You know that exact second when everyone is staring at you, waiting for you to blow out the candles, and all you want to do is disappear? Ava Valianti has captured that highly specific, deeply uncomfortable feeling and turned it into an absolute indie pop gem. Her latest single, "Birthday Cake," drops you right into the middle of a party you never wanted to attend....

There is a ferocious, blood-and-iron honesty coursing through Lior Golan’s new EP, "MIDNIGHT TRAINS", that makes standard heavy rock feel strangely tame. Based in Tel Aviv, the guitarist, composer, and producer crafts music as an urgent survival mechanism, steeped in the grand, rumbling lineage of Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. Golan channels staggering personal trauma battles with addiction, the lingering ghosts of PTSD from...