5 Overlooked Songs From Great 2025 Albums

2025 has been a banner year for blues rock, from influential blues rockers making waves in big-budget films like Sinners and Flight Risk to career-best album releases by some of the biggest names in the genre. For the last six months or so, we’ve been living through a golden era, flooded with excellent music and cultural impact. And that presents a dilemma: with so much high-quality music coming at blues rock fans so fast, some really excellent listens slipping through the cracks is inevitable. So with that in mind, let’s shine some light on some songs released this year that may have flown under some fans’ radar!

“Pearls” By Larkin Poe on Bloom

We’ll kick off the list with the hardest-to-pick song. Bloom is a stellar album from a stellar band, full of the excellent songwriting and arrangement that’s made them stars. “Pearls” is the hardest-rocking song on the record, a gritty rock anthem about authenticity full of excellent organ work backing up the leads.

“Red House” By Greg Koch on Blues

The first point in my notes for this song from my review of Blues reads, “Hendrix would dig it,” and I stand by that assessment months later. Koch’s version comes in at just over nine minutes, showcasing his guitar chops in a few different styles: slower noodling, full-fretboard pentatonic shredding, and some quick vibrato picking that almost sounds like mandolin playing. The song includes some interesting updates like some nice synth-y effects mid-solo, but the real strength is how much Koch shows off the fundamental and old school blues guitar skills.

“Hell of a Good Time” By Joanne Shaw Taylor on Black and Gold

Black and Gold represented an enormously successful experiment by Taylor to combine her tried-and-true blues rock sounds with tropes and elements of other genres like 80s synth pop and Americana. “Hell of a Good Time” is by far the most straightforward blues rocking tune on the album, with only a bit of gospel influence in the arrangement. The song lives up to its name, a fun, hard hitting party anthem that stands out on the record for its focus on the fundamentals of blues rock.

“Choir Women” By Robert Randolph on Preacher Kids

A standout song on a practically perfect record, “Choir Woman” is a stellar example of narrative-driven blues rock, playing out as a gossipy exploration of the dual lives of church ladies: singing the Lord’s praises Sunday mornings after burning down the party Saturday night. Judith Hill co-wrote the song, which feels seductive and fun, with excellent crunchy guitars backing the killer vocals. The song is maybe the best isolated encapsulation of what Randolph and company set out to accomplish with the record: highlighting the inextricable paradox of the link between blues life and gospel life. 

“What She Said” By Bobby Rush and Kenny Wayne Shepherd on Young Fashioned Ways

Last but nowhere near least, “What She Said” is a perfect song from a perfect record. Bobby Rush and Kenny Wayne Shepherd put out an absolute killer album right before spring this year, and it’s certainly a contender for Album of the Year. Rush and Shepherd are both legends, and they do legendary work here worthy of their reputations. “What She Said” is among the slower tracks on the album, a traditionally structured “my woman left me” heartbreak blues tune that may be lighter on the rock side, but fully makes up for it by showing off why Shepherd is a king of blues guitar and Rush is one of our greatest living blues singers.

The above tunes represent some of my favorite tracks this year from albums I’ve reviewed for Blues Rock Review. Many of these albums are career-best (or very nearly career-best) for the artists. As an aside, it’s also no coincidence that several tracks on the list feature heavy organ work, I’m a sucker for it. The songs selected here represent high-quality work built with passion and craft that didn’t make the publicist highlights, but remain shining examples of why each of these artists is on the top of the blues rock game today. They are all worth revisiting by blues rockers.