Rock and roll has always had a soft spot for the grand gesture — the three-minute sermon dressed up as a single, the chorus built to be bellowed back at the band from a festival field. OpCritical understands this instinctively, and "Parachute" arrives as their most fully-formed statement yet: a song that takes the oldest trick in the songwriting book — turn a physical object into a metaphor and don't let go of it — and executes it with the kind of conviction that makes cynicism feel like a wasted effort.

Some songs arrive fully formed and instantly dated, tethered to whatever sonic gimmick happened to be fashionable the week they were tracked. Others get buried for decades and come back sounding like they were always meant for right now. "Please Comfort Me," the new single from The Sonic Travelers, belongs firmly to the second camp — a song written in the late 1970s by George Aiello and John Ingram that has spent nearly fifty years waiting for its moment, and has finally found one worth the wait.

Roland Wälzlein has never much cared for tidy categories, and "Holy Man" makes that abundantly clear within its opening bars. Recorded live in the studio, the piano sits close and unadorned, each note allowed to hang in the air a beat longer than convention would permit — a decision that rewards patience rather than punishing it.

Chesterfield rarely produces cultural earthquakes, but Xxäm has just tilted the axis of British electronic pop a few crucial degrees with a debut that arrives fully formed. "Riddle Me This," the first single and video from the act's upcoming self-titled album, plays less like an introduction and more like an accusation whispered across a darkened room. By the time the first chorus detonates, you'll have already confessed to something you didn't do.