High Tea, the folk-punk duo hailing from Massachusetts, is the explosive creation of a story-spinning blues guitarist and a harmony-obsessed punk. Isabella DeHerdt and Isaac Eliot have come together to fill spaces with homegrown storytelling and raucous, booming vocals. Their songs are ripe with existential angst, weaving tales of growing up, going wild, and always coming back to the ones you love.

Their previous releases, Scuba Diving, Old Cowboy, and The Wick And The Flame were featured on playlists, radio shows, and publications like The Boston Globe, The Greenfield Recorder, and WBUR (among others). The title track of Old Cowboy led them to be chosen as one of WBUR’s top 4 Massachusetts Tiny Desk entries of 2022. They toured The Wick And The Flame on the West Coast, in New England, the Midwest, and received write ups from Atwood’s Magazine, The Boston Herald, and more. They were nominated for the New England Music Awards Best Americana Act in 2023, and were selected to perform in the Grassy Hill Emerging Artist Showcase at Falcon Ridge Folk Festival in 2025. High Tea has toured with Heather Maloney and Raye Zaragoza, and opened for artists such as Brandy Clark, Erin McKeown, The Whisky Treaty Roadshow, Mark Erelli, The Oshima Brothers, and others. 

Despite its name, there’s nothing little about High Tea’s new album, A Small Notion. Listeners are led through an inspiringly personal journey, from the disoriented yearning of loss, to an appreciation of the brutal realities of rough living, to tender reflections on past mistakes, to an ultimate acceptance of the all-too-human need for community and care. As ever, the Massachusetts duo is heavily committed to marrying intensely beautiful lyrical storytelling with congruent and energetically contagious instrumental arrangements. Without a doubt, A Small Notion is some of High Tea’s most honest, eye-opening, and cathartic work yet.