Listening to 37 Houses and their new EP "Strangers" feels entirely like stumbling into an intensely intimate therapy session that miraculously transforms into a sweat-soaked 90s indie rock show. https://open.spotify.com/album/62NSIkN8J6ijONhErDTwtA?si=izu4NevqSeyI1vEjS9eAxg The San Francisco quartet operates as an open diary for lead singer Erin Sydney and guitarist Jeremy Rosenblum. Trapped in lockdown a mere four months after their wedding, their music processes the bewildering grief, angst, and...

Listening to Shotgun Driver’s new EP, “Jester Privileges”, is like finding a glitter bomb in a padded cell. The four songs present a disorienting, strangely compelling contradiction. On the surface, the alt-pop framework pulses with an upbeat, almost defiant energy; this is the slick, rock-tinged anxiety of a Machine Gun Kelly track built for open-road brooding. But beneath it, the narrative, carried by those...