Rick Cassman serves up "JENNIFER JANGLE," and immediately you’re paddling in the bright, optimistic shallows of 1960s British Pop. You can almost taste the sherbet lemon fizz. Yet, knowing Cassman’s packing four decades of musical mileage – playing all the guitars, bass, keyboards, drums, and handling vocals here himself, mind you – suggests we shouldn't just skim the surface. This isn't merely throwback fun;...

Violet Love has offered up an EP titled "Destined to Fail," and it arrives less like a prediction and more like a pre-existing condition, a medical chart for a soul that’s been diagnosed with itself. The DIY recording quality doesn’t feel lo-fi for aesthetics; it feels necessary, like these songs could only have been born in a sealed-off room where the air was getting...