The Austin-based songwriter Alex Winters turns the terrifying act of emotional surrender into a towering alt-rock confession. There is a specific kind of silence that occupies a room right before a heavy truth is spoken aloud. It is thick, suffocating, and entirely self-imposed. We build fortresses out of our past traumas, stacking bricks of deflection and mortar of avoidance to guarantee nothing can ever hurt us...

With their latest single, Kissing The Flint’s “Windscreen Dream” offers the kind of country rock you feel in your teeth—a low, satisfying hum of forward motion. This is a song built like a classic roadster; every part is an essential component of the kinetic engine. Huey Dowling’s guitars lay down the tarmac, Derek Urquhart’s drums are the steady thump of wheels on the joins...