“Birthday” is a hazy ride through murky psych-rock, where Ari Shellist’s dazed vocals work seamlessly around steady percussion, a lush bass line, and psychedelic guitar workings. The whole effort has a ceaselessly hypnotic

DC-based rockers Venn introduced themselves last year with a captivating cover of Slowdive’s “Alison” (below), serving as a tasteful preview of their stylistic leanings, that being shoegaze-y and textural rock. New track

Seattle-based group Echo Texture have a very apt name — as their sound adds textural depths to a vein of alternative-rock that values trickling post-punk verses and emotive blasts of emotion in