Rosso Tierney unpacks a profound psychological weight on his new alternative metal single, "This Gun". Honestly, the track immediately pinned me to my chair. Tierney operates as a completely self-contained unit here, handling vocals, piano, guitar, and bass, and he uses that total control to build an impossibly dense, aggressive wall of sound. There is a relentless, heavily distorted thundering down in the low-end...

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...