Ultan’s single, "The Tempest," erupts not so much into the room as it does through the floorboards, dragging with it the scent of wet wool and imminent confrontation. This Dublin solo musician, a cartographer of past agonies, presents an energetic rock piece that feels less like a song about history and more like a fragment of it, throbbing and urgent. The main riff careers...

Freddie Perry has captured a very specific brand of Saturday afternoon existentialism in his new single "WHAT EVEN IS LIFE?" It’s a track that feels like it grew naturally in his Birmingham home studio, bypassing the polished artifice of big-label pop to find something far more grounding and relatable. The song hits with a driving, bright acoustic strumming pattern the kind of rhythm that...