Greensky Bluegrass, photo by Dylan Langille

Every Friday, Relix surveys the wealth of new music released over the past seven days and selects dozens of standouts for the Relix Staff Picks playlist. Read on for the highlights from this week’s batch.

On Halloween night in 2000, an impromptu ensemble of forward-thinking quick-pickers came together onstage in Kalamazoo, Mich., to form Greensky Bluegrass. In the 25 years since, the band of mandolinist Paul Hoffman, bassist Mike Devol, guitarist Dave Bruzza and banjo and dobro pro Anders Beck have not only thrived as a live outfit, but also released records that have reshaped the sound of traditional string music at large.

Today, to honor this legacy, Greensky Bluegrass released XXV, a new studio album featuring fresh takes on some of their most memorable tracks. These reinterpretations demonstrate both the quintet’s creative growth over the quarter-century and their indelible influence on the broader Americana landscape through a stacked guest list; the 10 luminaries sharing in their celebration are Billy Strings, Sam Bush, Aoife O’Donovan, Jason Hann, Nathaniel Rateliff, Holly Bowling, Ivan Neville, Lindsay Lou, Jennifer Hartswick and Natalie Cressman. 

“We’ve called on some dear friends to breathe a touch of new life into some classic Greensky songs for your listening pleasure,” Beck shared. “We believe it’s worth celebrating what the five of us have created together… and we want you to have a damn good time listening to it.”

Two weeks after a polaroid set off speculation, twin sisters Katie and Allison Crutchfield have reunited as Snocaps on a new album, surprise-released in its entirety via Anti-. Snocaps’ self-titled debut is billed as a joint effort between the Crutchfields, with backing from MJ Lenderman, who contributed to Waxahatchee’s 2024 album Tiger’s Blood, and Brad Cook, who has been Katie’s go-to producer since 2020’s Saint Cloud. Cook engineered and produced the record, and all four artists play multiple instruments across tracks that merge the sisters’ songwriting styles in a tangle of glowy, heavy, warm indie rock, with some subtle hints of their power-pop and punk background and Katie’s current Americana leanings.

In new old music, Bob Dylan has opened up his vault again with Through the Open Window, the 18th edition of his Bootleg Series. Dylan’s latest archival dispatch is the rarest yet, pulling together eight discs of material tracked from 1956 to 1963. The collection sheds light on the icon’s emergence as a singer and songwriter as he set out on his career, gradually learning to channel his interests in traditional American music and prescient storytelling into a style that fueled a folk revolution. The previously unreleased material includes Columbia Records outtakes, early club appearances and intimate tapes from gatherings at his friends’ houses.

Guided By Voices’ new record, Thick, Rich & Delicious, outlines exactly what makes Robert Pollard’s long-running lo-fi rock project so special; the ever-changing group’s 42nd (!) album pairs remarkable new tracks with “a basket of unrecorded gems dating back to the band’s nascent years” in a fizzy, anthemic, jangling testament to their vitality and influence. Roots-rock standard-bearers The Steel Wheels are back with Need the Help, an EP marking their 20th anniversary and previewing an upcoming self-titled LP. Oklahoma City’s ambient-folk wonder Hayden Pedigo and noise-rock destroyers Chat Pile united for the unlikely In the Earth Again, which distills the best of both parties into an affecting common tongue. Just after closing out their “The Song Is Over” North American Farewell Tour, The Who have shared a sprawling retrospective in Who Are You (Super Deluxe Edition).

This week’s batch of Relix Staff Picks also includes new music from Florence + The Machine, Roger Eno, Hilary Woods, Holy Sons, The Belair Lip Bombs, The Cars, Heems, US Girls and Don Was & The Pan-Detroit Ensemble, among many other gems. Tune in here.