Listening to Highroad No. 28 navigate the emotional geometry of "Likethelast" feels a bit like watching a bruised prizefighter suddenly break into a joyful, intricate tap dance. It is disarming, slightly confusing, and entirely magnetic. Andrew JC, the sole architect behind this sonic landscape, has constructed something that defies the dusty expectations one might hold for an outfit born in the late 90s alternative...

Violet Love has offered up an EP titled "Destined to Fail," and it arrives less like a prediction and more like a pre-existing condition, a medical chart for a soul that’s been diagnosed with itself. The DIY recording quality doesn’t feel lo-fi for aesthetics; it feels necessary, like these songs could only have been born in a sealed-off room where the air was getting...