Maraad’s new album, “BUFF”, is a strange and beautiful paradox, an object forged in the very fire it’s meant to protect you from. Each track is presented as a "buff," a bit of protective magic for the spirit, but the energy humming underneath feels less like a polished shield and more like the faint, determined glow around a figure in a centuries-old altarpiece—somehow both...

A toddler clutching a kaleidoscope probably doesn’t fathom the full extent of the beauty whirling inside it. That’s a bit like encountering The Report’s latest EP, “Everything Life Throws”. Just when you think you've pieced together what’s happening, you shift it slightly, and new patterns emerge, forcing you to sit with its intentions a little longer. Hugo Allen and Jo Rogers didn’t craft an...