Geoff Westen’s album, “Music For My Friends”, thumps onto the scene like a dropped box of heavy disco balls – all shiny potential energy and the slight threat of chaos. It aims for that classic pop song euphoria, the kind designed to rattle car speakers and fuel late-night dance floors, an "aural assault" as Westen puts it. And it does pulse with energy, a...

The new single from Quentin Moore, “Kiss Your Lips,” doesn’t so much start as it seeps into the room, lowering the lights and raising the temperature by a degree or two. Moore is at the piano, his vocals draping over the notes with the patient weight of heavy silk. The entire thing feels excavated from some lost '70s studio session, a slow jam built...