New Jersey punk and hardcore veterans I.D.K. have ripped the lid off their latest project, unleashing "Nark 5" with enough tension to start a fire in a damp room. Since 1991, they have specialized in uncompromising energy, but this track twists their aesthetic into an urgent, dystopian industrial metal cage. https://open.spotify.com/track/1qejwC2K0adWHyNazz3fxm?si=15c38208b43148a7 Do not look for a gentle tune. The band members Anthony “Red” Paladino, Tom Conti,...

Robin James Hurt’s “A Song, A Story Told” arrives with a sound you can almost run a thumb over, like worn corduroy. In an age of sterile, diamond-polished productions, this album is a defiantly handmade thing, tracked onto vintage cassette machines. The result is not a flaw, but an ingredient. A faint, persistent hiss breathes alongside the instruments, a ghost in the machine who...