Helladdict’s new single, “Sudden Death,” doesn’t feel like a tribute; it feels like an exhumation. Here are six men from Santiago, all seasoned enough to know that pure fury is a young person’s game, offering instead the far more corrosive anger of experience. They resurrect the chassis of 80s thrash, all bone-raw intensity and punishing tempo, but the engine is modern, built with the...

Casey McQuillen’s single “Better” arrives not with a bang, but with the quiet, decisive click of a well-made lock securing a door. It’s pop music, certainly, groomed and gleaming, yet beneath the surface bubbles a fierce kind of self-possession that’s less about demanding attention and more about curating who gets past the velvet rope of your own contentment. Coming from someone known for empowerment...