The latest from Jacob and the Starry Eyed Shadows, “Racing on the Back Straight,” performs a fantastic trick: it dresses up a full-blown existential crisis in its summer best and sends it to the beach. This Glasgow solo architect, Jacob, has constructed a Trojan horse of a track, all propulsive indie rock guitars and a pop-punk chorus so immediate it feels like you’ve known...

Jimmy Scott Free’s return with “Turn Back Time,” featuring the potent vocals of Kim English, is a peculiar kind of exorcism. It’s a track with a passport full of stamps—born of a Southend sensibility, aged in Barcelona, and now arriving on our shores—yet its emotional core is stuck stubbornly in a single, unchangeable moment. This is a song that tells you to dance while...