Post Death Soundtrack’s latest offering, “In All My Nightmares I Am Alone,” arrived not so much as a collection of songs, but as a psychic weather event. Listening to Stephen Moore’s solo excursion is like being invited to a wake where the dearly departed is, perhaps, oneself, or maybe just the idea of a stable Tuesday afternoon. It’s a dense, prickly thing, this record....

The moment the jaunty guitar kicks in on John Smyths’ new single, "Now I'm Wiser", you feel a familiar, comfortable warmth. It’s the sound of a good chair in a bar where the floor is sticky with spilled truths. And then the story starts, a classic yarn of a hard-living past yielding to a peaceful present. Smyths, a Dutch ex-metalhead singing country out of...