There is a specific kind of quiet you find in the Midwest, and listening to Derby Hill and his self-titled release, "Derby Hill", feels like stumbling into that quiet after a long, noisy shift. It’s not the silence of emptiness; it’s the silence of after. After the argument, after the paycheck clears, after the sun goes down over the Detroit skyline or a Chicago...

The first listen to The Sun Harmonic’s single "Glory Days" is a jarringly familiar experience, like finding a hot-rodded engine inside your grandfather's once-sturdy grandfather clock. It’s all driving, muscular rock and roll, a glorious punk-adjacent racket built by Kaleb Hikele, Dave Skrtich, and Ian McLennan to peel the paint from the walls. Yet, nestled inside that furious momentum is a narrator stuck fast,...