Summer 2025 sees the return of many artists we’ve come to love over the years — the Beaches, U.S. Girls and Bambii, to name a few — and the debut offerings from promising artists like Billianne who we’ve had our eyes on for awhile.
Whether it be Tami Neilson’s stomping country, Kardinal Offishall’s bold comeback or Aysanabee’s powerhouse chops, this summer promises something for all musical palates.
Read on below to discover this season’s best bets, and a couple rumoured releases we’re itching to hear.
Artist: Aysanabee
Album: Edge of the Earth
Release date: June 20
Aysanabee, an Oji-Cree singer-songwriter from Kaministiquia in Northern Ontario, first started writing music after hearing Bob Marley when he was 12. That early exposure to reggae informed what became a uniquely powerful and soulful tone in his voice, a sound that would take him from that small community onto very big things, very quickly. Since releasing his first album, Watin, in 2022, Aysanabee’s won the Juno for alternative album of the year, became the first Indigenous artist to win songwriter of the year and is now on a headlining tour across Canada. His new album, Edge of the Earth, showcases an artist on the ascent, full of confidence and leaning into the momentum as he continues to push his sound and his songwriting forward. From the ethereal, piano-driven reflection on grief on Without You, to the distorted guitar on the rich, anthemic and radio-ready lead single Home, Aysanabee takes the listener through different moods and production styles, all firmly rooted by his ability to write heartfelt lyrics that will leave you in pieces. As he sings on The Way We’re Born: “It′s in the way we’re torn/ Into this world we’re thrown/ It′s in this flesh that′s worn/ It’s in the way we′re born.” — Jesse Kinos-Goodin
Artist: Bambii
Album: Infinity Club II
Release date: June 20
Clear-cut sonic cohesion is not one of Bambii’s preoccupations as a producer; instead she prefers to challenge listeners to discover the throughlines for themselves. Across the 12 tracks of her new EP, Infinity Club II, dancehall toasting meets baile funk horns meet explosive jungle meets turbulent synths, sparking a conversation on the limitless fluidity of electronic music. It’s an exploration that began on the 2024 Juno-winning Infinity Club, and continues throughout the new record. When the Toronto producer, DJ and budding vocalist announced the EP, she said she had “assembled the Avengers,” tapping previous collaborators Aluna, Lady Lykez, Beam and Lamsi once again, but also adding Ravyn Lenae, Scrufizzer, Lyzza, Sadboi, Jessy Lanza, Yaeji, Jeleel! and £Monzo to the mix. Collectively, they bring sounds from Brazil, Suriname, the U.S., the U.K., Nigeria and South Korea to the EP. Jamaica is, as always on a Bambii project, well-represented, in Scrufizzer’s bashment-inspired rapping on Remember, Beam’s loverboy antics on Nsync and Lady Lykez’s dancehall queen bars on Spit. As the record moves between different moods and modes, one thing is clear: the club remains a space for infinite possibilities. — Kelsey Adams
Artist: U.S. Girls
Album: Scratch It
Release date: June 20
Over the past several years, Meg Remy has assembled a tight-knit group of collaborators helping her bring U.S. Girls’ pop-rock melange to life, with synth-forward sounds that lean toward disco and R&B influences on her more recent releases like the Polaris Music Prize longlisted Bless This Mess (2023) and shortlisted Heavy Light (2020). But an experimentalist at heart, Remy doesn’t rely on the same formulas for too long. Her latest album, Scratch It, finds Remy teaming up with a new band, first assembled for a one-time performance in Hot Springs, Ark., which later inspired a 10-day recording session in Nashville. While Remy’s wry and incisive songwriting remains a pillar of U.S. Girls’ output, Scratch It trades in the shimmering disco synths for more country, gospel and folk balladry, all captured live off-the-floor on two-inch tape. But don’t take that as a sign to hop off the dancefloor just yet; Scratch It still very much embodies an undeniable sense of movement and soul, as Remy instructs listeners on opener Like James Said (a nod to one of music’s most dynamic performers, James Brown), “Stretch, move/ Pose, groove.” Nine albums in, U.S. Girls continue to find new and thrilling ways to transform and evolve, always keeping listeners on their toes. — Melody Lau
Artist: Isabella Lovestory
Album: Vanity
Release date: June 27
On her upcoming album, Vanity, Isabella Lovestory is looking past the sheen and sparkle of beauty and artifice to the darkness that lies below the surface. In the title track, a bopping ’80s synth song, she sings “I’m a perfume bottle” in Spanish: “The bottle is beautiful, but what’s inside is toxic — and it smells so good,” she said in a press statement. Many of the songs play with the contradictions between the pristine image we present and what’s buried deep inside. The Honduran Canadian artist is branching out from the neoperreo sound that put her on the map — her 2022 debut album, Amor Hardcore, is a perfect crash course in reggaeton’s grittier cousin — and dabbling in electroclash, Y2K nostalgia, trap and synthwave. While she’s taking bigger risks sonically, she decided to pare back her production team, working with only two producers (Chicken and Kamixlo) as opposed to the five on her first album. The result is a record that is both intimate and larger-than-life, and thrilling top to bottom, as we’ve come to expect from the Latinx pop innovator. — KA
Artist: Penny & the Pits
Album: Liquid Compactor
Release date: June 27
“I spent a lot of time making challenging work that would test both myself and the listener,” Penelope Stevens said, of past projects that include being the bassist/keyboardist in the avant-rock trio Motherhood. “Now, I’m trying to make music that feels good; music that connects the heart to the body.” They’ve really leaned into that ethos with their solo outfit, Penny & the Pits, serving rage wrapped in fiery riffs for an album that will help you let go with joyful abandon. Stevens’s criteria was simple for each of Liquid Compactor‘s 10 tracks: “When I was writing these songs, I imagined my closest femme and queer friends right up front, singing along. If I couldn’t picture them rocking out, then I would set the idea aside. With this album, I’m trying to manifest the heaviness, the intensity and the joy of our lived experiences.” Whether it’s the surf-rock vibe of Pool Party or the full-throttle exorcism of Headcrusher (a song about “trying to blame yourself for someone else’s bad behaviour. But then … refusing to do that anymore and just sending them out to die at sea”) Stevens, along with their live band of Megumi Yoshida, Colleen Collins and Grace Stratton, more than deliver. — Holly Gordon
Artist: Pig Pen
Album: Mental Madness
Release Date: June 27
The Bear actor and chef, Matty Matheson, announced a new hardcore band, Pig Pen, earlier this year with Alexisonfire’s Wade MacNeil on guitar, as well as guitarist Daniel Romano, drummer Ian Romano and bassist Tommy Major. Although the band’s first album arrives in June, they crafted it several years ago, during the pandemic: “We wrote 10 songs in one day and the next day we recorded them,” said Matheson in a press release. Mental Madness addresses the swirling chaos of mental health pitfalls amid clanging drums and fiery guitars. On Problem Mind, Matheson growls as guitars roar and drums accelerate, driving the song forward. And throughout Highway — the track closest to being remotely sing-alongable — he wails about both isolation and togetherness. But it’s on the piercing Heat Wave, where he gives a particularly explosive vocal performance, shouting, “Nobody’s free without breaking laws.”
There are echoes of bands such as Black Flag and Minor Threat in the instrumentation, but it feels like Pig Pen is doing more than just raging: they’re offering a noisy, cathartic outlet to get bodies thrashing in the mosh pit. It’s unabashed, and even though the subject matter isn’t exactly sunny, the adrenaline-pumping rhythms might inspire some intrigue in even the hardcore agnostics. — Natalie Harmsen
Artist: Tami Neilson
Album: Neon Cowgirl
Release date: July 11
While Tami Neilson was raised in Canada and has called New Zealand home for years, the bright lights of Nashville have always featured in her life story. “The Neon Cowgirl, towering over Broadway like the patron saint of heartbreak in downtown Nashville as she smiles coyly over her shoulder in red cowboy boots, watched me grow up,” the singer explained in a press release for an album named after her larger-than-life godmother. From a 16-year-old fan entering the hallowed Ryman Auditorium for the first time, to touring the city with her parents’ family band the Neilsons, to her recent stage debut at the Grand Ole Opry, Neilson has held Nashville close to her heart. So when she planned a five-month trek across the United States with her family, she hoped to introduce her children to the Neon Cowgirl while also fully leaning into her career. But a health crisis arrived just two months before they left, and Neilson had to take the trip slowly and focus on healing — and the beginnings of Neon Cowgirl, an album filled with songs inspired by travelling the country that raised Neilson’s influences, including Patsy Cline and Roy Orbison, took form. Don’t miss one of Canada’s best singers map her musical and emotional upbringing. — HG
Artist: Debby Friday
Album: The Starrr of the Queen of Life
Release date: Aug. 1
On Debby Friday’s follow-up to her 2023 Polaris Prize-winning album, Good Luck, she wants to be a star, but on her own terms. After the win brought more eyes to the Nigerian Canadian artist’s work, she wanted to push herself even harder. While touring, she began to lose her voice after every show: “My body was just giving me signals that I needed a big change,” she shared in a press release. And then, she was diagnosed with stress-induced shingles. Friday realized she was in dire need of a complete overhaul, and the conception of her new album, The Starrr of the Queen of Life, occurred during this period of renewal. As she devoted more time to her personal life, her introspections and revelations became fodder for new music.
Throughout the record, Friday oscillates between extremes, at times soft and coy, at others harsh and direct, but she’s always loved playing around with duality. On the album’s first single, 1/17, Friday is in a trance, her voice gentle and melodic as she sings an ode to her lover. On Lipsync, she’s boldly confident, spitting matter-of-factly over ricocheting beats: “LP 2, I’m ’bout to blow up.” The Starrr of the Queen of Life is predominantly produced by Friday and Australian producer Darcy Baylis, with assistance from Graham Walsh (who worked on Good Luck) and Tayhana. — KA
Artist: Georgia Harmer
Album: Eye of the Storm
Release date: Aug. 15
Many of us know the pain that comes with holding your breath for someone balancing on an emotional precipice, and on the title track for Georgia Harmer’s upcoming album, Eye of the Storm, she deftly captures that fraught moment. “Out of the eye of the storm/ there’s you and I on the shore/ and I hold my breath/ as you breathe at last,” she sings on the opening verse, her voice a bell buoy in the fog of emotion, floating with the easy sway of the guitar and drums. A songwriter with a sharp eye for detail, Harmer has continued to hone her attention to relationships — including with herself — for her sophomore album, Eye of the Storm, tending a nostalgia for early friendships in Can We Be Still, and turning inward for lullaby Little Light. Harmer, niece of beloved singer-songwriter Sarah of the same last name, self-produced the album, and it feels both lived in and well-loved, as she lets in some of the sounds of the spaces she recorded in (“front porches and in backyard studios”). Eye of the Storm is an album to take your time with, which is perfect for the latter half of August, a fallow period before September’s burst of energy arrives. — HG
Artist: Billianne
Album: Modes of Transportation
Release Date: Aug. 15
Billianne’s powerful vocals are electrifying on Modes of Transportation, a debut that is a glittering blend of sugary pop and diaristic folk. Showing off a wisdom and a breathtaking emotionality that stretches far beyond Billianne’s 21 years, there’s something for everyone: Baby Blue is an infectious and sticky breakup song that fans of Olivia Rodrigo will appreciate thanks to its candid lyrics, while the slow banjo burner Jessie’s Comet evokes Kacey Musgraves’s hypnotic songwriting, complete with lush strings as Billianne sings about missing a friend. Themes spanning crushes, the growing pains of early adulthood and more gush through each track like a river, one that eventually overflows with Billianne’s vocals soaring and radiating across choruses and bridges with ease. Each moment is glued to the next like pictures in a scrapbook, with plenty of charm and even more heart. “It’s called Modes of Transportation because as I entered the music industry, I was suddenly flying on planes for the first time, taking trains and learning to drive on the highway,” Billianne shared on Instagram. “The different ‘modes’ brought me to many amazing places like writing sessions, first tours, friends I haven’t seen in a while, family I’d never met and memories that I’ll cherish forever.” — NH
Artist: Kathleen Edwards
Album: Billionaire
Release date: Aug. 22
As soon as the electric guitar hits on lead single Say Goodbye, Tell No One, you know Kathleen Edwards is back. The Americana singer-songwriter from Ottawa has only released one album of original material since 2012’s Polaris shortlisted record, Voyageur, having stepped away from the industry entirely in 2014 to run her cafe, Quitters. Her 2020 album, Total Freedom, dropped in the first year of the pandemic and didn’t get the space it needed to breathe. But Billionaire is Edwards’s time: co-produced by alt-country star Jason Isbell and Nashville producer Gena Johnson (Kacey Musgraves, Brandi Carlile), it pulls together the singer-songwriter’s wit, humour and vulnerability in the familiar way that still makes new generations of songwriters cover her material. “She loves to rock, have fun and nerd out on guitar tones, which both Jason and I love to do as well,” Johnson said via press release. Add her often acerbic, always genuine lyrics, and you have a can’t-miss album. — HG
Artist: The Beaches
Album: No Hard Feelings
Release date: Aug. 29
A decade into their career, the Beaches experienced their biggest breakthrough yet with 2023’s Blame My Ex and its hit song, Blame Brett. Their upcoming third album, No Hard Feelings, builds on that recent success, churning out more pop-rock anthems that perfectly soundtrack 20-something adulthood. From the debaucherous nights out that turn into mornings (Last Girls at the Party) to surviving messy relationships (Did I Say Too Much), the Toronto quartet are still navigating life lessons, sometimes the hard way but perhaps learning to take the blame themselves now. With another round of infectious crowd-pleasing tracks, the Beaches are primed to take their music to the next level as they embark on a North American tour this fall that will culminate in the band’s first headlining arena shows. — ML
Artist: Kardinal Offishall
Album: Everyday, Sometimes
Release Date: August
Rapper Kardinal Offishall hasn’t released music since 2019, but he’s had a good excuse, due to keeping busy as a global A&R executive at Def Jam Records and acting as a judge on Canada’s Got Talent. He makes a boisterous, classic Kardi return on Let Em Out, the lead single from his upcoming EP, Everyday, Sometimes. Spitting lyrics about honouring his roots, he glides along a pulsating beat filled with “whoops” while showcasing his signature Patois-filled flow. “I’ve spent years creating sounds that move me, that disrupt the system, that remind me why I fell in love with hip-hop in the first place,” he shared in a press release. “It’s the raw, unfiltered kind — the kind that doesn’t beg for approval from anybody.” Expect that bold energy in spades on the project, the kind that can only be delivered by one of Canada’s genre-bending hip-hop trailblazers. — NH
Rumoured releases and TBAs
Artist: Mac DeMarco
Album: TBA
Release date: August
Never one to do things by the book, indie singer-songwriter Mac DeMarco announced 2025 tour dates without confirming a date or title for his upcoming album. Now, he’s gearing up for the follow up record to 2023’s Five Easy Hot Dogs and One Wayne G, which he began working on in 2024. — NH
Artist: Afternoon Bike Ride
Album: TBA
Release date: TBA
Montreal indie pop/folk band Afternoon Bike Ride’s last album, Glossover, dropped in 2023 and two years later, they’re gearing up for the followup. The first single, the dreamy Oh No! spotlights soft vocals and serene guitar, giving a light taste of what’s to come on the project. — NH
