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...

Listening to Shery M navigate the pulsating, anxious corridors of "Goin Gone" feels like watching a high-speed train pass a quiet station; you catch glimpses of faces in the windows, but mostly, it is just wind, velocity, and the undeniable sense that something is leaving forever. https://open.spotify.com/album/64HupTsSPKfqTMzg4hUtUf?si=tPYF-a9_S1iN8D1M_fJUWA The single arrives wrapped in the glossy sheen of Global Pop and Dance-Pop, yet the engine driving it is...