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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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
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