With the arrival of Archers New Rival and their single "Direction", I found myself tracing the jagged line of a crack in my ceiling, letting the melody dictate exactly how much that imperfection bothered me. The track initiates with a deception a clean, resonant melancholy that feels safe before suddenly mushrooming into a thick, distorted wall of heavy texture. It reminds me, oddly enough,...

Listening to The Trusted’s new single, “Levitate,” is to willingly submit to a glorious, well-produced panic attack. From its opening moments, where frontman Tom Cunningham confesses to feeling like something to be discarded in the street, the track establishes a brutal vulnerability before yanking you into the dizzying orbit of another human being. It’s the sound of being so completely poleaxed by infatuation that...