Winning has no shine in Brian Hunsaker’s “Final Score.” Brian Hunsaker’s fifth and final single before Where Dreamers Fall uses speed metal and power metal to face war’s aftershock. He frames conflict as a mental trap. The end keeps coming into view, yet no outcome feels clean. It suits listeners who want intense metal with a dramatic premise. It avoids a simple tale of triumph. The path...

Anastasia Rydlevskaya makes rage feel methodical on Alchemia. Her fourth full-length album takes the four classical stages of alchemy and turns them into a hard-edged account of betrayal, trauma and feminine power. Nigredo, Albedo and Calcinatio, Citrinitas, then Rubedo each push the heroine into a new state. The result sits firmly in dark electronic music, but it also carries experimental pop and pagan motifs. That framing...