Animal Collective’s newest proper album, Strawberry Jam, is a major step back from their last release, 2005’s Feels. Animal Collective have always been a noisy band, but Strawberry Jam smears sound wherever it feels, cluttering everything with samples, keyboards, vocals, and whatever else they decide is appropriate at the moment.

After spending much of 2007 on the road, epic post-rockers Red Sparowes are busy in the studio, penning a follow-up to 2006’s Every Red Heart Shines Toward the Red Sun.

Mantaray is an album in which former Banshees siren, Creatures crooner, and Bromley Contingent alumnus Siouxsie Sioux finds herself via newfound creative independence. Long-time fans beware, because that does sound promising.

British-born, French-raised singer/songwriter Piers Faccini has been handpicked by Ben Harper to open for Ben Haper and the Innocent Criminals on their current U.S. tour. Faccini blends luscious soft vocals and poetry with folk- and blues-inspired music, drawing equally from luminaries such as Tom Waits and Nick Drake.

Metal Machine Music, Lou Reed’s 1975 lightning rod for controversy, was never about anarchy — it was about guitars. Or rather, a thousand sounds that a guitar could make.

So here’s the breakdown. Cult hero and former Pixies frontman Charles Thompson — known to many as Frank Black and Black Francis — uses “Captain Pasty,” the first track on Bluefinger, to bring back the rock from days of yore and burst out in a psycho-surf meltdown.

New Buffalo, Australian songstress Sally Seltmann’s Arts & Crafts conception, opens her second release with a multi-vocal harmony in the vein of Eurythmics frontwoman Annie Lennox. Beyond the simple comparisons of light, punctuated vocal “bops, bums, and baas,” it is the melding of slap-delayed piano and large, sonic synth that allows us to enter her colloquial grouping of stories.

The sophomore album from Heavy Trash — the rollicking rockabilly project from Jon Spencer and Matt Verta-Ray — contains three titles with the word “baby,” two with “I want,” and even one with “ain’t,” so straight off we know it’s either a retro con or inspired revivalism.

Kosmos are a Canadian prog quartet whose roster includes drummer Michael “Away” Langevin of metal legends Voivod. Here, they’ve recorded an album that hops from genre to genre yet feels impressively cohesive when taken as a whole.

ALARM is pleased to present a Riot Act Media/Sargent House Records showcase featuring live music from math rockers Maps and Atlases, indie act The Narrator (whose appearance kicks off off its national tour), arty folksters Nurses, and quirky quartet Karma with a K.