With the release of the single "Play Me A Christmas Song", Stephen Dowd manages to bottle the very specific, blue-hued silence that falls over a living room once the wrapping paper has been cleared away. It is a curious thing, really, how a melody can act less like a sound wave and more like the smell of a candle that was blown out five...

Pilots unleash their album "Eyes On The Horizon", and frankly, the horizon it scans seems littered with emotional debris rather than gentle dawns. This Surrey outfit belts out anthemic alt-rock that promises soaring heights, yet dives headfirst into the messy, often bruising territory of love gone sour and the exhausting climb back to oneself. It’s a curious concoction, like finding shards of stained glass...