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...

Listening to Shotgun Driver’s new EP, “Jester Privileges”, is like finding a glitter bomb in a padded cell. The four songs present a disorienting, strangely compelling contradiction. On the surface, the alt-pop framework pulses with an upbeat, almost defiant energy; this is the slick, rock-tinged anxiety of a Machine Gun Kelly track built for open-road brooding. But beneath it, the narrative, carried by those...