16 September 2025
Here's how it works: The Recent Releases chart brings together critical reaction to new albums from more than 50 sources worldwide. It's updated daily. Albums qualify with 5 reviews, and drop out after 6 weeks into the longer timespan charts.
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Self-produced album from the Tennessee garage punk artist noted for his profilic singles output
7.0
Surprisingly well sequenced, Fall closes with its longest song, “There Is No Sun” (3:49), where the chorus bursts open like a 1967 Liverpool summer dawn. Reatard’s urges are old-school, which also can mean classic Read Review
Every now and then you come across an album that makes you say, without hesitation, this is going to be—or at least, ought to be—huge. Watch Me Fall is one of those albums. Read Review
A taut, sinewy masterclass Read Review
Reatard may not be for everyone's taste, and some tracks do find him coasting along, but it's an album bursting with confidence and energy. Read Review
He has found his musical voice on Watch Me Fall, and while it may not be the best album of 2009, it’s certainly one of the most enjoyable. Read Review
Neither a reinvention nor a holding pattern for Reatard-- walking the line between them is tricky, but he continues to make doing so look easy Read Review
There’s a weakness to this stinging hoard of glam tragicomedies. For all its coherence musically and in the persona presented by Reatard, Watch Me Fall doesn’t have any sort of arc as an album Read Review
There isn't an actual bad track on the disc: some numbers pack lyrical refrains and hooks that pierce the brain, but even the ones that don't have an interesting musical flourish or two. Read Review
Leaves something of the garage-punk edginess behind, and replaces it with ironically happy music, and an altogether more mature feeling Read Review
There's a case to be made that when you've heard one you've heard 'em all. In practice it's like opening a packet of Haribo - before you know it you're a dozen down Read Review
It’s an acute exercise in power-pop, with Reatard’s Cheap Trick fancies making for a helter- skelter burst of enthusiastic songs with a knockabout charm to them. Read Review
Print edition only
Jay Reatard: Watch Me Fall
The Beths Straight Line Was A Lie
They’ve made their most mature, most incisive album yet. Not reinvention. Continuance. The long way round, mapped with clarity Dork
Baxter Dury Allbarone
Allbarone is the next destination for Dury as an experimental artist; he’s successfully been able to capture something new with his twist on hyperpop. The result is an intriguing effort that catapults him into the future realms of pop Beats Per Minute
Allbarone is Baxter Dury’s most hypnotic and groovy record yet, fusing his sardonic wit with club-ready beats. Distinct, contemporary, and utterly Dury, the artist’s ninth album proves he’s far from running out of ideas Northern Transmissions
Jade That's Showbiz Baby!
Clearly learning from her time in a supergroup, JADE’s debut — her first exercising of creative control — is as clear-headed and funny as you’d expect from a veteran Northern Transmissions
The chameleonic former Little Mix member, ever-captivating as she shapeshifts through park ’n bark ballads and synthy, up-tempo dance music, goes big on her solo debut Paste Magazine
Maruja Pain To Power
The Manchester quartet’s long-awaited debut album is a feral and loving atmosphere calling attention to world crises. The songs are overwhelming but never threadbare, packed with colossal brass, elastic diatribes, and tourniquet rhythms Paste Magazine
Big Thief Double Infinity
A kaleidoscopic view on 60s-inspired psychedelic, rock/country-tinged folk music Sputnik Music (staff)
Saint Etienne International
Though hardly a crippling disappointment, Saint Etienne’s reported final album is a far-cry from their superior earlier work Spectrum Culture
Ed Sheeran Play
Sheeran’s career opened the door to a deluge of cack The Arts Desk
Shame Cutthroat
The rawness of the album, which compliments their live sound exponentially, comes from the throw away lyricism and the manner of Steen’s animated vocal delivery Clash
Gruff Rhys Dim Probs
Dim Probs engages with deeply rooted truths. Print edition only Record Collector
What may be lost slightly in translation is mitigated by the musicality of the vocal tones, with Cate Le Bon and H Hawkline H adding a plaintive backing chorus on "Pan Ddaw'r Haul I Fore". Print edition only Uncut
Even with zero knowledge of what is going on lyrically, these songs are often beautifully evocative. Print edition only Mojo
While ‘Dim Probs’, on initial listens, may not appear the most substantial addition to Rhys’ work, it is nevertheless a relaxed (and relaxing) thing of warm humanity and beauty that, in the long run, may be more durable than much of his more lavish and accessible outputs Clash
Former Super Furry Animals man celebrates the Welsh language while taking in rich influences and instrumentation from countries far and wide musicOMH
Since we've been around, that is. So, the highest-rated albums from the past twelve years or so. Rankings are calculated to two decimal places.
Kendrick Lamar To Pimp A Butterfly
Fiona Apple Fetch The Bolt Cutters
Kendrick Lamar Damn.
D'Angelo And The Vanguard Black Messiah
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds Ghosteen
Spiritbox Tsunami Sea
Self Esteem Prioritise Pleasure
Bob Dylan Rough and Rowdy Ways
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds Skeleton Tree
Frank Ocean Channel Orange