WAIN’s debut EP, "Still Colorful", arrives not as a singular declaration but as a meticulously curated gallery of the self, with one man acting as architect, painter, and lighting technician all at once. It’s an unusual feeling, listening to it. You get the sense that you’re touring a house designed and built by a single, obsessive artisan, but where every room is inhabited by...

Listening to RIOT SON’s new single, “Loneliest at Best,” is a curious exercise in emotional time-travel. The sound pulls you back to the early 2000s, to a time of angular guitars and heartfelt, frayed-collar vocals. It has that nervous, shimmering energy of indie rock that always sounded best on a pair of wired headphones, the beat prodding you forward even as the lyrics confess...