Adam Brice's "Never Is Too Late" landed on my desk – or, rather, materialized in my digital ether – and I've been wrestling with its echoes ever since. It's a curious beast, this album. Part rock anthem, part campfire confessional, with a splash of country twang that somehow doesn't feel out of place, which has themes running circles like wild horses, settling down around...

Phoebe Huisman and the release "Inside" arrived in my speakers like the sudden, sharp scent of rain hitting hot asphalt familiar, grounding, and weirdly emotional. There is something unnerving about how accurately this collection of songs maps the topographical mess of being a teenager. Huisman, a singer-songwriter with the technical chops of a Distinction-grade vocalist and the heart of a poet, has essentially constructed...