Electroclash god Felix Da Housecat has been chasing his “Silver Screen Shower Scene” hit song’s tail since the beginning of this decade, with mixed results. His latest artist album, He Was King, is yet another mixed bag of beats and pop.

When Montréal’s The Lovely Feathers released their debut LP Hind Hind Legs in 2006, they were praised for their peppy choruses, high-energy hooks, and quirky lyrics. After a three-year hiatus, the electro rock outfit returns with Fantasy of the Lot (Sparks Music/Tommy Boy). Made in the same vein as Legs in terms of spaz factor, fuzzed-out guitars, and lyrical content, Fantasy unfortunately comes out below par nearly everywhere else.

Cale Parks, the well-coiffed percussionist (and keyboardist) from the post-rock outfit Aloha and electro-pop group White Williams doesn’t seem to rest. Did I mention he also has his hand in the recordings and/or tours of Cex, Chin Up Chin Up, Joan of Arc, Love of Everything, Owen, Pit Er Pat, and Passion Pit? The man’s talented at time management, if nothing else. To Swift Mars EP, is Park’s third, and best release, after last year’s middling drum circle experiment/sophomore effort, Sparklace.

From the start of Elizabeth & the Catapult’s debut LP, Taller Children, frontwoman Elizabeth Ziman makes a strong impression with two charming, straightforward pop tracks carrying the message that adults just don’t want to—or can’t—grow up. In “Momma’s Boy,” she taunts, “Don’t expect the world to clean up for you, ‘cause they don’t have to,” and in the playful title track she sings, “In the end we’re all just taller children.” The theme doesn’t stick so well throughout the rest of the record and, unfortunately, neither does the strength of her songs.

Fact: there are enough Black Mountain side projects to make Black Mountain seem like a side project. Other fact: said side projects are consistently worthwhile.

It’s too bad that Dirty Projectors singer and bassist Angel Deradoorian must have wanted her debut EP, Mind Raft, to go unnoticed, as she released it only a month before the Projectors’ newest LP Bitte Orca. Throughout the modest five-track set, Deradoorian (she takes just her surname for the record) often plays off of clashing harmonies and stream-of-consciousness verses that evoke the EP’s title and prove her talents as a solo artist.

An album for our Prozac-ed, Xanax-ed times, Bibio’s Ambivalence Avenue, as the title suggests, doesn’t reach any emotional highs or lows. It fits squarely in the middle, and seems to be just fine there.

Stardeath and White Dwarfs sounds like a Spinal Tap-rejected band name. However, from The Birth‘s cover art image of a man in mid-scream, to singer Dennis Coyne’s falsetto, it’s difficult not to view them in relationship to another motley crew—The Flaming Lips. The ties run deep: Coyne is the nephew of lead Lip Wayne Coyne, while the other band members have served as Flaming Lips roadies.

Bookended by two exciting tracks, the Jesus and Mary Chain-esque “I Wanna Kill,” and the seven-plus minute builder “Young Drugs,” Crocodiles’ first full-length for Fat Possum shows tons of potential.