Illustration by Chantelle Dorafshani
The sound of summer 2025 is filled with fresh starts, new collaborations, reunions and second chances. No matter what genres you’re into, the sound of regeneration is waiting for you.
Neil Young performs in Los Angeles in April.Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Neil Young and the Chrome Hearts – Talkin to the Trees (June 13, Other Shoe/Reprise): It feels funny to talk about a “debut” by Neil Young in 2025, but that’s exactly what this is: the debut album explicitly featuring his backing band Chrome Hearts. Not to say that they’re unfamiliar co-stars: Most members were part of Young’s slightly less recently established backing band Promise of the Real, and they’re joined by Spooner Oldham, an organist who’s played with Neil Young on and off for nearly five decades. Early singles Big Change and Let’s Roll Again are loud, crunchy and pushing for change.
Aysanabee – Edge of the Earth (June 20, Ishkodé Records): Aysanabee has been a staple of Canadian rock radio since his debut LP Watin and follow-up EP Here and Now came out in 2022 and 2023 respectively, bringing with them inescapable songs, including Nomads and Somebody Else. With his sophomore LP on the horizon, the Oji-Cree musician is poised to become a household name, if songs such as Home and the title track get the listeners they deserve.
BAMBII – Infinity Club II (June 20, Because Music): The Jamaican-Canadian producer BAMBII’s genre-hopping club music has already been rewarded with the Juno for electronic album of the year and a slot on the Polaris Music Prize shortlist. The follow-up to her breakthrough Infinity Club is a collaborative affair, with contributions from Grammy Award-winning rapper-singer-songwriter BEAM, Hamilton electronic artist Jessy Lanza, rising Toronto musician SadBoi and more.
Danielle Haim of Haim performs during the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in April.Amy Harris/The Associated Press
Haim – I Quit (June 20, Polydor/Columbia): The rollout for the Los Angeles-based Haim sisters’ fourth album has been rife with recreations of early-2000s paparazzi photos, but the band remains firmly indebted to the sounds of eighties and nineties radio pop. Few bands look like they have as much fun as Haim do across each album cycle, and they’re inviting you back into the party.
Lorde – Virgin (June 27, Republic/Universal): In 2022, after her subdued album Solar Power drew mixed reviews, the New Zealand pop star Lorde told a London crowd that she was ready to make bangers again: “I’m getting nearer to that zone again, where all I’m going to write is those sort of songs for us all to dance to, and to feel in our hearts.” New single What Was That shows she’s still got it. We’re ready for more.
Pig Pen is fronted by celebrity chef Matty Matheson.Patrick Moore/Supplied
Pig Pen – Mental Madness (June 27, Flatspot): Haters will probably call Pig Pen a gimmick band with celebrity chef Matty Matheson at the mic, but he comes by his punk bona fides honestly. Before he became a beloved celebrity chef and the biggest goofball on The Bear, he was executive chef at Toronto’s Parts & Labour, a restaurant that often hosted raucous punk shows in its basement. The hard-core band’s members on the debut album include Southern Ontario scene veterans Wade MacNeil of Alexisonfire and Daniel Romano, the Attack in Black member turned musical jack-of-all-trades.
Clipse – Let God Sort Em Out (July 11, Roc Nation): One of rap’s best duos returns in July more than 15 years after their last album. While Pusha T spent the interim surging to hip hop’s high echelons, striding into this year’s Met Gala in a custom Louis Vuitton suit, his brother No Malice lived a quieter life. Their flows are intertwining once again on Let God Sort Em Out, produced by long-time accomplice Pharrell and apparently recorded at the home base of another collaborator: Louis Vuitton headquarters in Paris.
Mac DeMarco – not-yet-titled (August, Mac’s Record Label): The Edmonton-raised slacker-slash-songwriter announced a new album last April, scheduled for an August release. Depending on how you count his albums, it’ll be somewhere between the sixth and tenth full-length for the indie-rock musician, whose songs routinely rack up hundreds of millions of streams. Will he also reveal his latest home address at the end of the new album, as he did a decade ago on Another One?
Nourished by Time – The Passionate Ones (Aug. 22, XL): The Baltimore musician otherwise known as Marcus Brown put out one of the best debuts of 2023 with Erotic Probiotic 2, synthesizing R&B with electronic and bedroom-pop influences. His sophomore album promises to be more expansive: His team calls it “a twelve-track catharsis, howled from the underbelly of late-stage capitalism, a blueprint for building your own altar in the ruins of the American Dream.”
Leandra Earl, Kylie Miller, Jordan Miller and Eliza Enman-McDaniel of The Beaches won Group of the Year at the Juno Awards in March.Andrew Chin/Getty Images
The Beaches – No Hard Feelings (Aug. 29, AWAL): Dropped by long-time label Universal Music Canada as the world crawled out of COVID-19 lockdown, Toronto rock band the Beaches went their own way – and found global acclaim with the song Blame Brett and the album Blame My Ex. They’re following those up with No Hard Feelings, an album of vulnerable tracks often disguised as bangers.
