The arrival of Puck's debut single, "Caricature," feels less like a release and more like a jailbreak. From the opening crackle, this is a song that’s been chewing on its own chains for some time. Galway's five-piece racket-makers have bottled a very specific kind of frenetic energy, the kind you get from too much coffee and staring at a flickering screen until society starts...

The first few notes of Megapenny Music’s single, "Across the Miles," feel less like an introduction and more like a resumption. There’s a quiet confidence here, a melody that seems to pick up a conversation left hanging four decades ago—a detail about the artist’s hiatus that you can’t help but feel in the song’s DNA. Delphine Savatte’s voice enters not with a bang, but...