Listening to Shotgun Driver’s new EP, “Jester Privileges”, is like finding a glitter bomb in a padded cell. The four songs present a disorienting, strangely compelling contradiction. On the surface, the alt-pop framework pulses with an upbeat, almost defiant energy; this is the slick, rock-tinged anxiety of a Machine Gun Kelly track built for open-road brooding. But beneath it, the narrative, carried by those...

Silja Rós sends us “Letters from my past,” and it’s as if one has been handed a velvet pouch of smoothed sea glass, each piece a shard of memory polished by time. Listening feels like sorting through them, the Icelandic musician’s neo-soul and pop songwriting unfurling narratives from what must be deeply personal old diaries. There’s an intimacy here akin to deciphering faded ink...