Incoming: Louis XIV, Dengue Fever, Chris Walla

[Short takes on new albums:]

 

Louis XIV, "Slick Dogs and Ponies" (out today, Atlantic): Clever boys, these Louis XIV lads. You wanted to write them off as one-note eyeliner rock after "Finding Out True Love Is Blind," but their sophomore album won't let you. It's every bit as gleefully indulgent -- nicking T. Rex, Bowie and a handful of other glammy bands that actually were British and didn't just adopt the accent from, er, the San Diego district of London -- but it covers much more sonic geography, and with witty lyrics to boot.

||| Live: Louis IV play Feb. 9 at the Wiltern and Feb. 10 at the House of Blues Anaheim.

||| Watch the slightly creepy video for "Guilt by Association." Hey, is that the Playboy Mansion?

Dengue Fever, "Venus on Earth" (Jan. 22, M80): It's never about getting your brain around the groundbreaking Cambodian psych-pop band's music -- most of songwriter Zac Holtzman's numbers feature Chhom Nimol singing in her native Khmer. It's about opening your ears to exotic (and exotic combinations of) sounds; on this more English-heavy third album, the vibe is at turns seductive, celebratory, cinematic and wistful, and never lost in the translation.

||| Live: Dengue Fever celebrates its album release with a show Thursday at the Echoplex.

||| Download: "Sober Driver"

Chris Walla, "Field Manual" (today, Barsuk): Much respect for Walla as a force behind Death Cab for Cutie,  and as a producer, but I found little on the pallid "Field Manual" to guide me.

||| Download: "Sing Again"