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...

Let’s be clear about Social Gravy’s re-released single, “Fools”: this is not a song that uses metaphor as a shield. From its first snarling chords, this track, a furious time capsule from 2016 unearthed by Brad Kohn and Vee Bordukov, feels less like a composition and more like a brick heaved through a stained-glass window. It’s a raw-throated accusation, a two-by-four of a protest...