TC TENET’s new single, “Animals,” arrives with the sort of confident thud you’d expect from a well-aimed Doc Marten hitting a hollow stage. This isn't background music for tidying your sock drawer, unless your sock drawer is a portal to a field at 3 AM where everyone’s forgotten their own name but remembers every chord. It’s a full-throated roar into the now, a soundtrack...

Listening to “Small Town Syndrome” by thinking silly is an exercise in delightful contradiction. Dylan Morrison’s project, shaped here by the production hand of collaborator Margot Taylor, builds a sleek, propulsive chassis of dark pop and minimal techno, only to house an engine of pure, grinding ache. It’s the sound of someone forcing a smile so wide their face hurts, a dance track for...