1 July 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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Second release from the Canadian folk / pop singer-songwriter
6.5
Folk can be a notoriously intransigent genre, and Basia Bulat probably occupies the less user friendly end of the spectrum, but for those who like an album which grows and reveals its treasures slowly, A Heart of My Own is gold Read Review
The songs are about loneliness, love, separation, life’s ups and downs, and are mostly very good, but it is her voice that really sets them apart Read Review
At times arresting, at other moments it's let down by some odd choices in the production and mixing. There is enough to hold the attention and to draw the listener back, particularly a couple of great songs and some excellent musicianship Read Review
...when it’s good, it’s good: tracks Run and Sparrow are highlights for their deft songwriting matched with Bulat’s emotive voice and Howard Billerman’s dramatic instrumental arrangements Read Review
Expertly and diversely arranged, the songs of Heart of My Own build and hover, often in surprising ways Read Review
While Bulat's versatility's a selling point, it's her rare, extraordinary voice that makes her a fresh find in the notoriously musty folk-pop bin Read Review
Her voice has this amazing quality, it sounds live somehow, a beautiful clear tone that is somehow interfered with by a very subtle watery rasp, or a wobble akin to Antony Hegarty Read Review
Her debut was invitingly enjoyable ... but some of her ideas seemed almost half baked... On Heart Of My Own the focus is evident and it’s much more accessible and easier to enjoy as a result Read Review
Print edition only
At times it sounds a bit too polished... Yet despite her earnestness Bulat remains an intriguing prospect Read Review
...you'd like to hear what Bulat would do with another producer next time around, because working with this one has been a mixed bag on two recordings now Read Review
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Basia Bulat: Heart Of My Own
Loyle Carner hopefully!
The sounds are slightly different here than on previous albums and his tentative sojourn into singing is a success because his voice connects as easily as his rapping does Albumism
Lorde Virgin
Lorde trades in her secrecy and mystique for a tremendously healing, desperately relatable record that cements her mark as her generation’s defining artist Northern Transmissions
On the uncomfortable paths of the 28-year-old’s fourth album, slam-dunk bangers are substituted with reinvention and restraint surrendered through hushed, reflective, and carnal synth-pop vestiges Paste Magazine
The New Zealand pop star chips away to reveal her purest self on her fourth album NME
For Lorde, it's an opportunity to reclaim something she thought she had lost long ago, but has always been within her: her true self Exclaim
Frankie Cosmos Different Talking
Different Talking introduces some novel elements to the Frankie Cosmos sound, but despite that, their core identity remains intact Spectrum Culture
U.S. Girls Scratch It
Musically Scratch It will probably be the least memorable in U.S Girls’ discography and aside from ‘Like James Said’ and ‘Bookends‘, the relatively thrill-less album does sort of fly by unnoticeably, made worse by the weak closing track No Fruit God Is In The TV
Lorde may not break entirely new ground on fourth album Virgin, but its warmth and texture make it consistently compelling and quietly brilliant The Skinny
yeule Evangelic Girl Is A Gun
A sun-drenched pop album — perhaps the pop record of the summer Under The Radar
The album is a hesitant step in the right direction for the singer Slant Magazine
Virgin is Lorde at her best yet as an affective poet and, frustratingly, at her most tamed as a digital sound designer The Line Of Best Fit
The New York band’s sixth LP feels like a scaled-up team effort. The newly expansive sound suits Greta Kline’s hard-won self-knowledge Pitchfork
Lorde’s fourth album returns to the digital, physical sound of Melodrama. While rooted somewhat in her past, it’s a gritty, tender, and often transcendent ode to freedom and transformation Pitchfork
Her fourth album celebrates the messiness of being human – and is also her most compelling and revealing musicOMH
BC Camplight A Sober Conversation
It’s perhaps the finest release of his career from start to finish, and that’s beating some stiff competition Far Out
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