British Sea Power
Do You Like Rock Music?
(Rough Trade)
I do like rock music, but I don’t like smug, half-heartedly disaffected British nerds that think that wearing wool sweaters and scarves on stage, quoting Dostoevsky, and performing 20-minute encores on stages decorated with foliage and plastic birds is avant-garde. Therefore, chaps, I do not care a whit about your droll third album.

Big Kuntry
My Turn to Eat
(Atlantic)
My Turn to Eat might sell some units to people who think Big Kuntry is a muff-positive country/electroclash group. That might actually be preferable to this major-label debut from a member of rapper T.I.’s Pimp Squad Clique (although it does contain a song called “Goin Ham”). “We’re on some real reality shit,” explains crewmate Mac Boney of the squad’s sound. Goodie goodie gumdrops.

Nine Inch Nails
Year Zero Part 2
(Interscope)
The last NIN concert we went to was so depressing. Trent Reznor’s whole band looked like embarrassed clone copies of him and the music was a hair’s breadth away from Creed. Apparently, the Rez is set to release the second part of his 2007 album (and its attendant “alternate reality” game) Year Zero soon, which predicts a dystopian future whzzzzzzzzzzz……zzzzzzzzzzz. Oh, sorry, what? I just fell asleep.

Moby
Last Night
(Mute)
Hmmm. Let me tally this up. A few albums where you make millions sampling huge chunks of negro spirituals, and then a “concept album” designed to be listened to in hotels by people who don’t have to worry that the water in the mini-bar costs $20. I think my tax bracket is too low to allow me to get excited here even if I wanted to.

Patrick Wolf
Title TBA
(Loog)
Am I the only one who doesn’t get this? It sounds like horrible glam folk for people with Olivier Theyskens pants and tiny penises, and the fact that “fashionistas” love it makes me dislike it even more.

Bauhaus
Going Away White
(Bauhaus Music)
The PR skinny says that this is going to be Bauhaus’ “final album,” a claim they also made after 1983’s Burning From the Inside and 1998’s lackluster comeback, Crackle. We’re particularly excited about two thirds of this album’s title.

Nada Surf
Lucky
(Barsuk)
This band had one sorta hit on alt-radio in 1996–a predictably quiet-loud-quiet-loud ode to how whiny emo kids are never popular in high school (if only they could have predicted My Chemical Romance’s success!) and how oafish jocks will always rule the scene and get the “cheerleader chicks.” Twelve years later and that’s still the riskiest the band ever got.

The EELS
Meet the EELS: Essential EELS 1996-2006, Vol. 1
and
EELS Useless Trinkets: B-Sides, Soundtracks, Rarities and Unreleased 1996-2006
(Geffen)
Same thing as Nada Surf: one tepid alt-pop song 10 years ago, yet they… wait is this a double-greatest hits album? And a rarities and b-sides collection? I’m think I’m about to swallow my tongue.

Robert Pollard
Superman Was a Rocker
(Happy Jack Rock)
As long as this erstwhile Guided By Voices frontman can still stand up and hork out a tune, there will be a “least anticipated album of next year” listing waiting for him. Here’s looking at 2009, Bob!

Ladytron
Title TBA
(Nettwerk)
I remember this one time when I went to a record store with a really nerdy friend of mine, and he embarrassingly asked if they had Ladytron’s then-new album, Light and Magic. The clerks stared at him perplexedly and then broke into condescending laughter. I joined them. That was in 2002.