With his new single, “I Can Tell,” Brendan Pegg documents not the loud crash of a relationship’s end, but the awful, held-breath silence just before. This is a song that understands the atmospheric pressure drop that precedes a storm, the chilling moment you realize an unspoken truth has settled in the space between two bodies on a couch. Pegg’s voice isn’t performing for an...

Before listening to a single note of Suris’ new album, “Pertinax”, I spent a few minutes just looking at the word. Pertinax. It has the distinct ring of a Stoic philosopher’s last defiant utterance or maybe a type of beetle known for its unusually stubborn shell. What a curious flag to fly for a collection of songs in an age of fleeting distraction. But...