Australian pop sensation Ruel has announced the release of his long-awaited second album, Kicking My Feet, arriving October 17 via Giant Music. The record is now available for pre-order. Alongside the news, Ruel dropped a new single, “The Suburbs”, a dreamy, emotionally rich track crafted with some of the industry’s top hitmakers.
Ruel premiered the single yesterday during a takeover of Apple Music Radio’s new Los Angeles studio, where he also unveiled two unreleased songs and officially confirmed the album.
“The Suburbs” was co-written by Ruel with Fran Hall (Charli XCX, Kelly Clarkson), M-Phazes (Demi Lovato, Madonna), Chelsea Lena (Sabrina Carpenter, Joji), and Elias Danielsen. The song reflects on intimacy and imagining a simpler life with someone you love, with lyrics that reveal a vulnerable, more personal side of Ruel’s artistry.
“It’s been pretty daunting to offer up this level of honesty in my songwriting,” Ruel shared, “but seeing the way it’s already connected so personally with fans has calmed my ‘pre-album’ nerves in a huge way.”
The single follows “I Can Die Now”, released just last month, which debuted on MTV in New York’s Times Square and quickly surpassed a million streams. The track earned praise from critics worldwide, with Rolling Stone describing it as capturing “an all-encompassing love” with a “propulsive bass line” and “thudding percussion.”
Kicking My Feet marks a new era for Ruel—creatively freer, emotionally layered, and sonically expansive. After relocating from Sydney to Los Angeles and signing with Giant Music, he wrote over 200 songs before finalizing the album’s track list. Collaborators include Julian Bunetta (Sabrina Carpenter, One Direction), Joel Little (Taylor Swift, Gracie Abrams), Kenny Beats (Dominic Fike, Ed Sheeran), Dan Wilson (Adele, Taylor Swift, Chris Stapleton), and longtime partner M-Phazes.
The result is a bold, genre-blurring collection that blends pop, alternative, and R&B, cementing Ruel’s evolution as both an artist and a storyteller.
