E-Mail This Article to a Friend Spring goes alterna-pop From Garbage to the Caesars, Weezer, and the Raveonettes BY MATT ASHARE

The good news is that the record industry seems finally to have caught on to the reality that digital downloading can’t be sued or encrypted out of existence. And it certainly helped when the bean counters worked through last year’s numbers and came to the conclusion that though legal downloading — not to mention the illegal stuff — was on the rise, CD sales had also started to increase after a half-dozen years of decline. In other words, perhaps digital downloading wasn’t going to be the ruin of civilization after all. A good business plan might even help labels use legal downloading services to boost regular CD and DVD sales. The bad news: with the introduction in February of the new DualDisc format (a single disc that has regular CD content on one side and DVD-Audio Surround Sound of the same album on the other, along with additional bells and whistles), you might just have to buy your entire record collection again. R.E.M.’s entire Warner Bros. catalogue has already been reissued in a new two-disc format with a regular CD and a second digitally remastered DVD-Audio CD that includes all the album cuts in 5.1 Surround Sound along with plenty of extra video content. At the very least, expect most of this spring’s big releases to feature some kind of bonus "enhancements" as the industry works toward standardizing the DualDisc and DVD-Audio formats.

In what might be a related development, alternative rock of all sorts appears to be staging a comeback. Even this year’s Grammys gave nods to edgy acts like Franz Ferdinand, the Killers, and Modest Mouse. And as the Epitaph empire continues to grow, smaller indies like Saddle Creek are finding themselves on the commercial map thanks to sales generated by artists like Bright Eyes. It all adds up to what looks to be one of the more exciting springs in several years.

First on the list are Hot Hot Heat, whose first major-label single started burning up the charts right out of the gate as the band hit the road to whet their old Sub Pop fans’ appetites for the April 5 release of Elevator. Nobody’s expecting its first-week sales to compete with a proven artist from the hip-hop/R&B side of the tracks like Faith Evans, whose blockbuster-in-the-making First Lady (Capitol) hits stores the same day, stuffed full of A-list production credits and cameos (the Neptunes, Mario Winans, Jermaine Dupri, Pharrell Williams and Pusha T from the Clipse, and Twista). Instead, major labels seem to have accepted the idea that it can take a month or two for a rock album by a band like Hot Hot Heat to rack up big numbers. And that’s good news for everyone, including Boston’s own Lost City Angels, whose major-label Broken World is due April 5 from Stay Gold/Universal. Or if you’re just looking for a nice compilation of cool underground rock, you can’t beat The OC. That’s right, Music from "The OC" Mix 4 (Warner Bros.) — the fourth installment of the successful compilation series spawned by a show I’ve never seen — hits stores April 5 sporting tracks by everyone from the Futureheads, Beck, and Modest Mouse to lesser-knowns like Matt Pond PA, Pinback, and Bell X1. Even Verve — the great jazz label — is getting into a little indie action with Verve Remixed 3 (also Aprol 5), the third in its series of contemporary artists remixing classic tracks from the Verve vault. This time, Verve called on everyone from the Postal Service and the Album Leaf to Danger Mouse and RJD2 to handle the remixing.

Lisa Marie Presley — Michael’s ex — is very proud of the fact that she wrote the lyrics to 10 of the 11 tracks on her new Now What (Capitol, April 5). But the big single the label’s pushing is the 11th one, the cover, a little ditty called "Dirty Laundry" that should bring to mind a certain former member of the Eagles. I’m betting that the songwriting on the homonymous full-length debut by Rufus’s sister Martha Wainwright on Rounder, due April 12, will be a little stronger. This will be her second 2005 release: in January, Rounder released B.M.F.A., or Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole — now that’s my kind of singer-songwriter. Shirley Manson will also have her say on April 12 as her band, Garbage, finally come through with their new Bleed like Me (Geffen/Universal). The disc features Dave Grohl pounding the drums on "Bad Boyfriend." Please try not to read anything into that. Indigo Girl Amy Ray has another solo album, Prom, due April 12 on her Daemon label; the backing band includes former Team Dresch bassist Jody Bleyle and guitarist Donna Dresch, former Luscious Jackson drummer Kate Schellenbach, and members of the Birmingham (Alabama) garage-rock band Nineteen Forty-Five.

Closer to home: Monique Ortiz’s Bourbon Princess deliver their new Dark of Days (Hi-N-Dry), with original Morphine drummer Jerome Deupree, Either/Orchestra saxist and leader Russ Gershon, and guitarist/pianist Jim Moran, on April 12. Former Helium frontwoman and Matador mainstay Mary Timony is now a Lookout! recording artist, and she’s looking forward to the April 19 release of Ex Hex, a power-duo effort with Timony on guitar and vocals, and Devin Ocampo of the Dischord band the Medications on drums. Oh, and if you liked his first album of solo piano interpretations of Radiohead songs, you’ll just love Hold Me to This, Boston-based pianist Christopher O’Riley’s new album of Radiohead tunes, which is due from World Village on April 12.