Zebra Katz
Ima Read (Mad Decent)
Zebra Katz delivers a lecture on making life your bitch—in the most nonsexist way possible! The video, with its creepily masked schoolgirls who might actually be dudes, is equally bitchin’.

Poor Moon
People in Her Mind (Sub Pop)
How did this band you’ve never heard of get signed to Sub Pop? Sharing two members with Fleet Foxes surely helped, and making delightfully harmony-drenched psych pop probably sealed the deal.

Andrew Bird
Eyeoneye (Mom + Pop)
Andrew Bird has already proven he can do jazz, folk, and chamber pop like nobody’s business, and here he shows that he can do rock, too. I mean, it’s not Slayer or anything, but for this guy, it rocks.

Trust
Sulk (Arts & Crafts)
You’ve got to appreciate a goth-tinted synth-pop duo with the self-awareness to title one of its songs "Sulk", as if to say "Yes, we know you’re going to mope to this like a lovesick teen. Go ahead".

Sharks
Arcane Effigies (Rise)
No one makes straight-ahead guitar rock like this anymore. Actually, that’s not true. Lots of people do, but most of it sucks. Anyhow, this British trio has a way with a big sing-along refrain, and a way with not sucking.

Shimmering Stars
When I See You Again (Almost Musique)
Remember that time the Everly Brothers played that gig with the Jesus and Mary Chain at the bottom of that big mine shaft? No? Well, Vancouver’s Shimmering Stars apparently do, and they’re determined to re-create how it sounded.

Miike Snow
Black Tin Box (Downtown)
Black tin boxes? Dutch postcards? Huh? There’s some sort of narrative here, but it gets lost in a rush of percolating synths, rolling-thunder drums, and a guest vocal from Lykke Li.

The Jezabels
Endless Summer (Dine Alone)
And endless summer seems, quite frankly, pretty fucking appealing right about now, what with the sky 16 shades of grey and the rain falling in a nonstop deluge. This sultry ’90s-shaded shoegazer would make a great soundtrack.

Jessie Farrell
Filthy Habits (604)
The title suggests (take your pick): 1) an ode to smoking while chewing one’s dirty fingernails, or 2) a high-budget porno starring Stoya and Sasha Grey. What you get, however, is radio-ready country, which isn’t nearly as damning as that sounds.

Nightwish
Turn Loose the Mermaids (Roadrunner)
Here’s something you don’t hear every day: namely, Celtic-flavoured folk mixed with symphonic metal. (That’s assuming you don’t start your day with Spinal Tap’s "Stonehenge", turned up, of course, to 11.)

Kathleen Edwards
Going to Hell (MapleMusic)
Actually, if you keep producing songs like this distortion-flared, ethereal wonder, you might very well find yourself being turned back at the gates for being too damn good for words.