The latest from Jacob and the Starry Eyed Shadows, “Racing on the Back Straight,” performs a fantastic trick: it dresses up a full-blown existential crisis in its summer best and sends it to the beach. This Glasgow solo architect, Jacob, has constructed a Trojan horse of a track, all propulsive indie rock guitars and a pop-punk chorus so immediate it feels like you’ve known...

Freddie Perry has captured a very specific brand of Saturday afternoon existentialism in his new single "WHAT EVEN IS LIFE?" It’s a track that feels like it grew naturally in his Birmingham home studio, bypassing the polished artifice of big-label pop to find something far more grounding and relatable. The song hits with a driving, bright acoustic strumming pattern the kind of rhythm that...