27 June 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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Ninth studio album and first in over seven years from the R&B artist featuring guest appearances from 21 Savage, Burna Boy, H.E.R., Jung Kook of BTS, Latto, Pheelz, The-Dream and Summer Walker
6.1
Usher’s ninth album is another impressive display of his endless charm and vocal chops. Thirty years into his career, the R&B icon still knows how to keep it light and throw a great party Read Review
The album hits its stride with a sequence of slow jams demonstrating that Usher is at the top of his game as a singer, still much more than a mere entertainer Read Review
The star’s sprawling, twenty-song LP is nostalgic and familiar as Usher leans into the past without making it feel stale Read Review
Lyrical foreplay isn’t exactly the singer’s strong suit on this throwback album full of percussive panting Read Review
‘COMING HOME’ competently portrays love as part Afrodisiac, part pulse-racing chase, part languorous and lived-in sensation Read Review
The album feels less driven by creative ingenuity or an aesthetic vision than by sheer showmanship Read Review
Vintage effects in the singer’s first album in eight years underline the degree to which he has been left behind Read Review
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Haim I quit
The three sisters from the Valley reclaim quitting as an empowered act – and that includes shedding past sounds, not just exes The Independent
Danielle Haim’s had her heart broken, and you’re going to hear all about in the sisters’ wonderfully vituperative songs The Irish Times
S.G. Goodman Planting By The Signs
Stylistically, no big changes, after all, there was no need for those, but the level of the songwriting has gone up a few notches, both lyrically and musically Spill Magazine
Hotline TNT Raspberry Moon
Overall, Hotline TNT continues their hot streak with Raspberry Moon. You will probably not come across a better shoegaze power pop record this year Spill Magazine
The singer-songwriter depicts her Kentucky home with tactile clarity, populating her roots-rock songs with wry observations of small-town life Pitchfork
If the Kentuckian’s third album is constitutionally about wrangling one’s grief, it’s likewise about accepting its circumstances, agonizingly beyond our control as they are Paste Magazine
Her finest work yet. Print edition only Record Collector
Has an unhurried Southern swing that pulls like an undertow against the emotional freight of confessional songs like Solitaire and Nature's Child. Print edition only Mojo
Every bit as special as promised. Print edition only Uncut
Yaya Bey Do It Afraid
Lyrics flow from self-interrogation to political pride to intimacy to outright joy The Arts Desk
Doesn't sound quite as home-made and fingerprint-smudged as Bey's lo-fi previous recordings, there's still no-one who sounds like her, no-one chronicling the agony and ecstasy with her unguarded and resonant vision. Print edition only Mojo
On her latest album, the Brooklyn rapper, singer, and producer chronicles the labor of finding and holding onto joy in relaxed, loosely structured songs that evoke backyards and block parties Pitchfork
Only someone familiar with the maze of despair could sing this achingly of paradise The Line Of Best Fit
By linking up wuth the most expansive list of collaborators she’s tapped to date (BADBADNOTGOOD, Exaktly and Butcher Brown are among the producers), it also finds her weaving through arguably the most layered, fine musical backdrops she’s yet presented Beats Per Minute
On her sixth album, the Queens native moves through tangled emotions and shifting selves, finding power in vulnerability Paste Magazine
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
Spiritbox Tsunami Sea
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