Rick Cassman serves up "JENNIFER JANGLE," and immediately you’re paddling in the bright, optimistic shallows of 1960s British Pop. You can almost taste the sherbet lemon fizz. Yet, knowing Cassman’s packing four decades of musical mileage – playing all the guitars, bass, keyboards, drums, and handling vocals here himself, mind you – suggests we shouldn't just skim the surface. This isn't merely throwback fun;...

Ultan’s single, "The Tempest," erupts not so much into the room as it does through the floorboards, dragging with it the scent of wet wool and imminent confrontation. This Dublin solo musician, a cartographer of past agonies, presents an energetic rock piece that feels less like a song about history and more like a fragment of it, throbbing and urgent. The main riff careers...