16 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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Full UK release for the debut album from the Icelandic chamber pop, indie folk six-piece
7.0
This is a resounding success of an album – equal parts delicate emotion and unabashed fun Read Review
A highly impressive debut that’s full of emotional lyrics, lush, diverse instrumentation, and a powerful and dynamic male/female vocals Read Review
A strong-willed, beautifully composed piece of modern day indie-folk Read Review
Truly a record full of expressive lyrics, diverse instrumentation and gifted composition Read Review
They turn campfire singalongs into skyscraping anthems Read Review
A highly promising beginning Read Review
Sincere, well crafted and beautifully rendered pop music Read Review
A 12-track sonic and lyrical tour of the frigid island country Read Review
Thoughtfully crafted and full of melancholic lyricism and quietly desperate romanticism, My Head Is an Animal should appeal to any fan -- whether man or monster -- of sweet and wide-eyed folk-rock Read Review
There isn’t a bad pop song here, and the balance between whimsy, sensitivity and boisterous fun is expertly weighted Read Review
One of the finest debuts of the year so far - one that more than maintains Iceland’s musical heritage Read Review
What keeps you locked into the occasionally twee and often hippie grandstanding is the band’s sinewy songwriting and arranging skills Read Review
Full of familiar indie-pop gestures: wintry, finger-picked guitars; lyrics full of woodsy imagery; tunes that swell into campfire-style singalongs Read Review
They're closer in spirit to the plague of emoters loosed upon the world by the success of Mumford & Sons. Print edition only
For all the wide-eyed charm of its finest songs – recent single Dirty Paws is electrifying – the sextet's debut album is too empty to excite Read Review
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Of Monsters And Men: My Head Is An Animal
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