The young women of Girl In A Coma have named themselves after a Smiths song that needs no introduction here, and frontwoman and guitarist Nina Diaz has more than a little Morrissey in her powerful, elastic singing. But she may also remind you of Billie Holliday, Patsy Cline, Patti Smith, Karen O, and even Joey Ramone. Diaz's voice is classic: robust, immediate, capable of expressing great sorrow and anger while simultaneously conveying punk attitude. It's the sort of voice that announces the coming of a major band - a wail of emotional solidarity, and an arrow that penetrates a listener's heart.

We've included two Girl In A Coma clips on this reel - a video accompanying "Clumsy Sky", the lead single, and another for the aching "Road To Home". Both songs contain more musical moods and ideas than what can be found on most indie rock full-lengths, and Nina Diaz's singing performances are spectacular throughout. Jim Mendiola - best known as the director behind punk rock films Pretty Vacant and Ozzy Goes To The Alamo - is another proud San Antonio weirdo, and in the "Clumsy Sky" clip, he coaxes the desert-Texan strangeness and charm from Diaz's artful songwriting. Mendiola shoots the band in a dusty dive bar, and turns the room into a hangout for some of the freakiest characters in the Lone Star State (the three members on Girl In A Coma fit right in, of course.) These aren't hipsters: they're devoted music listeners, young and old, who casually express their personal styles under the smoky lights of the San Antonio nightclub. In other words, they're a Girl In A Coma crowd.

The young women of Girl In A Coma have named themselves after a Smiths song that needs no introduction here, and frontwoman and guitarist Nina Diaz has more than a little Morrissey in her powerful, elastic singing. But she may also remind you of Billie Holliday, Patsy Cline, Patti Smith, Karen O, and even Joey Ramone. Diaz's voice is classic: robust, immediate, capable of expressing great sorrow and anger while simultaneously conveying punk attitude. It's the sort of voice that announces the coming of a major band - a wail of emotional solidarity, and an arrow that penetrates a listener's heart.

We've included two Girl In A Coma clips on this reel - a video accompanying "Clumsy Sky", the lead single, and another for the aching "Road To Home". Both songs contain more musical moods and ideas than what can be found on most indie rock full-lengths, and Nina Diaz's singing performances are spectacular throughout. Jim Mendiola - best known as the director behind punk rock films Pretty Vacant and Ozzy Goes To The Alamo - is another proud San Antonio weirdo, and in the "Clumsy Sky" clip, he coaxes the desert-Texan strangeness and charm from Diaz's artful songwriting. Mendiola shoots the band in a dusty dive bar, and turns the room into a hangout for some of the freakiest characters in the Lone Star State (the three members on Girl In A Coma fit right in, of course.) These aren't hipsters: they're devoted music listeners, young and old, who casually express their personal styles under the smoky lights of the San Antonio nightclub. In other words, they're a Girl In A Coma crowd.

Few bands are born to the kind of anticipation and excitement that greeted Grand Archives. Indie stars from their debut, the Seattle five-piece has carried the burden of exalted expectations with consummate grace. Mat Brooke and his combo may have wanted to sneak up on the underground - but when you're a former (and founding) member of the Band of Horses and Northwest-rock legends Carissa's Wierd, that's not so easy to do. Pop audiences, rock critics, and weblog scribes predicted great things for Grand Archives - and with their gorgeous debut record, they've delivered.

Many are already calling The Grand Archives an early contender for album of the year. Certainly it's hard to imagine a warmer, smoother, more tuneful, or more enveloping set; Brooke's elegant songwriting is empathetic, relaxed, emotionally forthright, rootsy enough to satisfy any fan of sophisticated American music, and poppy enough for summer singalongs. And sing along they do - all five members of Grand Archives are accomplished vocalists, and their frequent multi-part harmonies are pure heaven (check out, for instance, the stunning voice arrangement on the heart-stopper "Torn Foam Blue Couch"). Traces of spooky Band of Horses-style alt-country are discernable here, as are the echoes of Iron & Wine and Beechwood Sparks, but listen closer: the sound and the style are resolutely their own.

Pitchfork has been enthusiastic about the group since their public debut - their first EP recordings were profiled and discussed at length on the site, and their journalists have followed all subsequent Grand Archives moves with mounting interest. "The way Grand Archives come forth with arms outstretched", raves staffer Ian Cohen in his enthusiastic review of the full-length, "results in a debut that exceeds most expectations". Other publications - online and elsewhere - have echoed this praise, never failing to point out just how downright ingratiating this music is. They've won fans wherever they've played - and after opening shows for Modest Mouse, performing on the Late Late Show, and touring the country with Sera Cahoone, it's safe to say that Grand Archive fans are everywhere.

"Miniature Birds" begins with a woodsy harmonica before opening up into a verse melody that feels as warm and wide as the summertime outdoors. No surprise, then, to find that the offbeat - but engrossing - clip for "Miniature Birds" is something of a June idyll. The band (as bands often will) is rolling through bucolic countryside in a van, trees and flowers in full bloom around them. At the side of the road, they spy a hitchhiker - a kid who couldn't be more than thirteen years old, armed with a guitar and singing to catch their attention. After they pick him up, they're slightly alarmed to discover he's an awfully enthusiastic guest: he's the one who sings the words to "Miniature Birds", getting in the eye of the camera and the faces of the members of Grand Archives. When they stop the van to stretch their legs and consult the map, the kid takes the steering wheel and drives away, stranding them on the dirt lane. But he's just playing: they find him parked up the road at an alpaca farm, riling up the animals under a noonday sun. All forgiven, the band and the kid grab a bag of feed, and let the livestock eat from their outstretched hands.

The stunning Paz de la Huerta (Cider House Rules, Riding In Cars With Boys) starred in that video and dominated every frame she graced. The Cousin clip left viewers wanting more Paz de la Huerta, and in the sexy an provocative video for "By The Time I Get Home There Won't Be Much Of A Place For Me," Michele Civetta and Grand National have given us just that. Here, she plays the subject of a video diary, and as she dances through the streets, fields, and nightclubs of Paris, every move she makes feels like an irresistible come-on. Named for a line in a Hall & Oates hit, A Drink And A Quick Decision is the latest release from London's favorite electro-pop duo. Kicking The National Habit, their last album, drew rave reviews on both sides of the Atlantic, and established Grand National as one of the leading lights of the international dance-rock movement. The popular acceptance of Kicking The National Habit helped open ears to similar bands like LCD Soundsystem, Hot Chip, and Prinzhorn Dance School, and the sturdy songwriting and urbane cool of A Drink And A Quick Decision promises to open still more American ears to sophisticated transnational indie-funk. "By The Time I Get Home There Won't Be Much Of A Place For Me", the lead single, slinks along on an elastic, propulsive groove - but still manages to tell a moving, articulate story of dislocation and heartbreak. The Grand National sound is cinematic, artful and spellbinding, and Michele Civetta (Yoko Ono, Sparklehorse, Lou Reed) delivers a stylish video for "By The Time I Get Home..." that often feels like a three-minute trip to Cannes. Shot partially in Parisian hotspot Le Baron, it's the tale of a man and a woman and a vacation gone bad. We barely see the videomaker, but it's his hand-held footage we watch; Paz de la Huerta aims most of her beckoning gestures straight at the camera. The flirtation is near-constant - she makes her desire for her boyfriend manifest, the straps of her slinky dresses and bathrobes keep sliding down beneath her shoulders, and even when she's sleeping in the back of a taxi, her breathing seems to invite sexual reverie. But everything is far from perfect. At times, de la Huerta's character seems to be out of control: boozy, dream-addled, and frighteningly close to losing consciousness. During some of the Le Baron scenes, her eyes narrow to slits, and she gyrates provocatively beside the singers in the band (Grand National, of course). She expresses herself physically - she's got kisses for her boyfriend, but she'll shove him off, too. By the end of the clip, she's dancing with a strange mustachioed man; we watch her leave the club with him. The editing speeds up, and finally we realize what we've been seeing - the filmmaker, alone at home and pained, fast-forwarding through footage of a girl he lost long ago.

Gossamer harmonies, sweet, breathy vocal performances from singers Erin Fein and Tristan Wraight, and clever arrangements that drew from classic pop, contemporary indie, vintage trip-hop and synthpunk, and IDM. And as musically sophisticated as Headlights were, their lyrics were every bit as inspired - subtle, smart, impressionistic, impassioned, and culturally aware. They weren't always pointed, but when they were - as on "TV" - their cutting-edges stung. Thus we greet the release of Some Racing, Some Stopping with the fervor of true enthusiasts. "Cherry Tulips", the lead single, offers more of everything we've always loved about Headlights, and adds entirely new dimensions to the group's sound. Some Racing was written and recorded in a farmhouse on the outskirts of the band's native Champaign, Illinois, and the remove from the city has imparted a direct, organic feel to their music. Together with multi-instrumentalist and producer Brett Sanderson, Fein and Wright have broadened their sonic palettes, dispensed with some of the atmospherics, and sharpened their collective focus. Now there's absolutely no way to miss the superb songcraft that animates the Headlights project. Erin Fein, in particular, seems at home with this refined approach - her vocal on "Cherry Tulips" is relaxed, inviting, and honey-warm. The clip for "Cherry Tulips" perfectly captures that mystic-farmhouse vibe - and the magic that can happen when a talented band decides to live, work, and write together. Director Julian Acosta has worked with Headlights before; it was his radiant and softly-beautiful clip for "TV" that introduced the band to much of the indie underground. His latest collaboration with the group is, if possible, even sweeter than his last. He presents Headlights as a band of friends, comfortable with each other and with their music, conjuring sonic spells under soft country light. The "Cherry Tulips" clip opens with a shot of Erin Fein in bed; she sleeps next to an antique lamp under farmhouse windows. It's not morning yet, but she wakes anyway - she steps into the light, and looks knowingly at the camera. Then, as if seized by some invisible hand, she levitates and slips effortlessly into shoes: her nightie falls away, revealing a gold-spangled dress. Eyes fixed on the lens, she dances her way over to the band, who've gathered under the high ceilings to perform "Cherry Tulips". The group uses simple folk instruments: an accordion, an acoustic guitar, brushed drums, percussion. Even Fein's synthesizer is a primitive Casio. Together, the band generates spectral forces of their own - flowers hang suspended in the air around them, the wooden chairs they sit on are reassembled into improbable pyramids, and the farmhouse is flooded with hot spotlights. They've gone to the country, but they've taken the stage with them; wherever they are, they're indiepop stars.

In an era where pop music has been processed and packaged to oblivion and rock has regressed to the point that it's pretty much lost its way, Hope Of the States are signposting a way forward. Their debut album doesn't follow rock's conventions. There are 'rock' songs that eschew verse-chorus in favour of almost classical structures; blasts of pure noise that somehow coexist with beautiful, sublimely bittersweet melodies and walls of guitar nestle happily alongside trumpets and strings. It is unashamedly, triumphantly epic and could well have people struggling to find comparisons in everything from obscure noise bands to film soundtrack composers. Perhaps most impressively, their album The Lost Riots confirms that - in a year of sallow easy-listening and lyrically-bankrupt songwriting teams - Hope Of the States are a band with something to say.

They are one of the world's most intriguing and consistently-challenging electropop outfits. Not every album that's nominated for Britain's prestigious Mercury Prize also makes waves in the United States. But thanks to a few irresistible singles, the American pop underground fell in love with Hot Chip's mesmerizing The Warning. "And I Was A Boy In School", the second single, was named the #7 song of 2006 by Pitchfork; lead single "Over And Over" placed at #16. Webloggers and tastemakers made Hot Chip a fashionable name to drop: writing in Stylus, Mallory O' Donnell called The Warning "brilliant, mostly electronic pop music that lingers in this tense, electric region of the human consciousness." But in their native England, the members of Hot Chip are no excitedly-whispered indie secret - they're legitimate pop stars. The Warning made the mainstream U.K. Top 40, and the NME dubbed "Over And Over" the single of the year. The success of the album has made the band a draw on the international festival circuit - they've appeared at Coachella, Glastonbury, the Reading and Leeds Festival, Australia's massive Big Day Out, the Sonar electronica festival in Barcelona, and many others. "Over And Over" serves as the theme music for the BBC's influential Culture Show. Few albums - mainstream, indie, or otherwise - are as hotly-anticipated as Hot Chip's upcoming Made In The Dark. Further exciting developments: the London quintet has apparently been hunting a more eclectic sound than any they've previously attempted to capture. In a recent interview, singer Alexis Taylor promised ballads, full-on dance tracks, and even heavy rock elements. Judging by "Ready For The Floor", the first song released from the still-under-wraps set, they've delivered. Taylor's evocative purr is still very much in place, but the beat is bigger, the chorus more infectious, and the synths quirkier than they were on The Warning. Here's a worthy successor to "Over And Over", an exciting beginning to 2008, and a track sure to be on the playlist at the more adventurous dance clubs this spring.