With “Island Lantern Festival”, Tony Frissore manages to soundtrack a specific kind of mental vacation I didn’t realize I was overdue for taking. Ostensibly an instrumental nod to the Lunar New Year and the hopefulness of renewal, this piece operates less like a celebration and more like a gentle exhalation. https://open.spotify.com/album/3n43BcxSnavYKC0wt28GNu?si=E_50eQ_lQomyHT1RsD2Jrg It starts wet with the actual crash of ocean waves before slowly drifting inland. I...

Some songs arrive like warnings from streets that have already learned the smell of rain on hot concrete. Before the first shout fully settles, there is a sense that bodies are gathering, feet are refusing to move, and some private fear has been pushed into daylight. Total Reverends build that pressure into 'The Revolution Is Inevitable', a single that treats rock music as a public...