WITH its Piggly Wiggly markets and dusty pawnshops, the Texas college town of Denton does not look the part of a Woodstock in waiting. A Romanesque courthouse juts out of the central square, as in that fictional town in “Back to the Future.” And whenever the local college football team plays at Fouts Field, the entire town seems to put on Mean Green T-shirts.

But wander into the Panhandle House, a barnlike recording studio on North Locust Street, and you’ll find Midlake, a five-person band whose music the British newspaper The Guardian has called “a dreamy concoction of Neil Young, Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty and the Yardbirds.” Actually, the band is ensconced in the dingy storage room next door, which they have turned into a makeshift shrine to the 1970s — patchouli incense, wood paneling and vintage vinyl — that befits their retro three-guitar sound.

We haven't really had any hits so what exactly is the purpose?"

He added: "There's nothing we can do about it. The work is really public property now anyway, in my head at least. It's a wasted opportunity in that if we'd been behind it, and we wanted to do it, then it might have been good."

Speaking about moving away from EMI he said: "Personally I just wanted to forget about it. It didn't feel right. And now it's like when you move house: you don't want to peer through the window and see what they've done with the wallpaper because it will only upset you."

Hello Friends, it's May 5th and I'm officially on Myspace. How did I ever live without it?? Anyway, I've posted a song called "An Apple for an Apple." I think it's the final version, but who knows, it could change. Hopefully you all like it. That's all, XO, M.

I just find the imaginary more real than the physical. Magic, the way we find things beautiful, the light behind eyes, kindness, and how we want to serve and protect the things we care about - these things seem like the real foundation of the world to me. I hope that the songs on this record can be more than just postcards from a world, but an invitation to it, to anyone at all who may find such a place comforting and nice.

"There's less party talk," frontman Craig Finn tells Billboard.com of the new material. "I don't think anything is a radical departure, but there are things that I wanted to talk about. I was influenced a lot [by] getting old, and attempting to age gracefully. The idea is to not wake up washed up. You want to keep progressing, intellectually."

Indeed, tunes such as the slow, bluesy ballad "Lord, I'm Discouraged" and "Stay Positive" see Finn's narratives reflecting on themes of maturity. Fans will also notice that the band has opted to change up its sound on some tunes, opting for a harpsichord on "One for the Cutters" and a banjo on "Both Crosses."