life, was issued by Pinball Records in 1999. Their second album, Save the World, Lose the Girl, was released in early 2000 by the Drive-Thru Records label and picked up for distribution by MCA. After Living Well Is The Best Revenge was released they left the label. Their next album, Forget What You Know, was produced while the band was not under contract with a record label and then picked up by Columbia Records.

We'll have to wait until July for a full-length. But the songs that have emerged from the Mink camp so far are enough to excite anybody with a taste for legit New York rock and roll. Carlson leads the band through a characteristically Manhattanite repertoire: "Dematerialize", a sardonic, Lou Reed-like blues rocker, the decadent, trash-poppy "Crazy World", and the distorted, gritty "Pressure Pressure". And then there's "Talk To Me". The quartet's lead single sounds to our ears like an irresistible springtime hit: a brash come-on with a singalong chorus and energy to burn. Over Stella Mozgawa's propulsive shuffle beat, guitarists David Lowy and Nick Maybury slash and stutter, and Carlson shakes off his nerves and sings out a solicitation to the gorgeous girl across the room.

"Talk To Me" is just one of several Mink tracks produced by the visionary Sylvia Massy (Red Hot Chili Peppers, System Of A Down). Massy has preserved the group's live intensity, and polished the band just enough; commercial radio stations, teased by the sound, have already raced to add the song. "Pressure Pressure", produced by grammy winner Chris Shaw and remixed by Massy, found a receptive audience at ESPN - the sports network used the track in its promotional spots for the '06 MLB playoffs. This winter, Mink wowed audiences at no fewer than four SXSW showcases, and will hit the road this month for three weeks with Saliva before joining up with none other than the legendary KISS for a string of shows!

Keith Schofield has made a career of matching bands' songs with visual images that suit them: his clip for Death Cab For Cutie's "Jealousy Rides With Me" is warm and radiant, the Notwist's "One With The Freaks" is weird and supernatural, and clever Wintergreen's "When I Wake Up" becomes a cheeky meditation on "Atari's worst videogame ever". His video for "Knights" highlights the mathematical elements of Minus the Bear's music - but does so lightheartedly, entertaining the viewer with repetition, parallel action and optical illusion, and sudden breaches of symmetry. Schofield divides the screen into two mirror images, and then moves his camera, warping the perspective as he does. Things disappear into the center of the screen, duplicates emerge, and odd, striking hybrid shapes are formed. Objects emerge from the middle of the frames, one after another, in time with the guitar riffing, as if Knudson's staccato tapping is generating physical matter. He mischievously sticks his guitar into the midline, and saws it back and forth, again in time, as if he's playing tug-of-war with himself. But not everything in the "Knights" clip is mirrored: in fact, members of Minus the Bear travel from one side of the frame to the other, confounding expectation and adding to the dizzying quality of the clip. Like the band's music, the video is structured but improvisatory: there is chaos in the plan, madness in the science, and strange variables lurking within the formula.

We're not sure there are any small cities in the United States with a more storied musical heritage - or a more active underground scene - than Athens, Georgia. If an Athens group can distinguish itself from its peers, it's safe to say that it's only a matter of time before the rest of the nation takes notice. Modern Skirts are no strangers to the 40 Watt Club's legendary stage, and won Flagpole Magazine's Athens Music Award for the year's best album in 2006. They're local heroes in the Southeast - and as usually happens to guitar-rock quartets who win the allegiance of the collegiate town (and some of its most famous rock and roll citizens), mainstream has come calling for them.

A live iteration of Monster In The Machine has hit the road and will be touring in support of Butterfly Pinned for most of the balance of '07. They've already shared bills with Riders On The Storm - the post-Doors band featuring Robbie Krieger and Ray Manzarek. It's an intriguing pairing, because there's much about Shannon Crawford that's reminiscent of Jim Morrison: in concert, he radiates a similar intelligence, diabolical intensity and dark command. In "Savior", a focal point of the MITM live set as well as a highlight of Butterfly Pinned, Crawford snarls at illegitimate authority, and excoriates troublemakers who hide behind the façade of spiritual righteousness. The clip for "Savior" focuses on the Monster In The Machine frontman, who plays guitar and sings in front of a bright red backdrop. Hair in his eyes, hips swiveling, he spits his accusation at the camera. Behind him, a beautiful woman dances away - and, from time to time, she fades to a black or white silhouette. In one memorable shot, the white outline of the woman hangs behind Crawford with her arms outstretched, and, whether in sympathy or coincidence, his own arms drift away from the guitar neck. He echoes her motions; two figures thrown open to receive the spirit.