Love Ghost and The Skinner Brothers have dropped their new single, “Worth it,” and it arrives not so much with a knock as with the splintering crack of a door being kicked off its hinges. This is the sound of the emotional floor giving way. It’s a raw-nerved piece of alternative rock that scrapes at the psyche, possessing the same comforting quality as a...

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...