For their fifth studio album, the Geneva-based indie rock outfit Sonic Rade shares "Berlin", an intensely resonant record heavily steeped in the aura of its namesake city. Relocating to the legendary Meistersaal the former Hansa Studios where acts like Bowie and Depeche Mode once operated the band allowed the physical walls of the room to hijack their live tracking. You feel those historical reverberations...

The Swedish sextet Villa Rivercat turns hesitation, healing, and synth-lit folk rock into a single built for repeat plays. Some songs feel like the exact second before you send the text you have typed three times and deleted twice. 'Woodchopper', the new single from Villa Rivercat, lives in that nervous little gap. It is about choice, but it does not treat choice like a neat...