Flavor Wave’s single, “The Optimist,” arrived less like a declaration and more like someone tentatively drawing back a dusty curtain on a grey afternoon. From West Chester, PA, these five lifelong friends – Kyle Loedel (vocals, lyrics), Matthew Stretch (lead guitar), Patrick Blair (rhythm guitar), Noah Montgomery (bass), and Joshua Speaker (performer/drums) – typically tread alternative rock paths nodding to influences like The Strokes....

There is a specific kind of electricity that runs through Dying Habit and their latest album "There Is No Sky", a static charge that feels less like a new discovery and more like a memory you didn't know you had. Hailing from Anglesey, the quartet Nathan Jones, Alan Hart, Daniel Garner, and Mark Jones has managed to bottle that peculiar, restless friction of being...