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After three charming EPs, some thought that this band's Queen- meets–Belle and Sebastian songwriting might make for the next Great American Pop Album. Matthew, Mark, Luke & Laura doesn't match the hype, but it's still an ambitious mess of wordy melodies, whistle-along detours, and multipart epics that recall nothing so much as Mansun's schizophrenic '90s Britpop.

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Among the many reasons to love Broken Social Scene is the fact that no matter how over-heated the 20-plus-member Canadian legion's kitchen-sink anthems get, they're iced in a dreamy shoegaze coating.

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Not unlike friend and collaborator Björk, songwriter/producer Leila Arab concocts electronica that seduces by surprise. With guest vocalists crooning over synth wiggles seemingly lifted from Aphex Twin's Richard D.

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After penning '70s-loving garage scorchers on Love as Laughter's first four albums and then morphing into a poignant slacker songwriter on Laughter's Fifth, Sam Jayne attempts to capture two disparate vibes on Holy: Pixies' loose-limbed chatter and Neil Young's big-sky heartache.

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The sound of My Brightest Diamond's second album conjures an image of dark, lacquered oak: swelling cellos, finger-picked guitar, and clockwork percussion knotted together by Shara Worden's deep, operatic vocals. It's all quite mesmerizing, until you notice the overworked lyrics, which weakly describe heartbreak in terms of weather, stars, and, uh, hearts.