Praise songs enter politely. This one walks in with its hands raised and a story already in motion. "We Give You the Glory (Bless Your Name)" brings Dayne Malcolm and Jodian Pantry back together for their second collaboration, and the chemistry is the real headline. The Jamaican gospel artists bring worship close to the body: the lifted hand, the cracked voice, the friend helping you finish...

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...