3 July 2026
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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Sixth album of raw minimal indie rock arrangements from English singer-songwriter Emma Louise Niblett
7.3
It's Polly Harvey without the stylised gothic affectations, Nirvana without the heavy metal boy's club trimmings, and this may indeed be the reason why serious commercial success has so far eluded Scout Read Review
It twists in so many directions and you can never be sure quite where it’s going to go next. It’s this uncertainty that leads to the record demanding your total attention. Read Review
This album shows Niblett breaking out as forceful as ever, proving herself as one of the most serious and self-assured artists of the last 10 years Read Review
Her minimal songs -- just one guitar and sporadic drums -- unfold laboriously, as though forcing themselves from Niblett's clenched mouth and hands Read Review
Tense, raw and skeletal with a soul, Niblett has perfected her ability to nip delicate emptiness in the bud with delightfully harsh soundscapes and acerbic lyrics and, for that, let us be thankful Read Review
Scout Niblett is an acquired taste, but so many of the best things - olives, anchovies, nipple clamping - are. And if you have ever been tempted to acquire a taste for Niblett, The Calcination..., along with This Fool..., would be a good place to start Read Review
Print edition only
The extreme intimacy implied by the recording is both fascinating and uncomfortable, but that isn't necessarily a complaint. This is an excellent document and a successful expression of something that is clearly personal to the artist Read Review
Despite the lack of hooks and the relative monotony of the music, this album is compelling Read Review
There's something ritual about these songs, an aura of hard, necessary healing through pain. It's not an easy listen, but Calcination will stay with you for a long time Read Review
If calcination sounds like this, equip music venues with furnaces Read Review
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Scout Niblett: The Calcination of Scout Niblett
Madonna Confessions II
While the vignettes of influence feel like a blazing return to 1990s glory, there’s something optimistic about it Far Out
Deep Purple SPLAT!
There’s something about Splat! that does intrinsically feel like a slap across the chops, in all its blazing prog rock glory Far Out
SPLAT! is a blast from start to finish, and whatever's in the water at Purple HQ, we want some Record Collector
The band's elemental approach peaking on the likes of "Diablo" and "Guilt Trippin'", with Ian Gillian in impressively full-throated mode and Don Airey's keyboard runs often worthy of predecessor Jon Lord. Print edition only Uncut
Producer Bob Ezrin has turned up the group's Depp Purple-ness without lapsing into self-parody. Most of the songs here crack along at a furious pace. Print edition only A.V. Club
Muse The Wow! Signal
A glam odyssey, fuses metal, techno, science fiction and prog rock into an overstuffed inferno of absurdity The Irish Times
Filtering the intervening years, experiences, emotions, and life lessons through the sounds that made her – Chicago house, Detroit techno, and beyond – it’s also a timely reminder of why Madonna was crowned the Queen Of Pop in the first place, and continues to be a vital musical force Mojo
On her most vital album in over two decades, pop music’s grande dame proves she still knows how to make us move NME
After years spent chasing trends like trap and Latin pop, Madonna settles back? nicely into? old-school dance music to tell vivid vignettes of life in 80s New York The Guardian
A celebration of the dance floor that incorporates tributes to her earliest days on New York’s club scene, the queen of pop’s new music is engineered to make you move, or indeed, sweat The Independent
Beth Orton The Ground Above
As fatigued as the space created by The Ground Above may be, it never gives into despair. To the contrary, it finds comfort in both motion and solitude Beats Per Minute
Chanel Beads Your Day Will Come
This is a record that asks for a slower kind of attention, one that finds difference inside repetition instead of beyond it. In a moment when listening is increasingly shaped by acceleration and novelty, Chanel Beads makes a persuasive case for lingering a little longer Northern Transmissions
Lizzo Bitch
The singer’s return to the limelight arrives mean-spirited, out of touch, and woefully inconsistent Paste Magazine
Another immersive, collaborative collection that grounds itself in her efforts to connect with others, embrace the present, and insist on survival Paste Magazine
After a deep discography of sci-fi epics, dystopias and spiritual yearning, Muse varies the formula a little — but fails to wow Spectrum Culture
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
Rosalía Lux
Kendrick Lamar Damn.
D'Angelo And The Vanguard Black Messiah
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds Ghosteen
Spiritbox Tsunami Sea
Self Esteem Prioritise Pleasure
Hayley Williams Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party
Bob Dylan Rough and Rowdy Ways