High Tea

The band’s music has an “Alice in Wonderland”-like quality to it, and not just because it was named after a tea party. DeHerdt and Eliot’s songs delve into the intimacies and intricacies of growing up, and all that adulthood entails: love, loss, isolation, frustration. But through it all, they maintain a childlike reverence for stories and storytelling, deftly weaving plot lines, narrative, and dialogue into their music.

Maya Homan, The Boston Globe, on "Old Cowboy"

Eliot opens the song in the part of the lonesome cowboy, with DeHerdt taking the third verse from the perspective of his drinking companion, who describes a contrasting reaction to life’s hardships, a kind of hardening of the heart. “You don’t just want agreement in a story,” DeHerdt says. “You want a little bit of friction.” But “Old Cowboy” reaches its apex when the two singers lock into harmony on the chorus. “I’ve always been obsessed with harmony,” says Eliot, who sang in choirs as a boy. The two singers have very distinct voices – hers husky, his unadorned – but side by side they momentarily melt into one.

Amelia Mason, WBUR, on “Old Cowboy”

(Hell Of A Ride) opens with “Long Gone,” a mid-tempo pop-rock song... (is a) perfect introduction to the album as it highlights their rich, powerful voices and the way their vocals beautifully complement each other...A rocking tune like “You Know (She Knows),” features some killer guitar, adds some fun to “Hell of a Ride,” ...it’s the quieter moments when the duo draws on their shared love of Americana/folk music that this music really resonates. Songs like “Homegrown” and “Heather,” which feature only their voices and acoustic guitar, bring to mind artists like the Civil Wars

Sheryl Hunter, The Greenfield Recorder, on "Hell Of A Ride"

High Tea, the indie folk-rock duo hailing from Massachusetts, is a concoction of sweepingly soulful harmonies, guitar riffs to knock your socks off, and a refreshing blend of old blues and new rock. Isabella DeHerdt and Isaac Eliot have come together to fill spaces with homegrown storytelling and Lumineers-esque vocals. Their songs are ripe with americana heartbreak, and tell tales of growing up, going wild, and always coming back to the ones you love.

Their previous releases, Old Cowboy and The Wick And The Flame were featured on playlists, radio shows, and publications like The Boston Globe, The Greenfield Recorder (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, and throughout other US States and received write ups from Atwood’s Magazine, The Boston Herald, and more.

Their new EP, Scuba Diving, dives - literally and figuratively - into four very different worlds on each unique song. Listeners are led through an exhilarating and dangerous love story, a struggle for independence from a lineage of harsh repression, and an internal struggle against the feeling of hopelessness brought on by quick-fix culture, all accompanied by dynamic guitar, thumping drums, and echoing harmonies. This journey of lyrical storytelling and compelling sound culminates in the title track and single from the album, a personal and intimate story of hospitalization, a search for mental health, fear for a friend who is facing down demons, and the fight for understanding an ally’s role within that story. Without a doubt, Scuba Diving is some of High Tea’s most honest and eye-opening work yet.

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