Toronto-based singer-songwriter Rachel Hickey has announced the forthcoming release of her debut album, to be celebrated with a release party at The Painted Lady on Ossington on June 1. Named after the John Keats poem, The Eve of St. Agnes arrives on May 29. It follows the Ontario-raised musician's 2022 sophomore EP, So Long — which was featured in Exclaim!'s Staff Picks — and features a handful of songs Hickey has released over the last year, including "Back on Track" and "Feet on Fire." "This album has been four years in the making," the artist wrote on Instagram. "It's been hard to be so ..read more

Ryan Hemsworth and Giraffage have detailed their second album as Bodysync. The duo will share NUTTY on June 28 via their Buddies Inc. imprint. Following 2022 debut Radio Active (which we're hoping you didn't miss that year), the 12-song NUTTY is, per the duo, "dance music by fans of DIY punk and Y2K pop, with a healthy dose of absurdity." The album includes a lone collaboration with Daniela Andrade. "Keeping things a little nutty has just been like, the mantra," the two explain of the album. "The discourse in electronic music is so enveloping and polarizing. We just choose to focus on our le ..read more

Shoegaze is back, baby! While it never really went anywhere, the genre certainly has found a broader cultural renaissance of sorts on TikTok, where Zoomers are embracing material from both its MBV Loveless days of yore and new music being created by an active community of young artists — like San Francisco's Wisp, who just released her debut EP, Pandora (featuring the viral hit "Your face"), last month. That same musician born Natalie R. Yu has now gone viral again, but this time for fans — and music nerds eager to live in a world where there's basic genre literacy — being outraged by her ge ..read more

As finished as we hope the exceedingly messy Drake vs. Kendrick Lamar beef is, the narratives it has produced wage on and, as if Toronto hadn't been dragged into the battle enough, the city has now fallen victim to claims that its artists have no musical identity.  In trying to pinpoint a winner of the weeks-long back-and-forth, DJ Ebro said on his Apple Music show Rap Life Review that Drake lost in part because he doesn't have a regional sound to fall back on in the same way Kendrick does Compton. "Geography is important. The map and the areas you own, when it comes time for somebody t ..read more

Fresh off of announcing her debut album Born in the Wild, Tems has revealed plans for a world tour behind the project. Her time in North America later this year will include a trio of Canadian concerts in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. The Afrobeats/R&B artist will hit the road starting next month in the UK and Europe. She'll begin the North American leg on August 22 in Miami, FL, making her first venture into Canada the following month to perform at Toronto's History on September 7. Shortly thereafter, Tems has a Montreal show at L'Olympia on September 11, and makes her final Canadian ..read more

As Avril Lavigne enters the "legacy artist" stage of her career, the musician has announced her first-ever best-of compilation. The career-spanning Greatest Hits is out June 21, the same day as vinyl pressings of four of her albums. The compilation contains 20 songs from throughout her career, spanning from cuts from her 2002 debut Let Go (like "Sk8er Boi and "Complicated," of course) through to tracks from 2022's Love Sux (with guest appearances from Yungblud, Machine Gun Kelly and blackbear). Her 2024 tour had already been dubbed a Greatest Hits Tour, so it's only fitting that there's an a ..read more

A new series of live-action Lord of the Rings films will be led by a movie centred on Andy Serkis' Gollum. Multiple outlets report that the new LOTR films are "now in the early stages of script development," per Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav.  Making the announcement during an earnings conference call today, Zaslav added that the films will "explore storylines yet to be told" and that the studio "[anticipates] releasing in 2026." A subsequent press release reveals that the first film currently has the working title Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum. Serkis will both direc ..read more

Just over two months after the death of guitarist Wayne Kramer, MC5 drummer Dennis "Machinegun" Thompson has died. He was 75. As The Detroit Free Press reports, the last surviving member of the influential Detroit proto-punk band died at MediLodge of Taylor, where he was in rehabilitation following a heart attack last month. April also saw MC5 announced as one of this year's inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame alongside the likes of Cher, Dave Matthews Band and A Tribe Called Quest.  Thompson had still been at Henry Ford Wyandotte Hospital during the initial recovery from his ..read more

beabadoobee is readying her third album. This Is How Tomorrow Moves is coming on August 16 via Dirty Hit. The record was produced by Rick Rubin and recorded in his iconic Shangri-La studio. She's led the announcement with the new song "Take a Bite" — watch the music video below. "I love this album," beabadoobee said via press release. "I feel like it's helped me so much more than anything else has in navigating this new era, this new understanding of where I'm at. I guess it's about becoming a woman." This Is How Tomorrow Moves follows beabadoobee's and Laufey's Exclaim! Staff Picked collabo ..read more

BIG|BRAVE have expanded their 2024 tour plans behind A Chaos of Flowers, mapping out a slate of North American performances. Currently on the road through Europe and the UK, the Montreal outfit will embark on a 20-date North American run this August. The trek kicks off in their home city on August 2 at Bar Le Ritz PDB, with the only other Canadian date bringing them to Toronto's Garrison on August 3. New North American dates will feature support from Spiritual Poison, the ambient project of Primitive Man's Ethan McCarthy). You can find BIG|BRAVE's complete 2024 tour itinerary below. Read Exc ..read more