New Music Friday – June 20, 2025

June 20, 2025 Ben Pagani

This New Music Friday takes a look at the most thrilling releases in pop and rock music today. There have been multiple big record drops and single announcements this week Read on to see a full list of top picks to add to those ques and playlists. First, here’s an in-depth look at the most noteworthy releases out now.

The Best of New Music Friday:

Hotline TNT – Raspberry Moon

Hotline TNT have been sharing their shoegazey brand of hopeful songs since 2018. The band–which has been primarily led by musician Will Anderson–has taken many shapes and forms in these seven years. Anderson self recorded several EPs and albums, always enlisting different instrumentalists to make up the touring acts of Hotline TNT.

Across that stretch, Anderson has presented rugged takes of high quality noise rock, with lyrics about yearning, lust and anything else under the stars. After each album has been toured extensively, Anderson has gone back to the drawing board and laid down the next Hotline TNT project on his own. But for this go around, the musicians who helped tour Hotline TNT’s wildly successful 2023 record Cartwheel hopped into the studio. They wanted to join Andeson, and for the first time a Hotline TNT record was recorded with a full group. The result is Raspberry Moon.

There’s hardly been as hopeful a noise-pop album as Raspberry Moon–especially by this crew. Original renditions of Hotline TNT played songs about longing for lovers, holding out for someone who may or may not ever call. But on songs like the new track “Candle,” lyrics are aimed at making promises. “Never dare to tell you what to wear // I’m not scared, we’ll find new things to share // I wanna try // Get butterflies,” Anderson sings while guitarist Lucky Hunter, bassist Haylen Trammel, and drummer Mike Ralston carry away with a renewed sense of possibility that hasn’t shined through so explicitly on the band’s past records.

These 11 songs still deal with plenty of problems, but this version of Hotline TNT, this new take in the studio, is refreshing. It’s a breath of optimistic air. It sounds like the band many rock fans have packed into venues around the globe to see in the past two years. It’s a continued chapter of loudness and noise that has captivated listeners.

Hotline TNT is a band with great studio records and an exciting live presence. Raspberry Moon is setting the stage for another big run for the band, which will be touring extensively again throughout 2025. This time around, there’s a great chance for the group to make fans somehow even happier with their live performances, given the promise of this hopeful sliver of shoegaze music.

HAIM – I Quit

The Haim sisters are back. Este, Danielle and Alana Haim found themselves all single for the first time in a long time while making their new album I Quit, and they wrote about looking back with equal parts vengeance and guilt.

“You know I’m trying to change // ’Cause I know I’m not innocent,” go the lyrics to “Love You Right.” With other songs titled “Relationships,” “Take me back,” “Try to feel my pain and others,” it should be clear that this is a breakup album.

Danielle Haim shared that I Quit has a pretty severe concentration on explaining why the sisters split off from their relationships. The group got in the studio with their collaborator Rostam Batmanglij and put together a rock record that sounds like the band Haim have always been on stage, along with all the more personal declarations of indie-pendence.

Haim have quit relationships, but have no plans to quit making impactful pop and rock.

New Music Friday Top Picks:

Bambii – Infinity Club II [Because Music]

Benson Boone – American Heart [Night Street/Warner]

Mercury – “Justin’s Headed Out” [Big Loud Rock]

S.G. Goodman – Planting by the Signs [Slough Water]

U.S. Girls – Scratch It [4AD]

Yaya Bey – Do It Afraid [Drink Sum Wtr]

Which of these tracks from New Music Friday will you add to your favorite playlists today? Any we missed? Let us know in the comments or on Instagram!

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Ben Pagani

Music Projects Manager at Beyond The Stage Magazine

Ben is a music journalist living and working in Chicago. They joined Beyond The Stage as an intern and have stayed on the staff for several years. Now serving on the editorial board, Ben is proud to be BTS' Music Projects Manager, coordinating coverage between international record labels and our staff. Ben has interviewed, photographed and written about bands from across the world. Ben has lived all over the United States working in television and media. They are an Emmy Award-winning writer. Ben can be found spinning records as 'DJ Wearing Sunglasses' in clubs and basements across the US.