They've got synthy songs for dancing and a spooky folk ballad about Typhoid Mary. They've got a tinny soul number and a surfy space-rawker called "Don't Run with Pizza." The four mysterious ladies who comprise Philly's Bad News Bats may even have a punk tune or two in them. Launch your own probe at their CD release show.

A triangle without a center, it's never easy to figure out which angle points up with Fieldwork. Vijay Iyer on keys, Steve Lehman on tenor and Tyshawn Sorey on drums each race in varied directions, tethered only by the challenge to keep up. The varying lineup (Iyer has been the only constant) helps maintain the consistent inconsistency.

No doubt Balkan Beat Box will bring most pleasure to the folks with the biggest ears — those who know the Bulgarian singing and Balkan brass band sounds that these two Israeli DJs combine with hip-hop and Middle Eastern beats. Stimulating for dancers, anathema for purists.

To prove they're not a one-gimmick group, Nouvelle Vague added a few tricks for their sophomore album. They haven't dropped the new-wave-meets-bossa-nova shtick, but Bande A Part adds Caribbean flavors (rocksteady, mostly) and more obscure tunes (Visage's "Fade to Grey," The Wake's "O Pamela"). There's even a male singer on numbers by Blondie and Yaz.

What comes after a subdued treatise on war? For three ex-members of Sleep Station, it's a synth-filled story arc on prostitution and poisoned relationships. On I Sing the Body Holographic (Eyeball), New London Fire's debut, singer/guitarist/pianist David Debiak illuminates battlefields that are smaller but no less deadly. Imagine a caffeinated Ken Stringfellow fronting The Faint after they've been slapped around and slipped some sugar.

When Jeff Tweedy decided to trade the twang for skronk, he stacked his deck with the best noisemakers he could find. So if you're one of those Wilco fans who just think that all those pop songs get in the way of some perfectly good buzzing and screeching, this show's for you.