Listening to Lucas Pasley’s new single, “Laissez-Faire Love,” is less like pressing play and more like easing into a worn-in armchair that has held the shape of a thousand thoughtful conversations. The title itself sounds like an economic policy for the heart, and frankly, it’s a brilliant one: a declaration of free-market emotional enterprise where partners are sovereign states, not colonies. https://open.spotify.com/track/1F6nq024Iy350xPVRxffIA?si=bYffZUblSyyCWPvf8dSBzA Pasley doesn’t sing about...

Let’s be clear about Social Gravy’s re-released single, “Fools”: this is not a song that uses metaphor as a shield. From its first snarling chords, this track, a furious time capsule from 2016 unearthed by Brad Kohn and Vee Bordukov, feels less like a composition and more like a brick heaved through a stained-glass window. It’s a raw-throated accusation, a two-by-four of a protest...