1 October 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.
Browse specific styles
Second album of updated age-old folk standards from the singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist
7.8
The marriage of ageless simplicity and avant-garde modernity ... is simply stunning. It’s creators are aware of where invention and understatement are best placed – the result is 42 transcendent minutes Read Review
It’s clear that this album is another complete success for the most interesting and promising folk musician in North America today Read Review
Much of I See the Sign's success can be chalked up to its arrangements, which are fractured and frequently off-kilter Read Review
An album that will reward the listener able to put aside preconceptions and admire its clever and successful fusion of styles, genres and musical traditions Read Review
The mostly traditional material covered here by Amidon is swathed in the string and horn arrangements of Nico Muhly and embellished with the worldly percussion and textural contributions of Shahzad Ismaily Read Review
A thing of beauty and a triumph of collaboration, its honesty and sincerity likely to thaw even the coldest of hearts Read Review
Moby reinvented vintage field recordings as space-age nightclub blues. Sam Amidon works similarly quirky alchemy here, reinventing public-domain songs as rustic mood music Read Review
Print edition only
A spiritual, and at times mournful, record with alluring tales of a man lost in the world Read Review
Overall, this at-first-shy but eventually overpowering record will make yer cheeks sting with wine and late-night gales Read Review
With the ability to integrate an R Kelly track into a record of traditional ballads, it’s quite clear that his imagination and confidence are growing with every record Read Review
It's somnambulistic stuff, with Amidon – his voice as gentle as a sigh – relishing his role as both saviour and slayer of songbooks past Read Review
While Amidon does add something new to the folk canon, perhaps it isn't quite enough Read Review
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Sam Amidon: I See The Sign
Protomartyr Hotel Usona
Hotel Usona is the perfect accompaniment for Protomartyr's dark themes. It's a calculated mess, grandiose pomp in squalid decay, a steely examination of the modern moment Spectrum Culture
Gilla Band Pugnello
We’ll always need a challenging band that pushes us past our limits, and Pugnello continues their crusade to deafen their audience in the most wonderful way Under The Radar
Gilla Band emerge as spokespersons for our age of solipsism, dissecting and lampooning these proclivities. If we can’t laugh at ourselves, we’re doomed PopMatters
Tinashe Popstar
On Popstar, Tinashe remains at the front of the class, teaching material she has known long enough to deliver with her eyes closed Exclaim
For all of her career, Tinashe has questioned what it means to be a popstar, and here, she does so explicitly. But Popstar is less of a thesis statement than a coming to terms with the identity she's chosen for herself The Line Of Best Fit
The musician’s eighth full-length combines some of her most experimental, genre-blending sounds with her stickiest hooks on an autobiographical trip through stardom and celebrity Paste Magazine
Tinashe’s eighth album is her best and bravest yet: more ambitious, more focused, and effortlessly in touch with the zeitgeist. It’s the best pop album of the year Pitchfork
American R&B artist expands her palette and subverts expectation on liberatingly chaotic and fun eighth album musicOMH
Tinashe is no longer chasing approval. Instead, she’s bold, unpigeonholeable and certain of who she is as a person and artist NME
Beck Ride Lonesome
While many of the orchestral flourishes on Ride Lonesome do not feel as impactful as those on past albums, they still serve as a reminder that Beck can lend even his more nondescript moments a sense of refinement No Ripcord
Neil Young and The Chrome Hearts Second Song
The legendary Canadian looks back over his life in unashamedly nostalgic, romantic fashion with supremely poignant results musicOMH
Johnny Marr The Age of Everything
Former Smiths guitarist's fifth solo album may not contain any surprises but sees him refine his songwriting chops and deliver a solid record in the process musicOMH
Wishy Wishy
The Indianapolis band’s second album is all big feelings and bigger hooks as songwriters Kevin Krauter and Nina Pitchkites level up from their already promising debut NME
Nature's Pill is sexy and brash, but not without touching on the disappointment that comes with trying people on in an attempt to crystallize who you are Exclaim
Besides its transportive nature, this medicine is Wishy’s own because of the ponderous hooks from vocalists Kevin Krauter and Nina Pitchkites, who somehow find their place among the abundant sonic tchotchkes The Line Of Best Fit
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