This latest crop of artists includes everything from a Scottish soul siren, to a punk rock trio from So-Cal, to a Brooklyn by way of Bristol singer-songwriter. These artists may be new to your rotation, but they’re well worth adding to your soundtrack. Enjoy!
BROOKE COMBE
One of the hottest new singers out of the UK, Brooke Combe had a breakout year in 2025. Among other things, she released her full-length debut, Dancing at the Edge of the World, and opened for Benson Boone in the US. Her latest single “Tears Don’t Lie” is simultaneously catchy and filled with melancholy. “[It’s] a song that explores the truth that surfaces after a relationship falls apart,” explains Combe. “Sort of like the moment grief, self-awareness and reality meet. You’re suddenly awake and won’t lose yourself to love again.”
Combe grew up in Scotland, not far from Edinburgh. Although she describes her work as “vintage styled soul,” her musical influences were diverse — and they include The Beatles. “[I] absolutely love the Fab four,” she says. “It wasn’t until I got a bit older [that] I fell in love [with them]. Those lads — especially John [Lennon]— never forgot to be themselves. Whether the world turned on them or not. It’s refreshing to look back and see artists who weren’t afraid to be different or evolve without worrying about pleasing everyone. In a world where everyone follows trends, it’s nice to see people who weren’t sheep.”
Combe will spend much of this year touring and is even planning to join Lenny Kravitz for a show in London this August. She is also at work on her sophomore album. “I would definitely say it’s a bit of a departure,” she says of the new disc. “If anything, album one was probably more experimental than album two… Nothing has been overthought and it’s fair to say it’s taken more of a cohesive direction as a whole piece.”
When asked if there was one woman in her life who influenced her the most, she names someone close to home. “My Mum has probably been [my] biggest inspiration,” Combe tells BUST. “She was a single Mum when I was starting high school and always worked incredibly hard to give my brother and I the best life possible. Her work ethic is something I have tried to adopt in my own life.”
GIRL TONES
Fans of Wet Leg would do well to check out Girl Tones, a new duo originally from Kentucky. Comprised of sisters Kenzie and Laila, the Tones play high energy alternative rock. You wouldn’t know it from their current work but the sisters are classically trained. Somewhere along the line, however, Kenzie traded her cello for a guitar and Laila swapped her piano for drums.
In January, Girl Tones released the single “Volcano” — two and a half minutes of infectious pop-rock with New Wave undercurrents. More recently, they unveiled “Stubborn Mouth,” which is in the same vein but even better. “This song is a reflection on being headstrong,” states the duo. “And how [that] can ultimately deteriorate your own well-being and [that of] others.”
Girl Tones is releasing these singles as a way of teasing their debut album which is expected later this year. In the meantime, they will be spending much of the summer on tour. They have already supported an impressive list of artists including Silversun Pickups, The Velveteers, Peter McPoland and fellow Kentucky band Cage the Elephant. In fact, Brad Shultz — Cage’s frontman — produced their first singles and issued them via his label Parallel Vision.
FENNE LILY
Fenne Lily is a singer-songwriter in the classic sense: her music weds introspective lyrics to guitars that are by turns haunting and hummable. Though she’s currently based in New York City, Lily was born in Dorset, England and grew up in Bristol. I asked her what it was like moving to Gotham from such a rural place.
“It couldn’t be more different, but different was what I was going for,” she replies. “I wanted to see what shape I’d take if I wasn’t being reminded where I came from. I like feeling like a visitor, I like being in a place that seems to reset overnight, I like being around people who came here looking for something… I do sometimes miss the stillness of back home, and sometimes I wonder how people survive long term in an environment that seems to attack every sense and resource. But [NYC is] full of life. I don’t have to wonder ‘what’s happening out there’ [because] I can see it for myself.”
Lily released her first album, On Hold, back in 2018. Since then, she has issued two more studio efforts, played festivals galore and supported Lucy Dacus on tour. Her fourth album, Win-Win, is due out in October and was preceded by the beautiful single “Uh-Huh.” “It tracks the period after the end of a relationship, when you’re ready to love someone again but feeling residual pain from the time before,” she says of the tune. “Every breakup has felt like it’ll hurt forever but it’s always led me to something different, often better… This [song] changed a lot from writing to recording. It felt from the start like it leaned more country than other songs I’ve written though, and that didn’t change. Like I’d absorbed some of the America I live in now.”
Lily is refreshingly open. She says she underwent a “total crisis of confidence” when she started making Win-Win. “I had some reckoning to do,” she explains. “My relationship ended, I came off a string of tours and [I] was suddenly left more alone than I’d been in years. I didn’t feel like I had anything to hold onto. I was heartbroken in the summer, which is the weirdest time to be sad. I was missing my family back home and really wanting to be somewhere else. But I kept writing, and I kept running, and I kept talking to my parents and my friends and strangers. And after a while I could go outside without crying at a bodega.”
DRAMA DOLLS
Drama Dolls is a Los Angeles based trio that plays old-school punk rock. Their inspirations range from The Ramones and The Go-Gos to Hole. The band is comprised of Egg on lead vocals and guitar, Scrambles on drums and vocals, and Mama T on bass and vocals.
At the moment, the Dolls are recording their sophomore album. They offered us a teaser in April with the track “Robot,” two minutes and change of squealing guitars and screeched vocals directed at Dave — not this writer but the character from the classic Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey. “This is a song about not giving up when you’re getting sucked in by the everyday grind,” states the band.
Other titles in the Drama Dolls catalog include “I Hate Your Face,” “Sometimes You Gotta Be A Bitch,” “Stop Fucking with Me” (my favorite) and “You’re Not the Boss of Me.” The latter song was actually used in the premiere of Hulu’s Malcolm in the Middle!
MARCI
Her real name is actually Marta Cikojevic — but for her solo work, she’s known simply as Marci. She’s a member of TOPS, the popular alt-pop band based in Montreal. But her work as Marci leans more toward sophisticated dance-pop. She released her self-titled debut in 2022 and is planning to unveil her sophomore set — Mask Lady and the Late Night Girl — in August.
Between her two solo albums, Marci moved from Montreal to LA. The title of her new album was inspired by an interaction she had in Hollywood with a woman who she would see walking around with a mask that covered her entire face. One night, Marci worked up the courage to approach this mystery woman. “Oh my God, you’re Mask Lady!” she said. “I think you’re amazing.” To which the woman replied, “[And] you’re Late Night Girl” (because she often saw Marci coming home from a party at night). The duality between those two personas — Masked Lady and Late Night Girl — wound up informing the new album.
Marci worked with her TOPS bandmate David Carriere on Masked Lady and the Late Night Girl. But this is not a TOPS record. When asked how her solo work differs from her work with that band, Marci replies, “When I work on TOPS, I’d say it’s more like leg day. And when I’m working on Marci, I’m working on my core. It’s similar but with Marci I get to show off my six pack.” Highlights of the new disc include the upbeat opening track “Stars Are Fake” as well as slightly more downbeat “Liquid Heartbeat.”
Marci’s influences as a solo artist range from Savage Garden to Ke$ha. But she also has a soft spot for late 80s hair-metal! “I’m obsessed with how music from that era is produced,” she confirms. “Amazing guitar tones. Really well written songs with huge hooks and choruses. I’d say Def Leppard’s Hysteria is one of the best.”
