Ben Gage and "Lookin' For A Devil" arrive at a moment when the American dream feels particularly elusive. The Akron-born songwriter has spent years chronicling the rust belt experience, and his latest single captures something both specific and universal: the peculiar frustration of being too broke even for damnation. Released on July 18, this track emerges from Gage's upcoming album like smoke from a dying campfire....

The single from Syracuse’s ORWAX, “Everything's Addictive,” doesn’t so much ask a question as it does state a grim, unblinking diagnosis for the modern soul. From its first notes, the track establishes itself not as a party anthem for self-destruction, but as the sound of the machine humming underneath our choices. The trio—a self-contained unit of Ryan and Jim Moran, with Jason Randall on...