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Who: Fronted by songwriter Craig Minowa and named after indigenous North American prophecies, Minnesota collective Cloud Cult blend songs of loss and redemption with environmental themes on their new album Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying Through Tornadoes).

Sounds Like: The instrumental arsenal of the Arcade Fire mixed with the gentle electronic throb of the Postal Service. Feel Good Ghosts is the latest in a series of albums dealing with the death of Minowa's infant son Kaidin in 2002. "This album brings closure to a lot of the storylines involved in the grieving process and moves into a rebirth process," Minowa says. The album's running length and tracklisting is markedly shorter than previous releases because Minowa believes "people now have shorter attention spans."

Vital Stats:

• The band is extremely environmentally conscious: They tour in a biodiesel van, record in a geothermal-powered studio and even printed their liner notes on recycled paper with nontoxic vegetable oils. "My parents drove it into my head that its important to focus on all the living things, humans, plants and animals," Minowa says, "That continued to reverberate through my life and became a natural process."

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Every week, Hit or Hype looks to wade through the buzz to determine which blog-favorite bands are the best of the bunch. This week: a few choice picks from the charts at BlogFreshRadio.

Lykke Li: First things first: it's pronounced "Lick-ee Lee." This Swedish vocalist has been gaining traction online for a while now, but enthusiasm skyrocketed after a series of sensational shows at South By Southwest. Her songs are terrifically coy, full of longing and hesitation. Take breakout hit "A Little Bit": the song consists of nothing much aside from a steady bass thrum and Li's fluttering voice, but the instant she starts skipping across that angelic chorus, it's curtains for your resistance. Verdict: HIT

The Mae Shi: This Los Angeles quartet has been kicking around for four years now but, like Lykke Li, they used this year's South By Southwest as a kind of self-contained tour, playing nearly 20 shows over the course of the week. Their music is blissfully chaotic, pulling equally from hardcore and schoolyard chants and computer-pop and built around gang-style choruses. They can be a bit obnoxious, but separate their songs from their demeanor, and there's more than enough memorable bedlam to satisfy. Verdict: HIT

Fleet Foxes: Recently signed to Seattle indie behemoth SubPop, this Washington quintet occupies that same intersection where '70s AM radio meets '00s indie rock (you can hear equal parts Neil Young and Rogue Wave in their music). There's nothing specifically wrong with Fleet Foxes, but haven't we had enough of cottony falsetto and twinkling acoustic guitars? The full-length could prove us wrong, but the songs on their EP are so wan that they're almost airless. Verdict: For now, we're saying HYPE

Who: Eli "Paperboy" Reed, a Boston-via-Delta South soul singer who, with his band the True Loves, conquered both street corners and punk clubs with a mix of grooved-out rave-ups and slow-burning ballads.

Sounds Like: Your favorite Motown and Stax Records livened up for the Winehouse era. On his new album Roll With You, "Paperboy" delivers classic soul and horn-heavy R&B soaked with the blues of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf. "Southern music is really where it's at for me and it's really defined my sound," Reed says.

Vital Stats:

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Sounds Like: A platinum blonde synthesis of Britney Spears and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Karen O, except Swedish. With a team of songwriters and producers that include the Knife, the Teddybears and Kleerup, Robyn explains her new album is "pop music, but it's OK to like it." Singles like "With Every Heartbeat" and "Be Mine!" have already conquered European charts and seem poised to have similar luck here.

Vital Stats

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Neon Neon, a collaboration between Super Furry Animals' Gruff Rhys and L.A. producer Boom Bip, blend Italian disco, Brazliian beats and Beach Boys harmonies on their debut disc Stainless Style. The album tells the story of real-life automobile visionary John DeLorean, creator of the famed Back to the Future car, as he navigates through all of the excesses of the 1980s, including his affair with actress Raquel Welch and his conviction on cocaine charges. To mark the release of their newest single, "I Lust U," — which features Rhys' duet with Welsh singer Cate Le Bon and wouldn't be out of place on the Human League's Dare — Neon Neon are offering up an exclusive mix of Eighties duets, including David Bowie and Queen, Pet Shop Boys with Dusty Springfield and Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton. Click below to hear the track, and watch the new video for "I Lust U" above.

Who: U.K. dance-rock act Does It Offend You, Yeah?, an oddly-named quartet who are already championed by the British press after perfectly melding infectious electronics and live instruments on their debut album You Have No Idea What You're Getting Into.

Sounds Like: An obnoxious, dizzying, perfectly of-the-moment blend of Daft Punk, Justice and Rage Against the Machine.

Vital Stats:

• The band got their polarizing band name from an episode of the British version of The Office. When the group was posting their first song on MySpace, Ricky Gervais' character said that line in the episode at the exact moment, and the name stuck.

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Who: Foals, a buzzy U.K. post-punk act that digs funky African grooves and is more than willing to rock a house party.

Sounds Like: Frontman Yannis Philippakis, drummer Jack Bevan, guitarist Jimmy Smith, bassist Walter Gervers and keyboardist Edwin Congreave spike their propulsive rhythms with lean, sparkling guitar lines and riotous chants that Philippakis says were inspired by Alan Lomax chain-gang recordings. Cuts like "Balloons" and "Cassius" feature funky guitar riffs, horns played by the Brooklyn Afro-beat group Antibalas, and the atmospheric production of TV on the Radio's Dave Sitek, whose studio techniques included running drums through distortion pedals.

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Who: Midnight Movies, a Los Angeles quartet that creates indie pop that combines both the sunny moods and dark undercurrents of their hometown.

Sounds Like: The Human League and the Doors scoring a film noir, or if David Lynch had his own band and hired Nico to sing lead. On their new self-titled EP, the band puts their stamp on a cover of the Moody Blues' "Nights in White Satin," while artists like James Iha and Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Nick Zinner remix songs from the band's second album. "Before, 'Souvenirs' had a new wave feel to it," says lead singer Gena Olivier. "But Nick turned into something much more raw and punk rock."

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Who: She and Him, a collaboration between indie-rock troubadour M. Ward and actress Zooey Deschanel.

Sounds Like: On their debut album Volume One, She and Him merge Bright Eyes, Emmylou Harris and Guided By Voices into expansive Phil Spector-inspired songs, with the entire package held together by Deschanel's silky vocals. "This was her first record, and she was discovering all the things she's capable of," says Ward.

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Who: Aptly named New York quintet Apes & Androids, who merge primal classic-rock influences with futuristic song structures.

Sounds Like: A dance floor-ready cocktail of Queen's bombast (complete with Freddie Mercury's falsetto), 1980s Prince, Ziggy Stardust-era Bowie and Beck's Midnight Vultures. On their debut album Blood Moon, A&A pump out sing-alongs like "Hot Kathy," party starters like "We Don't Understand You" and simmering burners like "Riverside." "We tried to build the record into something that would be a journey when listening to the whole thing," says A&A's Brian Jacobs, who shares vocal and guitar duties with bandmate David Tobias.

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