There is a peculiar kind of magic in watching people completely rewrite the script of their own public existence, which is exactly what The Marsh Family are doing with their sweeping debut album, "Hollow Chapters". You likely remember Ben, Danielle, Alfie, Tom, Ella, and Tess as the cheerful Kent collective whose viral parodies gave millions a reason to smile when the walls were closing...

Listening to John Keenan’s “Wreckage of the Past” feels like being handed the audio diary of a ghost who is not yet dead. This is an 18-song excavation of a psyche at war, made all the more intense by the knowledge that Keenan is the sole architect—producer, writer, mixer, and tormented protagonist. The whole project has the hermetically sealed, slightly feverish quality of a...