15 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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Ethereal 60s influenced indie pop / dream pop on the debut album from the London band
7.4
Feels like a train that has been diverted off down a strange and enchanting branch line by mistake...taking in some magical scenery that might have come from the imagination of Tim Burton Read Review
A compelling first stab at record-making Read Review
They've created a world far beyond their monochrome-tinged performances Read Review
Creatures of an Hour unveils its dramas and beauty with slow, stately elegance and panache, like scenes from a smokey black-and-white French New Wave flick Read Review
This is a fine debut album. Tessa Murray's voice is gorgeously fragile and the backdrop will lift you out of encroaching grim winter evenings Read Review
Several changes in personnel, notably the addition of Tessa Murray on vocals, have brought a new found depth and austerity omnipresent across all of Creatures Of An Hour's ten delightful tracks Read Review
The album flows from start to finish, from the old and through the new. It may feel a bit slow-burning at times for some but given the time, it all pieces together Read Review
Moments of murky brilliance are peppered throughout, artfully blending half-remembered music-box melodies from a forgotten age which have decayed and distorted over time Read Review
Delicate but far from twee, it opearates with the stealth of a panther in shadow Read Review
Uncomplicated, subtle but memorable songwriting that might well have been played and recorded in a bedroom studio on Holloway Road Read Review
This delicate, atmospheric music is an intriguing take on the dream pop canon; sparse and elegantly vexing, it's a fitting record to accompany the shortening days Read Review
This is a debut of atmospheric beauty that could be the start of something very special Read Review
A woozy concoction of hypnotic flickers and off-kilter squalls Read Review
Creatures of an Hour is top-heavy: the early-sequenced "Cuckoo" and "Endless Summer" are the record's incontestable highlights Read Review
Still Corners prove that they can progress beyond this ubiquitous predilection for visual evocation Read Review
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Still Corners: Creatures of an Hour
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