New & Upcoming Canadian Album Releases: Country Phenom Orville Peck Returns, Shawn Mendes, Dan Mangan Announce New Albums

Orville Peck has been grabbing attention with Stampede leading into the Canadian long weekend. His third album, it is the first Peck is releasing via Warner, the label he left Columbia Records for earlier this year. It includes his duet with Willie Nelson on a cover of “Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond of Each Other,” a song originally released in 1981 by Latin country artist Ned Sublette and covered by Nelson in 2006.

Stay tuned for an interview with Peck on the making of the album coming to Billboard Canada.

Some notable Canadian artists recently announced release dates for their next albums. Topping that list is pop heartthrob Shawn Mendes, whose new record, Shawn, arrives on Oct. 18. That marks the end of a long wait for his multitude of fans, as his previous album, Wonder came out in 2020, followed by a break to take care of his mental health. Shawn, Mendes' fifth studio album, was written and co-produced by Mendes, along with collaborators Scott Harris, Mike Sabath, Nate Mercereau and Eddie Benjamin, with additional songs co-written by Amy Allen and Ethan Gruska. View a trailer here.

Vancouver singer-songwriter Dan Mangan has revealed details of his new album, out on Aug. 30. The Being Elsewhere Mix CD reflects Mangan's love of the Mix CD tradition, and is an eclectic mix of reimagined versions of fan-favourites, covers of songs by Bob Dylan, Damien Jurado and the Lumineers, and new songs like "Call Me Up High." Mangan explains that "This collection of music is exciting to me because it lives outside the confined pressures of album cohesion. The vision is to embrace the chaos of my differing creative impulses and let them breathe together.” The record follows on from his Juno-nominated, Polaris Music Prize shortlisted album Being Somewhere.

Another significant new album announcement comes from Nap Eyes, along with the news that they have signed to highly-regarded Toronto indie label Paper Bag Records. The Halifax rock band's fifth album, The Neon Gate, comes out on Oct. 18. Expect some weighty lyrical reflections, given a label press release promising that "it reveals classic touchstones (the uneasy interplay of physics and philosophy, perambulatory meditations, self-interrogating soliloquies, apertures of surreality, video games), but also evidence of divergent impulses toward nonlinear abstraction and long form improvisational composition (resulting in their most discursive, deconstructed, and deliquescent songs to date) and narrative and lyric formality."

Here is the full album releases calendar.

July

26: Electric Religious , The Taste (Red Music Rising)

26: Respire, Hiraeth

26: Clothesline From Hell, Soon We’ll All Be Smoking

26: Doug Wilde, The Sixth Dimension

26: Wild Rivers, Never Better (Nettwerk Music Group)

26: The Pursuit of Happiness, The Wonderful World of the Pursuit of Happiness -reissue (Record Record Label)

26: The Killjoys, Starry -reissue (Record Record Label)

26: Sinclaire, A ttention (Record Record Label)

26: Shallow North Dakota, Auto Body Crusher reissue (Record Record Label)

31: Freeze the Fall, Thrones

August

1: Alex Southey, Entertainers Bring May Flowers Collection

2: Orville Peck, Stampede

2: Michael Zuzek, Everest

9: Fucked Up, Another Day

9: Adonis Boss, Wait Till Summer EP (Moonshine Music)

16: KROY, Militia

16: Dee Holt, loving in the dark

16: Bella White, Five For Silver (Rounder)

16: Christopher Parnis, Everything You Could Be

16: Lexxicon, Pink Fraternity

23: The Secret Beach, We Were Born Here, What's Your Excuse? (Victory Pool)

23: Colin James, Chasing The Sun (Stony Plain)

23: Hillsboro, White Trash

23: Sam Weber, Clear + Plain

23: Mike Evin, Something Stirs When You Sing

23: Michael Cloud Duguay, Succeeder (Watch That Ends The Night)

28: Ghostkeeper, Cipayak Joy (Victory Pool Records)

28: Quatuor Bozzini / junctQín keyboard collective4/ Rebecca Bruton/Jason Doell, a root or mirror, blossom, madder, cracks; together, (Collection QB)

30: The Sound of Eddy, Ladders (Ensoul Records)

30: Dan Mangan, Being Elsewhere Mix CD

September

6 : Hansom Ēli, Sip (The Vault)

6: Cuff The Duke, Breaking Dawn (Cardinal Records)

6: Michael Scott Dawson, The Tinnitus Chorus (We Are Busy Bodies)

6: Allison Daniels, W

6: Thélonius García, Marche Nocturne (night walk)

6: SUUNS, The Breaks (Secret City)

6: Mo Kenney, From Nowhere

9: ASKO, S/T (Dine Alone)

13: Colin Stetson, The love it took to leave you (Envision Records)

13: The Fretless, Glasswing (Birthday Cake)

13: Sarah Davachi, The Head As Form’d In The Crier’s Choir ( Late Music)

13: The Devil's Sons, Now and at the Hour of Death

13: Joel Plaskett, One Real Reveal

13: Snotty Nose Rez Kids, Red Future

16: The Meringues, Pavlova's Dog

19: ASKO, S/T (Dine Alone Records)

20: Golden Feather, Release

20: Sunset Rubdown, Always Happy to Explode

20: Alex Henry Foster, A Measure of Shape and Sounds (Hopeful Tragedy)

20: Molly Annelle, Junebug (604 Records)

20: Goldie Boutilier, The Actress

20: Nelly Furtado , 7

27: Leif Vollebekk, Revelation (Secret City Records)

27: Sharon, Lois & Bram, Elephant Show Stoppers! (Elephant Records Inc./Red Brick Songs)

27: Julian Taylor Pathways (Howling Turtle, Inc.)

27: Tea Fannie, It's All Love

27: Andy Colonico, Daytime Broker

27: Mustafa, Dunya(Arts & Crafts)

27: Contrived, Addicted to Sadness (LHM Records)

27: Michael Bernard Fitzgerald, Horizon Lines

October

4: Mia Kelly, To Be Clear

4: Devarrow, Heart Shaped Rock (Paper Bag Records)

4: Christo Graham, Music For Horses (We Are Busy Bodies)

4: The Low Sixes, The Oshawa Tree ( Forge Again Records)

11: Klô Pelgag, Abracadabra (Secret City Records)

11: The August Arrival, Hillsides

11: Jadea Kelly, Weather Girl

18: Twin Flames, Hugging the Cactus

18: The Free Label , Songs for Sienna (Westwood Recordings)

18: Nap Eyes, The Neon Gate (Paper Bag Records)

18: Shawn Mendes, Shawn

25: Victime, En conversation avec (Mothland)

November

1: Jeremie Albino, Our Time in the Sun ( Good People Record Co./Easy Eye Sound)

1: Sarah Neufeld / Richard Reed Parry / Rebecca Foon, First Sounds (One Little Independent/Envision Records)

8: The Tragically Hip, Up To Here (box set)

8: We Are Wolves, title TBA

15: Alvvays, S/T -10th anniversary vinyl only reissue

December

5: Carmen Braden, A Hard Light