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.
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First solo album of experimental folk from Tunng frontman Mike Lindsay recorded in Iceland with local musicians
6.6
The songs are as beautiful and occasionally challenging as the landscapes Read Review
The often magical result is light years from Tunng's intricate electro-folk. Print edition only
At first strange and otherworldly, this labour of love gradually finds its way into your heart. Much like the country that inspired it Read Review
An engaging and occasionally wistful love letter to Iceland. Print edition only
It’s a step away from Tunng’s electronic leanings, but folk experimentalist habits die hard and there’s something surprisingly familiar about these results Read Review
The record is a glorious blend of saccharine sweetness and murky darkness, with a strident sense of determination that injects force into the folksy charm Read Review
Personally I’m more excited about what Cheek Mountain Thief does next rather than Tunng, which seems to suggest Lindsay has made a rather good record Read Review
The more experimental moments tend to jar with the beauty and softness of the folk that comprises most of Cheek Mountain Thief’s sound Read Review
Another slice of forked-Tunng idiosyncrasy – part wonderfully odd pop music, part ingrained experimental folk Read Review
The disparate elements combine to create a folky feeling of warmth, pastoral isolation and otherness Read Review
Lindsay's found his new voice, and it speaks the musical language of his adopted country. Print edition only
An insipid, pathological hippiness remains within his music. Print edition only
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Cheek Mountain Thief: Cheek Mountain Thief
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