If shaggy bands of white youth with electric guitars ever really became extinct, as myopic observers unprepared for Nirvana claimed a few years ago, the news never managed to reach the Midwest. Trendy music scenes constantly touch down in various locales, but the sequestered cities of America's heartland have always been prime breeding ground for raucous pop children of the punk age.

Boiling up the usual side of adolescent rebellion with flakes of college-town culture, populist modesty, cheap beer and leftovers from an immigrant work ethic, this electric hot pot has fed indie-speed turntables for years. And though each new band gets to select its own array of archetypes to emulate, the old licks keep on kicking. A hypeable image and a cool video may move product, but the crucial ingredient that differentiates a developing band from the postmodern mob is still songwriting ability.

Heretical enough to envision the potential for real popularity in power pop (generally a fine notion that is the exclusive refuge of idealists and altruists), Material Issue, from Chicago, found a major label to release its home-brew debut last year, and International Pop Overthrow went on to sell 200,000 copies. Mindful of that triumph, Destination Universe subtly plays up the hard-hitting trio's more commercial attributes: Hollies-like harmony vocals and singer-guitarist Jim Ellison's fretboard power.

But free of overt nostalgia and lacking modern context, Material Issue's rock with hooks never leaves the ground. "Who Needs Love," the chiming "Next Big Thing" and the wah-wah carpet under the witty "What Girls Want" (the answer: "A man with lips just like Mick Jagger, Rod Stewart's hair and Keith Richards's stagger") are good to go, but catchy choruses can't redeem the other songs' consistently mundane verses. Put somewhat inevitably in terms of the Hollies, Destination Universe ignores the power of "Carrie-Anne" to search for the pop in "Long Cool Woman (in a Black Dress)."

Poster Children, from the college town of Champaign, Illinois, bring less accessible tunes to a more subterranean sensibility on their second album. An organized blare of clearly recorded ferocity, Daisychain Reaction (a 1991 release on Twin/Tone, a Midwest institution itself, and reissued by Sire, the quartet's new label) bears the violent sonic signature of Steve Albini – the influential "engineer" whose production of the Pixies' early records provides a point of reference for this album. As with the Pixies, the Children's dynamic energy can be a bulldozer, and promising songs are pulverized in the impressive but uninvolving din. Despite its sensual impact, Daisychain Reaction delivers neither visceral thrills nor dreadful beauty.

Meanwhile, up north in Minneapolis, the Magnolias have been recycling the essence of mid-Seventies punk – especially the Buzzcocks' robust rhythm-guitar sound and gotta-keep-moving tempos – with increasing ingenuity since the mid-Eighties. Off the Hook, the group's fourth album, is an unassuming marvel of taut, economical tunes that are both catchy and substantial. In a reedy voice, frontman John Freeman sings his narrow melodies with calm confidence, sketching perceptive little vignettes about relationships ("In a Matter of Time") and life's rough patches ("When I'm Not," "Don't Pack It In"). His relaxed delivery is key to the Magnolias' no-frills noise, a remarkable paradox of full-bore rock whose effect is surprisingly soothing.

God's Favorite Band adds a dollop of Seventies metal sludge to a similar breed of Minneapolis mongrel on Shacknasty, an impressive debut that is practically two records in one. Chris Benson and Jim Crego (who uses an outside collaborator) both write; each sings and plays guitar on his own songs.

Crego's best numbers are ace punk pop like the superb "Something to Cry About"; Benson favors heavier noisefests with manic vocals. Either way, the trio glazes its limber sound with griddle-sizzling guitar and, in a cruel tip of the VU meters to either Nirvana or the master himself, Lou Reed, closes Shacknasty with twenty-five unvarying minutes of pure clamor. The roar goes ever on. (RS 637)

IRA ROBBINS