Some names behave like locked doors. They sit in a lyric, plain enough to read, yet private enough to resist the curious hand. Emilia, in Yacovelli's new single, carries that strange power. She is named, pursued, teased, and protected, as if the song has placed her under stage light only to turn the bulb toward the crowd. For a band rooted in the scuffed romance...

There are songs that arrive carrying a room with them: the studio air, the private impulse, the public ache outside the door. In the case of Black November's 'Burning Desire', that room appears to be Mix Sound Studio in Thessaloniki, but it also holds the heavier air of Greece after the Tempi train tragedy. The cover single, does not treat admiration for an older composition as...