Minneapolis to London: Action at the Head of the Class : Rebels: The semi-organized underside of rock looks to musicians such as Flour and The Bevis Frond to stir things up with unruly passion.

There’s a mighty noise rattling the walls in the alternative rock world, a full-blast face-off between Minneapolis and London heavyweights that tops the card in this look at rock’s semi-organized underside.

Alternative or college rock is the current incarnation of the renegade soul that over the years has materialized as underground, punk, new wave and weird stuff, among others. These days, it’s a sprawling musical subdivision that embraces everyone from mainstream darling Sinead O’Connor to cult ghouls the Cramps to the varied odds and ends described here.

Alternative is also going through the inevitable process of becoming established, which means that some unimagined permutation is forming out there to become the new alternative. At the moment, though, a lot of the music is unruly and irreverent enough to claim the attention of those with a fondness for rock ‘n’ roll’s rebellious heart.

Aired mainly on college radio and nourished by the enterprise and passion of small, independent labels, this scene is covered most comprehensively in the biweekly CMJ New Music Report, whose radio airplay chart spreads the word on some music that will never see the Billboard’s Hot 100.

A few of the records currently stirring things up:

Flour’s “LUV 713” (Touch and Go Records). Measure this one in megatons rather than decibels. Flour, the bassist for the Minneapolis quartet Rifle Sport, plays the remorseless guitar and practically everything else on an in-your-face tour de force. Thick, rich and melodic, it follows a trail broken by the Jesus and Mary Chain, but pops through a new threshold of power and volume. (Bargain-hunters’ note: The CD combines “LUV 713” with Flour’s 1988 first album.)

The Bevis Frond’s “Any Gas Faster” (Reckless). A more modulated but no less gripping brand of intensity from a one-man English band. Combining Hendrix textures, beyond-the-blues guitar solos, Byrdsy density and a Who-like melancholy, the Frond (real name, Nick Saloman) churns and soars into the heart of anguish and betrayal. The gray, stormy sound delivers payload after payload of tortured accusations.

Scrawl’s “Smallmouth” (Rough Trade). The Columbus, Ohio, female trio’s musical and lyrical minimalism is the kind of evocative puzzle that keeps revealing new clues and raising new questions. These could be folk songs, but they’re played in a crisp, garage-rock style that frames the tart harmonies and deadpan leads. In its cryptic miniatures, Scrawl comes off dry, detached and bemused, its dismissals signified by slightly flattened notes. The things that are unspoken but suggested carry as much weight as what’s said in their unnerving world, where somehow you always feel as if they’ve got your number.

Pale Saints’ “The Comforts of Madness” (4AD). Like the Cocteau Twins, this trio from Leeds goes for engulfing atmospheres. Unlike the Twins, the Saints play rough on their debut album as they unfurl aggressive sheets of Stooges-meets-U2 sound. Elsewhere, it’s the Yardbirds go surf for the New Order crowd. They inflate the sound so it’s lush rather than lean, and the buried vocals emit a sweet yearning while the underlying playful energy keeps it snappy.

Lush’s “Mad Love” (4AD). Even closer to Cocteaus country, and with good reason--this four-song EP was produced by the Twins’ Robin Guthrie. But the English quartet’s rhapsodies come with harder edges and more rhythmic drive than those of their mentor. Distant, childlike voices pipe away in a dense mist of ringing guitar. Brisk, swirling reveries for a romantic, punk heart.

Tackhead’s “Friendly as a Hand Grenade” (TVT). The team of “mixologist” Adrian Sherwood and the former Sugar Hill Records rhythm section have recorded under various guises (Mark Stewart & Maffia, Fats Comet) for years, and the Anglo-American outfit’s first full album is a monsterpiece of industrial dub hip-hop (a taste of alternative-rock jargon there). Anchored to a firm political agenda, the group is alternately plaintive and satirical, as it jumps from a televangelism spoof to a collage of military chants to a “Demolition House” that rides a Little Richard sample into sonic nirvana.