I’m sitting in Libe Café, my column is due in two hours and, to be totally honest, I have absolutely no idea what to write about. There’s a new Andrew Bird album out that’s most definitely worth a listen or three, and a soon-to-be released Neko Case recording that my sources tell me is quite stupendous. (Does talking about “my sources” make me seem mysterious and “in-the-know?”) But in general, I try to leave new albums to those who write the handy-dandy Arts “Test Spins.” Someone pick those up, eh?

Thieves Like Us, a Swedish-American band currently “exiled in France,” as their MySpace page proudly proclaims, has been appositely compared to the likes of Hot Chip, The Black Ghosts and Crystal Castles. A freshly electro-pop, beat-savvy threesome, the band exudes an effortless cool, infiltrating your brain with breathily-uttered effervescent sounds.

See No Evil restored my faith in rap music. Between the synthetic world of Auto-Tune and hype men, the duo of DJ Mickey Cake and MC Johnny Knuckles have created an album of pristine simplicity. Cellar Door Dreams, combines Cake’s samples — ranging from Smokey Robinson to doo-wop legends the Delfonics — with Knuckles’ rhymes, an earnest combination of childhood meditations and uncompromised charisma.

It's been over four years since U2 released their last proper studio album, the Grammy-winning How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. Their 2009 return to recording explores no new musical territory, as No Line on the Horizon is a poised, comfortable, record from a veteran group that has nothing left to prove. But at this point in their nearly 30-year career, what musical frontier has U2 not explored? No Line on the Horizon doesn’t aim to reinvent, but rather shrewdly expand upon the grandiose soundscapes U2 has explored for the last decade.

The title of English singer-songwriter Lily Allen’s new album, It’s Not Me, It’s You, is reminiscent of every track within it — brutally honest. Yes, the album is catchy. Yes, it’s artistically unique. But the honesty is what will hook any listener. Allen doesn’t hesitate to jump right into this forthrightness, crooning in the opening stanza of the opening track, “Everyone’s At It,” “I’m not trying to say that I’m smelling of roses / But when will we tire of putting shit up our noses?” Right away, the listener gets the feeling that Allen is not singing “Why can’t we all, all just be honest?” without doing exactly what she is preaching.

Riding the dance-rock wave of the early 2000s, Franz Ferdinand rose to fame with their ubiquitous first single, “Take Me Out,” a punchy song built around — who can forget it — that damn guitar hook (duh, duh, duh da-duh da-duh…).

But while the dance-rock genre has since taken a hit, its formula grown hackneyed from too many mediocre bands exploiting it, Franz Ferdinand have managed to sustain their success, releasing in 2005 a well-received follow-up to their heralded self-titled debut.

Brooklyn DJ Andrew Butler has assembled a ragbag of co-conspirators — including, most prominently, Antony Hagarty — to cobble a throbbing dance album, which references ’70s disco, ’80s pop and ’90s house, as well as our current decade’s indie rock. But the sound never seems nostalgic; instead, it evokes the giddy decadence of a late civilization that is happy to create something entirely new out of the ruins.

In “Blind,” Antony’s voice of frayed silk laments the disillusionment of age while the techno beats layer and accelerate, creating a simultaneous sense of reckless abandon and emotionally abandoned wreckage. More upbeat, “Hercules Theme” has a funk rhythm and a ska-inflected brass section that back Nomi Ruiz’s swoopy vocals.

Loney Dear has lost the comma for their second U.S. release, Dear John, which lushly layers the multi-instrumental talents of Swedish pop troubadour Emil Svanängen with a few friends and guests. His indie folk lyrics offer macabre, nostalgia-tripping introspection, but the rhythms often sail along with uptempo synth beats as if Nick Drake were reincarnated as a remix artist. In a song like “Under the Silent Sea,” for example, the galloping percussion suddenly disappears to allow the background vocals to range in long atmospheric chords that conjure the months-long darkness of Scandinavian winters.

In a musical world full of dandies and poseurs, it’s a rare thing indeed to come across a band with its feet on the ground. Enter Brightblack Morning Light, a duo so earth-oriented that they spend significant amounts of their time alone in the woods writing, singing and — one can only assume — ingesting. Hirsute and oozing effortless cool, they’re a much-needed reminder that the spirit of the ’60s has not yet perished from the earth.

Trippin’ with Howlies is a legitimate trip through rock ’n roll time. The album starts with “Sea Level,” a subdued ’70s punk-esque song, continues on into “Smoke,” a ’60s Beatles-in-India type track and then proceeds into “Howlies Sound,” a ’50s rock meets doo-wop song with the added bonus of a Chuck Berry-like guitar solo. Overall, the album reeks of imitation from such famed acts as the Kinks, the Beach Boys, James Brown and the Ramones, to name a few.