2 November 2024
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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Album number ten from the New York big-selling rapper, with a host of guests including Kendrick Lamar, Mariah Carey, Anderson Paak, Q-Tip, Rick Ross and Mary J. Blige
6.3
Overall, watching rap’s perennial showstopper exhibit superior studio generalship with artists of the past and present adds to the argument that E.L.E 2 may be the unparalleled hip-hop project of 2020 Read Review
The animated New York juggernaut reseats himself at hip-hop's top table with this intricate and impeccably produced sequel to his 1998 blockbuster Read Review
It’s undeniable, to some extent: Extinction Level Event 2 is just too ambitious for its own good. Yet, for all the lazy sequels and cash-ins in a genre rife with them, it’s hard to fault Busta Rhymes for striving a bit too hard to go that extra mile Read Review
The 22-track set finds Busta delivering his time-tested bombastic flows over old-school East Coast production and wrangling in a dizzying number of big-name guests to help out Read Review
Some of the individual tracks on this album are excellent, but the overall density, mish mash of styles and winding narrative contribute to a sense of conflict and confusion that leaves a sour taste Read Review
A bloated album, at times a hit but more often a miss Read Review
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Mount Eerie Night Palace
It’s an album that is as broken as it is beautiful, a balance that Elverum appears to be gleefully embracing. Print edition only Uncut
On Night Palace, Phil Elverum continues to muddy the idea of a musical identity, sounding closer to work he's released as The Microphones The Skinny
Phil Elverum seems to have made peace with impermanence on his latest, a sprawling 26-track double album Paste Magazine
Night Palace could easily be defined as Elverum’s wisest release. It contains the breadth of a career and of a life spent in dedication to compatible wavelengths, of sounds in the new. The Line Of Best Fit
The album defies easy categorization, which ultimately offers a welcome challenge Slant Magazine
Phil Elverum has long been the master of flowing journeys into the mind’s eye, and with Night Palace, a record of such substance that it takes a few listens to really make sense he’s produced one of his best yet Far Out
Fionn Regan O AVALANCHE
Realistically, this album can only ever be consumed as one, as very few tracks are individual enough to be enjoyed in isolation. Instead, this record is one large piece of emotive sound, which is great to listen to but exists in its best form in the confines of the record Far Out
The Co Wicklow musician’s seventh album is simply a beautiful piece of work The Irish Times
A little bit of beautifully bottled unshine, designed to keep the winter blues far away musicOMH
It’s cinematic and magical and stands as some of Fionn’s most captivating and compelling work to date Clash
Tyler, The Creator Chromakopia
An uncompromising honesty lies within this snapshot of an artist willing to share his chaos musicOMH
The Cure Songs Of A Lost World
Sixteen years after their last album, Robert Smith & co. return at their own glacial pace. Sounding regal, weary, and deliciously slow, they grapple with mortality and doubt as only they could Pitchfork
Soccer Mommy Evergreen
Sophie Allison’s fourth album is steeped in a loneliness darker than that of her youth, pairing raw reflections on grief with the most laid-back, pastoral music of her career Pitchfork
On his seventh album, Tyler is both mask-on and mask-off. It’s an electric, revealing, and perennially odd journey back into his aging psyche Pitchfork
Soccer Mommy wrestles with profound loss on her new record, which is more organic and grander than anything she has released before PopMatters
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
Self Esteem Prioritise Pleasure
Bob Dylan Rough and Rowdy Ways
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds Skeleton Tree
Frank Ocean Channel Orange
Dave We’re All Alone In This Together