4 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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Latest release of ambient / dream pop from Portland, Oregan artist Liz Harris recorded during the making of 2008's Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill
7.9
This is music that challenges and provokes. It may require a bit of effort to 'get' Grouper, but it's worth it. And as this record illustrates, even her cast-offs are stunningly good Read Review
Ambience and echos of solitude have rarely sounded so affective. A very special record Read Review
Grouper's conceptual vision and subtle songwriting makes this an immersive and ethereal addition to her impressive catalog Read Review
These songs have a staying power as unassuming yet durable as moss on the side of a stone. They’re just there, doing their thing, at once transient and lingering like a fog that never quite dissipates Read Review
These eleven new tracks of soft-focus oneiric pop are exquisite, the equal of anything on the first album Read Review
When it really hits, as it often does here, the music of Grouper creates a feeling that can only be defined as awe Read Review
Rather than be pulled into the darkness, Harris boldly searches for meaning in this gorgeously reproduced world Read Review
Suitably haunted and becalmed. Print edition only
When her singing does come into focus, as on the title track, it's almost unbearably intimate, but beautifully so Read Review
Avoids the stigma of outtakes releases because it’s an ideal entry point into one of the most distinctive, fascinating musicians of our time Read Review
It is apparent from the start that the album is a valuable piece of work in its own right however and its reclaimed origins should not bring any negative preconceptions Read Review
This is mood music in the best possible sense Read Review
The Man Who Died in His Boat feels immediately of its time, a period we know to be completely unique Read Review
It envelopes you softly, despite between wholly inscrutable Read Review
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Grouper: The Man Who Died In His Boat
Lorde Virgin
Because for all the grand ideas here, it feels like Lorde has more to say about them, and as the aesthetic and songcraft of Virgin illustrates — almost despite all of this — she is more than skilled enough to do so Beats Per Minute
Frankie Cosmos Different Talking
Different Talking feels like Frankie Cosmos finally coming into its own. By self-producing, the band articulates a broader sound palette than on 2022’s Inner World Peace Northern Transmissions
A thrilling comeback that puts Lorde’s trajectory to the stars back on track DIY
Haim I quit
It’s easy to wonder if the soft-rock trio’s fourth record would be better if it were just a few songs — or, ideally, about 10-15 minutes — shorter Spectrum Culture
Hotline TNT Raspberry Moon
By opening up the recording process to accommodate more people and more ideas, Hotline TNT embrace a different side of themselves on Raspberry Moon, one that feels warmer and more open-hearted while still retaining the fuzz and noise that made their early albums so bracing Spectrum Culture
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 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
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
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