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...

When Indianapolis-based progressive metal project Pentrilox announced "Apotheosis: The New Frontier", I genuinely didn't expect to be handed a literal digital antidepressant. But here we are. Operating entirely out of their in-house production studio, this independent outfit utterly rejects the exhausted, dystopian sci-fi tropes we've all been choking on lately. Instead, they’ve engineered a massive, heavy sonic blueprint for celestial optimism. https://open.spotify.com/album/1lXMirFmYCFLZ8CJ8LJGfi?si=oXWz-hzbSV-i2MNymOiwDA The physical force of...