Press play and the room changes temperature. 'Make The World Stand Still' by Kaitlin Corbett Jones comes in with piano, strings, and a voice that sounds ready for the balcony seats and the person crying quietly in the back row. This is big-feeling music, but it is not messy for the sake of drama. Kaitlin Corbett Jones has the training to go massive and the...

The moment the jaunty guitar kicks in on John Smyths’ new single, "Now I'm Wiser", you feel a familiar, comfortable warmth. It’s the sound of a good chair in a bar where the floor is sticky with spilled truths. And then the story starts, a classic yarn of a hard-living past yielding to a peaceful present. Smyths, a Dutch ex-metalhead singing country out of...