3 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 from youthful London based indie four piece
6.0
A succession of songs that may bear the imprint of Television, Pixies, Bloc Party and Arcade Fire (but, hey, who’s complaining? You could do worse) Read Review
Melodic fireballs such as Ghost and Always Like This marry Jack Steadman’s burnished growl with vibrant chords, swirling harmonies and even the odd mid-verse chuckle. An amiable riot Read Review
Print edition only
A great philosopher once said, “Young people are in a condition like permanent intoxication, because youth is sweet and they are growing”. If you’re over the age of 18, consider ‘I Had The Blues…’ your invitation back to the heady rush of teenaged rapture, and the rest of you, stay drunk on its certain romance while you still can Read Review
It’s astounding that a band this young can be so self-assured to not only release an acoustic album this early into careers but one that is so good, highlighting every strength the band possesses Read Review
Their debut is not an instantly addictive jewel but their blend of heavy rock thrash and soft shuffling loveliness - think Editors with added ambience and fragility - is sealed with integrity and potential Read Review
Earning high marks for their winsome indie tunes Read Review
They sound as if the Pavement and Strokes catalogues are imprinted on their synapses... there's nothing new going on, but their passion fills in the innovation gaps Read Review
It’s far more original then any of their previous efforts. However, where Flaws diverges so far from what we expect, it’s likely that any further experimentation would make the band lose focus entirely Read Review
An album that's been about three years in the works, it's difficult to hear much more than further dumpings on the great landfill of mediocre indie that's been blighting the musical landscape in that time Read Review
Led by a singer with a singularly irritating bleat and a guitarist who has you considering a moratorium on the sale of reverb pedals. More early evening festival fodder Read Review
Totally lacks bile, humour, invention, or adrenaline. Its creators have scarcely hit 20. What gives? This is duvet music, offering vague comfort but impossible to feel any excitement for Read Review
Bombay Bicycle Club: I Had the Blues But I Shook Them Loose
U.S. Girls Scratch It
While Scratch It lives up to its aged influences, Remy gives these nine tracks an undeniable immediacy, both with her singing and lyricism — which are eerily left of field — along with her spot-on taste in backing musicians and homage-motif Under The Radar
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
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
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