Australia’s feedtime seemed as averse to fame as they were to capital letters. The band’s original lineup decided to hang it up in 1989 rather than embark on an overseas tour, leaving behind four internationally acclaimed full-lengths after their roughly decade-long existence.

Nobody is going to be angry at California’s RACES. They make sweet, atmospheric folk-rock with a psychedelic quaver; singer Wade Ryff has an easy, soulful rasp; and their Frenchkiss debut full-length Year of the Witch is nicely full-bodied.

Christian Wargo (Fleet Foxes, Crystal Skulls), Casey Wescott (Fleet Foxes, Crystal Skulls), and brothers Ian and Peter Murray (The Christmas Cards) have a new project that is full of hazy ‘70s California folk-rock sounds.

A touch of despair that a second album would never be forthcoming was starting to set in every time Miike Snow announced yet another tour in support of their self-titled debut. Its follow-up, Happy to You, carries over the clear lyrical intonations and inherent pop sensibility that established Miike Snow for trend watchers and the mainstream alike.

Bear in Heaven have been kicking around the Brooklyn scene for the better part of a decade now. They made a couple of really good Kraut-heavy records that few people heard (2004’s Tunes Nextdoor to SongsEP, 2007’s Red Bloom of the Boom), and another that garnered them long overdue accolades and an audience, 2009’s superb, yet slightly more conventional Beast Rest Forth Mouth.

It’s been 21 years since The Wedding Present’s arguable masterpiece Seamonsters. And while they’re doing the tour-your-classic-album thing with that one this year (as they did in 2010 with another arguable masterpiece Bizarro), they’ll also have a little something new for you: Valentina, the group’s eighth studio album.

Last year’s The Mistress was primarily the work of Alex Schaaf; Strange Land sees the Yellow Ostrich moniker expand to a three-piece, bringing on drummer Michael Tapper and multi-instrumentalist Jon Natchez as full-timers.

Oberhofer’s saccharine surf-pop has been bubbling under our trending topics ever since the sparkling, loose-vibes gem “o0Oo0Oo” charmed us a couple years ago. Unlike virtually all of his contemporaries, Brad Oberhofer took an extended sabbatical before putting out his debut full-length Time Capsules II—making it a fresher, grander, and altogether tougher sound in the notoriously flimsy realm of beach-pop.

White Hills is one of the more formidable contemporary heirs to the Hawkwind space rock throne, an electrifying live band, and a damned prolific bunch. Here’s another full-length, right on the heels of last year’s Live at Roadburn and the ferocious H-p1.