Not all wars are fought with guns. Some battles are waged in traffic jams, in empty kitchens, or in the hollow space between a scream and a whisper at 2 a.m. Dax's latest single "Soldier" featuring Tom MacDonald doesn’t march with a drumbeat of victory; it crawls, it scratches, it survives. Written for anyone wrestling with life’s demons—the internal kind, the ones that don't...

Robin James Hurt’s “A Song, A Story Told” arrives with a sound you can almost run a thumb over, like worn corduroy. In an age of sterile, diamond-polished productions, this album is a defiantly handmade thing, tracked onto vintage cassette machines. The result is not a flaw, but an ingredient. A faint, persistent hiss breathes alongside the instruments, a ghost in the machine who...