The moment the jaunty guitar kicks in on John Smyths’ new single, "Now I'm Wiser", you feel a familiar, comfortable warmth. It’s the sound of a good chair in a bar where the floor is sticky with spilled truths. And then the story starts, a classic yarn of a hard-living past yielding to a peaceful present. Smyths, a Dutch ex-metalhead singing country out of...

Cassandra Maze, "Superstars". Two words. Say them out loud and they already feel like a declaration. The Vancouver singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist released this self-produced single and it carries the kind of quiet authority that only comes from an artist who has spent years earning it. No label machinery. No outside producers. Just one woman, her home studio, and a message she clearly needed to put...