Violet Love has offered up an EP titled "Destined to Fail," and it arrives less like a prediction and more like a pre-existing condition, a medical chart for a soul that’s been diagnosed with itself. The DIY recording quality doesn’t feel lo-fi for aesthetics; it feels necessary, like these songs could only have been born in a sealed-off room where the air was getting...

Edinburgh songwriter James King delivers a haunting solo debut "Firefly" that transforms trauma into raw, cathartic art It is very pleasant to hear an artist ready to bleed onto the recording in this day and age of over-production and automated music. This is exactly what James King's first solo record, "Firefly," does: it lets fans into the soul of an artist who is not afraid to...