Dylan Forshner's new EP, “Hopeless Optimism,” presents itself not so much as a collection of songs but as a series of candid diary entries set to intricately picked acoustic strings. This five-song journey from the Welland, Canada artist begins in a place of palpable internal wrestling, where the lyrics – and Forshner’s delivery – map out the grim territories of being overwhelmed, using substances...

There’s a strange comfort in calling your personal disaster a fairytale, and Jeremy Ryan’s new single, “My Fairytale,” lives entirely in that conflicted space. This isn't the storybook of our youth; it's the grim, dog-eared version one finds in a dusty attic, its moral hopelessly smudged. https://open.spotify.com/track/0qn6YtxVNcUmPZhjwxoCIb?si=ac355c4e77274635 Ryan sings of a rainbow devoid of its colors, an idea that for a moment made me think of...