Leon Blanchard, a name perhaps faintly echoing from the mid-noughties indie surge, returns not with fanfare, but with a solitary signal flare titled "Astronaut". Hailing from Grimsby, a town known more for its fishing heritage than its celestial aspirations, Blanchard's new song does not really feel like a return, but more like a personal gearbox picked up after years of chatter. In 2007, his old band,...

Helladdict’s new single, “Sudden Death,” doesn’t feel like a tribute; it feels like an exhumation. Here are six men from Santiago, all seasoned enough to know that pure fury is a young person’s game, offering instead the far more corrosive anger of experience. They resurrect the chassis of 80s thrash, all bone-raw intensity and punishing tempo, but the engine is modern, built with the...