Listening to Violet Whimsey’s new EP, “PERSEPHONE,” is a bit like finding an antique music box that only plays minor chords. You wind it up, expecting a delicate tune, but what emerges is something far more shadowed, intricate, and possessed of a strange, chilling beauty. This is dark pop that doesn’t just brood; it excavates. https://open.spotify.com/album/0mrzzMpWVM7kKEWam6vTQP?si=D4ysByaOQCOEwElRdWm0Bg The collection is a descent, a guided tour through various...

Helladdict’s new single, “Sudden Death,” doesn’t feel like a tribute; it feels like an exhumation. Here are six men from Santiago, all seasoned enough to know that pure fury is a young person’s game, offering instead the far more corrosive anger of experience. They resurrect the chassis of 80s thrash, all bone-raw intensity and punishing tempo, but the engine is modern, built with the...