Light bosonic particles, such as the QCD axion or dark photons, are predicted by many extensions of the Standard Model and can naturally serve as the dark matter. Detecting such particles around the meV mass range, however, remains an especially challenging target for laboratory-based searches. In this talk, I will present two new experimental avenues to probe dark bosons in this regime. The first exploits the broadband absorption of axions or dark photons in disordered bulk solids and their conversion into detectable non-thermal phonons. The second demonstrates how the QCD axion can mediate a new macroscopic force sourced by its defining coupling to gluons within a piezoelectric crystal. This force is predicted to be many orders of magnitude larger than the corresponding effect in vacuum and could be detected through precision nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) techniques.