Flavor Wave’s single, “The Optimist,” arrived less like a declaration and more like someone tentatively drawing back a dusty curtain on a grey afternoon. From West Chester, PA, these five lifelong friends – Kyle Loedel (vocals, lyrics), Matthew Stretch (lead guitar), Patrick Blair (rhythm guitar), Noah Montgomery (bass), and Joshua Speaker (performer/drums) – typically tread alternative rock paths nodding to influences like The Strokes....

There is a specific texture to darkness near the sea, a kind of humid weight that Jánnos Eolou captures with startling precision in "Night Beyond". Listening to this album is like walking through a house you lived in twenty years ago: the floorboards creak in familiar places, but the furniture has been rearranged just enough to make you question your own memory. https://open.spotify.com/album/13nZr5TejxHZJ6VOeKA0pi?si=yZSLjF47Ro2FwoAO6SJ34g Eolou, a veteran...