2 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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Debut album of retro 80s indebted synthpop from this Brooklynite singer
6.5
A tight little album full of melodramatic pop tunes dripping in ’80s loving Read Review
A fantastically arranged and conceptually exquisite record Read Review
Where Austra are detached and Zola Jesus are portentous, Class Actress are giddy and impassioned Read Review
Enlisting electronic sounds and feel-good disco hooks, this album has a definite touch of the early Madonna about it, and it feels like a delightfully guilty pleasure Read Review
Class Actress manage to pull this full length debut away from being nothing more than an exercise in retro or an indulgent pastiche. While it does take me back to that imaginary high school prom that I never had, it’s also very much a 21st century pop record Read Review
This record will appeal to the indie-dance crowds that love their retro flavours, but it does so in a natural way, without seeming forced or desperate to conform to a trend Read Review
Luxurious and picture-perfect in presentation Read Review
Chillwave never had much of a female presence, but Brooklyn's Class Actress aim to change that Read Review
Attempts to meld the trace-paper beats of chillwave with the predatory attitude of '80s funk-pop Read Review
Underneath the litany of angular instrumentation, Rapprocher is, both musically and narratively, conventional glam-pop fare, but it's difficult not to admire how well the bedazzled glove fits Read Review
Print edition only
Harper and her cohorts have certainly created a close approximation to the heyday of Depeche Mode and Human League-but ultimately their dated sound doesn't even come close Read Review
The vocals fill unadventurous melodies with inane lyrics. Utterly vacuous Read Review
Harper struggles to convince as seedy seductress or decadent ice queen. Print edition only
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Class Actress: Rapprocher
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