With the release of the single "Play Me A Christmas Song", Stephen Dowd manages to bottle the very specific, blue-hued silence that falls over a living room once the wrapping paper has been cleared away. It is a curious thing, really, how a melody can act less like a sound wave and more like the smell of a candle that was blown out five...

Melbourne's TJ Howlett throws a shovel full of coal-dusted reality into the guitar-driven blues-rock furnace with his "Not Mine" EP. Two songs. Just two. But, my word, they carry the weight of generations. Suddenly, I'm thinking about Dorothea Lange's photographs, only... louder. https://open.spotify.com/album/6lCrWQGWQo9LsVDL94CR4k?si=97afEOrjR1WPe9AVG2pfgw "Not Mine," the title track, and then "Drinking Man" – they're not just following each other; they're wrestling in the dirt. This EP...