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.
Browse specific styles
The Glasgow six-piece with a 2nd album of fast and furious pop-punk which they label "fight pop"
6.6
This is a fun indie pop record that will not change anyone's lives but will get you bouncing off walls very easily Read Review
This feels entirely progressive without losing any of the band’s endearing ethos of injecting energy and fun into every track Read Review
Another knock-out blow Read Review
The major achievement of this record is the broadening of Dananananaykroyd’s sound, prising it clear of the numerous shouty young bands to have followed their lead Read Review
A heavier and more robust band incarnation Read Review
Despite the name producer and more straightforward sonics they’re still the same band – battering ram bouncy, bizarre, brilliant Read Review
A clearly accomplished record Read Review
Fiery, fun and more interesting than your average guitar-wielding indie band Read Review
Despite its lack of groundbreaking songwriting, the overall experience is pure excitement and suggests that they’ll be unmissable live Read Review
An ear-splittingly good record which will force its way into your brain... whether you want it to or not! Read Review
Expands the normally spiky guitar lines into something genuinely wonderful Read Review
Print edition only
They rarely utilise traditional verse-chorus dynamics, instead focusing on slashing, elliptical riffs, sharp left turns and quiet breakdowns Read Review
More of a squabble than a Glaswegian bar brawl! Read Review
The band’s songwriting is more restrained and conventional, but always high octane – they scream overwhelmingly through the whole album without really letting you pause for breath Read Review
They've lost some of their endearing quirks. Print edition only
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Dananananaykroyd: There Is a Way
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
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
Spiritbox Tsunami Sea
Kendrick Lamar Damn.
D'Angelo And The Vanguard Black Messiah
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds Ghosteen
Self Esteem Prioritise Pleasure
Bob Dylan Rough and Rowdy Ways
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds Skeleton Tree
Frank Ocean Channel Orange