15 November 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
Roll over video for more options
Sam Amidon: I See The Sign
U2 Carnaval de Luz
On their first album of new songs in nearly a decade, even earnest Bono-isms carry weight amid music that is impassioned and rejuvenated The Guardian
Letting loose and finding renewed purpose, U2 have delivered one of their most fun and engaging albums with Carnaval De Luz, a celebratory injection of positive vibes to both the world and this band All Music
This is not a radical reinvention of Rattle And Hum-to-Achtung Baby magnitude, or even a wilful evolution akin to that from How To Dismantle An Atom Bomb to No Line On Th Horizon. The ghosts of U2's past are summoned in numbers, though they are frequently mischievously partnered to interestingly incongruous effect. Print edition only Uncut
The Irish legends' best work in 25 years homages their eras, brings Brian Eno to bear on keys and even wheels out the late Dolly Parton musicOMH
Royal Blood Dead Company
It’s a record that sounds exactly like you would hope a new Royal Blood album would sound like, it’s little wonder that they are as big as they are, a consistently fine listen God Is In The TV
Kings Of Leon O My Beloved
With Carnaval De Luz they are not reinventing themselves or trying to be the current flavour of the month. What they do with this album is revisit their older glories and create new music and sound Spill Magazine
U2 return with a defiant and celebratory record that captures them still at the height of their powers Hot Press
This is Lorelei The Singer In My Band
Nate Amos fills his latest album with other people’s stories: some linger, others get lost in the scenery Still Listening
Out for blood! Brighton bruisers Royal Blood blast back-to-basics on fifth album Kerrang!
Mike Kerr and Ben Thatcher floor the accelerator and embark on another collision course of energised and uncompromising riff-rock for album number five NME
Dead Company is arguably the best album they’ve released since their debut, but doesn’t exactly come close to topping it Sputnik Music (staff)
Royal Blood's latest album is competently made and frequently enjoyable, but almost entirely foreseeable The Skinny
There are no frills on this fifth set, once again self-produced by Kerr and Thatcher; instead, it provides a brisk hard rock assault that should please the faithful and entice newcomers to dig into their back catalog All Music
Bono and co. return to full strength with a celebration of hope over despair Mojo
Twisted Teens The Holy Cross Tigers
They revamp the work of their progenitors while at the same time transcending it. Never wandering too far from the music that inspires them, Twisted Teens occupy a space that is distinctly theirs Beats Per Minute
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