Before listening to a single note of Suris’ new album, “Pertinax”, I spent a few minutes just looking at the word. Pertinax. It has the distinct ring of a Stoic philosopher’s last defiant utterance or maybe a type of beetle known for its unusually stubborn shell. What a curious flag to fly for a collection of songs in an age of fleeting distraction. But...

Axiom ThaWyze and Andy O's "Merfolk Space Program" arrived with a title that stopped my brain for a solid ten seconds. A Merfolk… Space Program. It’s an idea that smells of brine and ozone, of impossible ambition born in the crushing deep. It's a perfect, almost comically absurd flag to plant in the soil of Boise, Idaho, and it perfectly captures the spirit of...