On the new single “Under the Willow Tree,” 23 Fields the folk-Americana project of solo artist Step confronts the strange, yawning distance between who we were at seventeen and the people we eventually become. The track takes shape around a lively current of bright, resonant strumming and intricate, cyclic plucking. Before long, a gentle, pulsing thud locks into place beneath the intertwining chord patterns,...

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...