Some doors do not close with a slam. They remain half-open, daring a person to walk back through them after the room behind them has grown small and airless. The past can be persuasive that way. It offers familiar furniture, old names, a version of comfort that asks too much in return. "Backwards, Baby," the latest single from Caitlin Kent-Halliday, begins from that human pressure...

Leicester’s genre-defying trio 9 o’clock Nasty has shared a released called "BEAST", offering the eighth dizzying glimpse into their forthcoming LP "Chaos". Pete Brock, Ted Pepper, and Sydd Spudd the self-dubbed aristocrats of punk thrive in the deep end of the human psyche here. The track relies on an angular, staccato post-punk melody that frantically steps up and down. It drags you directly into...