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Fusing tricky bass solos with brutal breakbeats, Tom Jenkinson's Squarepusher albums have often come off as man-machine freak shows. His 12th album, though, is like a digital fantasy yanked into physical reality. Computerized voices marvel at the very existence of "real" women, while Jenkinson's trademark spazz-jazz clamor is largely rendered via garage-rock guitar squall.

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This Seattle indie-punk trio's Wu-Tang-referencing third album is sinister and melodramatic enough to evoke the collective spirit of comic-book bad guys. But their rock operatics more closely recall Hexxus, the smoggy antagonist of '90s eco-adventure FernGully.

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Little Joy, a band as twee as their name, sound a lot like the Strokes -- which is rather unsurprising, since the Strokes' Fabrizio Moretti is their drummer. Still, it's almost unnerving how much frontman Rodrigo Amarante's vocals resemble Julian Casablancas' mumble-croon.

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Strutting from preening castrato to bestial growl, singer Hayden Thorpe sets out to explain the modern masculine dilemma on this British quartet's debut. "Men, to be men, must love and pity so deeply and secretly," he yodels over a backdrop that could fairly be described as island baroque. Later, he swears on his own "cock and balls" and then chastises Aristotle.

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Three tracks into what may be 2008's most insane album, Kevin Barnes drops his multiple-entendre manifesto: "We can do it softcore if you want / But you should know I take it both ways." Forget the porno wink and the lyric becomes an instructional hint for engaging with Skeletal Lamping's confetti-explosion mess.

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A band whose third album contains echoes of cheese classics like "Kokomo," "Eye of the Tiger," and "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" is hilariously self-aware or hilariously clueless, right?