Garfield glides fragilely from end to end throughout Ace of Hearts, sometime alone, sometimes alongside guitarist/vocalist Ste Rasch.

Broken Land say they have their sights set on a new territory called hindie rock: Hindustani rhythms and alternate tunings uniting under a rock and punk flag.

"Supreme Girl" is a love song based on our lovely President George Bush and one-time Supreme Court nominee Harriet Myers.

Owing a great deal to the statuesque genre known as shoegazing, Conqueror may lack a bit in hooks and shifts, but makes it up thanks to low key vocals and song-crafting.

Eastern Conference Champions is a trio that sounds thoroughly British yet hails from Pennsylvania.

With its origin harkening back to Kensrue's days playing for spare change on the street corners of Southern California, Please Come Home is a stripped down, rollicking folk record that is fairly impressive and largely successful.

The band's patented shoegaze gauze is shot through with fuzzed-out garage guitars on opener "Know," only to dissolve into a two-minute-long coda of brushed drums.

Quite simply, this is the best electronica work I've ever heard by an unsigned musician.

The sound of the Velmas is the sound of every radio rock band of the last ten years or so shoved in a blender, resulting in a homogenized mush of everything "alternative."

Opener "20 Years" is almost Howie Day-addictive, with swirling guitars, a catchy beat, and rising vocals.

As it plays through the headphones, you can see and smell the smoke filling the coffee shop around you.

He enunciates his intelligent lyrics crisply, even when effects are thrown into the mix. Remember the wonder with which you first heard Cy Curnin's voice (the Fixx)?