24 April 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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Third album from the Nashville-based singer-songwriter Samia Finnerty
NEW This is Samia’s most fleshed-out project with all of her components – and some new ones – coming together to craft an excellent album deeply entrenched in the life of this twenty-something songwriter and the theological and romantic musings that entails Read Review
NEW Bloodless is an album that rewards you with repeated listens, giving you something intimate and compelling back each time. It is deep and evocative, and easily stands out as a potential magnum opus for the singer-songwriter so early in her career. If nothing else, it is most definitely her best work to date Read Review
NEW In terms of production, the album mostly takes a no-frills approach, often just vocal and acoustic guitar lending itself to the album’s overall message; if you give less of yourself, you’ll appear bigger Read Review
NEW This is transformation by scalpel, told in songs that are defiant and unflinchingly honest Read Review
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Viagra Boys viagr aboys
Ever predictable, funny and imaginatively constructed, Viagr Aboys is a total gas. Print edition only Mojo
Julien Baker & Torres Send A Prayer My Way
The Tennessee duo are faithful to country’s traditions while also delivering songwriting about queer love, addiction and anxiety The Independent
Self Esteem A Complicated Woman
After her big breakthrough and West End fame, Rebecca Lucy Taylor works through her worries in real time on her new album – to fascinating and confusing effect The Guardian
Viagra Boys’ fourth album ‘viagr aboys’, includes: a mention of Chandler Bing, frontman Sebastian Murphy burping into the mic, and at least one mention of goblins. So far, so Viagra Boys Dork
Self Esteem shoots from the hip, strikes at the heart, and sends you on a journey to the centre of her soul. Turns out the third time really is the charm Dork
Samia Bloodless
This is Samia’s most fleshed-out project with all of her components – and some new ones – coming together to craft an excellent album deeply entrenched in the life of this twenty-something songwriter and the theological and romantic musings that entails Dork
In terms of production, the album mostly takes a no-frills approach, often just vocal and acoustic guitar lending itself to the album’s overall message; if you give less of yourself, you’ll appear bigger DIY
This is transformation by scalpel, told in songs that are defiant and unflinchingly honest Slant Magazine
Bloodless is an album that rewards you with repeated listens, giving you something intimate and compelling back each time. It is deep and evocative, and easily stands out as a potential magnum opus for the singer-songwriter so early in her career. If nothing else, it is most definitely her best work to date Northern Transmissions
Ghost Skeletá
With their sixth studio outing and the introduction of Papa V, the masked metallers broaden their musical scope and explore a tapestry of human emotion NME
Tunde Adebimpe Thee Black Boltz
The prospect of a Tunde Adebimpe solo album seemed unlikely until the moment it appeared, and its presence as the latest project of a restless creative spirit is, in its own way, quite comforting Spectrum Culture
Viagra Boys are at their straightforward best on career-high viagr aboys The Line Of Best Fit
A stunning, mind-melting dose of punk surrealism Clash
There’s little to no mystique to the album’s stories of spiritual crisis Slant Magazine
As sweeping final ballad Excelsis picks up where previous closing tracks Life Eternal (Prequelle) and Respite On The Spitalfields (Impera) left off, compelling listeners to live life to the fullest with one eye on the inevitability of death, there’s surely no-one else living quite so deliciously on the level of The Devil Kerrang!
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