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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Third release of improvised jazz rock and electronic pop from the group featuring Hot Chip's Alexis Taylor, Spiritualized’s John Coxon and This Heat drummer Charles Hayward
6.5
About Group strictly adhere to an ideology of improvisation and is shows. Print edition only
About Group make music for the small hours, but on their latest effort, they achieve big results Read Review
Between the Walls is an album about process and unless you were there, you’ll never understand or appreciate it like the four principals. But, as is, it’s still an enjoyable listen and an admirable project Read Review
Tracks vary in emotional and sonic tone, sources, instrumentation and complexity. Print edition only
Between the Walls sounds significantly more prepared than both prior outings, its many synth, organ, drum, and guitar textures more attentively placed. It’s clear they’ve loosened their rules Read Review
For those prepared to take the rough with the smooth, there are many moments of exquisite beauty to enjoy on this record Read Review
Between The Walls is wonderfully unhinged; it just still needs a little more structure Read Review
At times, Between the Walls is a frustrating album, but more often than not, the risks About Group take pay off in expressive, rewarding music Read Review
A decidedly odd affair Read Review
Their refusal to accept stylistic boundaries when playing songs works well here. Print edition only
About Group continue to explore the space between free collective improvisation and Alexis Taylor's songs Read Review
Fluid slow jams, Hammond organ blues and sweet Alt-J-like folkery Read Review
Cleanly recorded and mixed, it serves as a nice palate-cleanser between courses of alt. Americana, folk, and neo-new wave. It’s exactly what the term “side project” was coined for Read Review
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About Group: Between The Walls
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