Martin Yates’s new single, “Now or Never”, doesn’t ask for your time; it issues a three-minute summons. This is the sound of someone pushing their chair back from the table, the scrape of the legs on the floor echoing a decision that’s been brewing for years. Channeling the wounded pride of 1960s soul legends, Yates builds a monument to the moment the heart finally...

Dylan Forshner's new EP, “Hopeless Optimism,” presents itself not so much as a collection of songs but as a series of candid diary entries set to intricately picked acoustic strings. This five-song journey from the Welland, Canada artist begins in a place of palpable internal wrestling, where the lyrics – and Forshner’s delivery – map out the grim territories of being overwhelmed, using substances...