New Music Friday is bringing the heat for May 23, 2025 as we head into Memorial Day Weekend with a stacked slate of fresh releases. Detroit rapper Boldy James teams up with producer Your Boy […]
Author: Shaun Smith
New Music Friday, May 16, 2025
Happy New Music Friday, High Noters! It’s May 16, 2025, and the release radar is buzzing. Tune-Yards return with “Better Dreaming.” Chuck D delivers “Radio Armageddon.” Sleep Theory’s debut “Afterglow” fuses alt-metal, nu-metal and rhythm […]
New Music Friday, May 9, 2025
It’s an indie-rock-heavy week with a strong nostalgic pull and a few sonic surprises for New Music Friday, May 9, 2025. The Head and the Heart return with “Aperture.” Counting Crows finally deliver the long-awaited […]
Samantha Crain Cracks The Case On ‘Gumshoe’
Checking in with longtime artists feels like catching up with old friends, and it’s one of the great joys of writing The High Note each week. I was delighted to see singer-songwriter Samantha Crain release […]
New Music Friday, May 2, 2025
It’s the first New Music Friday of May and the release radar is heating up along with the weather on May 2, 2025. Hip-hop heads will be thrilled by “Conversational Pieces,” a full-length collaboration between […]
Goose Takes Flight on ‘Everything Must Go’
Most jam bands live for live performance. There are a few notable exceptions like Grateful Dead’s “American Beauty” and “Farmhouse” by Phish. However, most songs written by jam bands serve primarily as launchpads for interstellar […]
New Music Friday, April 25, 2025
It’s another stacked New Music Friday for April 25, 2025, and we’re diving headfirst into a fresh wave of albums worth the spin. Actor and jazz aficionado Jeff Goldblum returns with “Still Blooming” leading the […]
New Music Friday, April 18, 2025
It’s another packed New Music Friday for April 18, 2025 and this week brings a mix of raw emotion, indie grit and experimental grooves. Beirut returns with “A Study of Losses.” Julien Baker and Torres […]
Valerie June Casts a Spell with ‘Owls, Omens and Oracles’
If it weren’t for the Philadelphia Folk Festival, I don’t know if I would’ve discovered a fraction of my favorite artists — Valerie June is one of them. The Grammy Award-winning multi-instrumentalist released her sixth […]
New Music Friday, April 11, 2025
It’s New Music Friday on April 11, 2025, and the release radar is bursting with standout albums Bon Iver returns with the ethereal “Sable, Fable.” Valerie June casts her mystical spell with “Owls, Omens and […]