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The fact that Satomi Matsuzaki sings in her native Japanese for much of Offend Maggie indicates how, after nine albums of chipper noise rock, this Bay Area quartet operates: They're just doing what comes naturally (no matter how unnatural it may sound to the average indie rocker).

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For anyone too creeped out by the bombast of the average Broadway musical, this Portland, Oregon quartet's third release may serve as a theatrical substitute.

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For an album so full of crunchy krautrock and sly funk bass, these Brits' 2006 breakout, Transparent Things, felt weirdly sexless, as smoothly immaculate as a nude boutique mannequin. Their more subdued follow-up doesn't dirty things up much, but it does give some character to the quartet's airtight groovemaking.

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Drifters, abandoned families, and college kids populate the stories on Bound Stems' second album, as singer (and Chicago high school educator) Bobby Gallivan explores how people randomly connect amid turmoil and travel.

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Drummer John Pike cowrote the lyrics for much of the debut album by these Syracuse, New Yorkers before he mysteriously drowned last summer, so the images of cemetery flowers in "Each Year" and the cheerfully delivered e.e. cummings quotes on "Dying Is Fine" aren't the post-traumatic writings of a grieving band.

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After three charming EPs, some thought that this band's Queen- meets–Belle and Sebastian songwriting might make for the next Great American Pop Album. Matthew, Mark, Luke & Laura doesn't match the hype, but it's still an ambitious mess of wordy melodies, whistle-along detours, and multipart epics that recall nothing so much as Mansun's schizophrenic '90s Britpop.