Mad Morning have released a new single titled "Painkiller," and it’s less a piece of music and more a prescription filled with ferocious velocity. This isn't your gentle, over-the-counter remedy. This is the stuff you keep behind lock and key, a bitter pill of distorted guitar and adrenalized rhythm that vocalist and guitarist Rob Jarvis delivers with unflinching conviction. The song’s central idea—sound as...

The Austin-based songwriter Alex Winters turns the terrifying act of emotional surrender into a towering alt-rock confession. There is a specific kind of silence that occupies a room right before a heavy truth is spoken aloud. It is thick, suffocating, and entirely self-imposed. We build fortresses out of our past traumas, stacking bricks of deflection and mortar of avoidance to guarantee nothing can ever hurt us...