Some doors do not close with a slam. They remain half-open, daring a person to walk back through them after the room behind them has grown small and airless. The past can be persuasive that way. It offers familiar furniture, old names, a version of comfort that asks too much in return. "Backwards, Baby," the latest single from Caitlin Kent-Halliday, begins from that human pressure...

Okay, here we go. Buckle up, buttercups, because Yksopretty's "IT IS WHAT IT IS" just body-slammed my expectations. This Detroit native, apparently a herald of Michigan's new wave (whatever that sonic sorcery is), dropped an album that’s… well, it is what it is. Six tracks of futuristic trap colliding head-on with… the existential dread of having too many gold chains? Seriously, that's the vibe. https://open.spotify.com/album/1bka60jvXUj0dK5BGDSP9K This isn't...