The latest from Jacob and the Starry Eyed Shadows, “Racing on the Back Straight,” performs a fantastic trick: it dresses up a full-blown existential crisis in its summer best and sends it to the beach. This Glasgow solo architect, Jacob, has constructed a Trojan horse of a track, all propulsive indie rock guitars and a pop-punk chorus so immediate it feels like you’ve known...

There are some songs that pose a question and others that feel like an answer. Shyfrin Alliance’s new single, “Colours of Time,” does something far stranger: it wrestles with a question so personal it barely knows how to form the words. It’s an exercise in trying to name the unnamable, that internal puppet-master who tugs at the strings of doubt and ambition from a...