25 March 2026
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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Second release of indie pop and electronica from the Swedish act led by singer Yakumi Nagano
6.5
Resembles a carefully considered auditory massage, caressing gently in one superb exercise of subdued electro-pop Read Review
Print edition only
Machine Dreams is at once familiar and slightly alien, and the emotional center is both intuitively obvious and intentionally vague Read Review
With nods to synth pop, electro, and funk, Sweden's Little Dragon fill their second album with bleeping keyboards and jazzy arpeggios Read Review
The sound of a band trying out new shoes for size. They may pinch a little right now, but you know they’ll have worn them in by album number three. Read Review
Their Japanese vocalist, Yukimi Nagano, is Little Dragon’s real ace. Without her ersatz soul gestures and dreamy doodles, some of the melodically underpowered songs here would struggle to stand out. As it is, everything shimmers beguilingly Read Review
Machine Dreams certainly doesn’t have any sentimental power. It’s built for the sort of wistful, flippant engage of physical necessity that our society is now based on. It’s less likely to be heard with candlelit ambience and more with the sort of subtlety the strongest beer goggles can give you Read Review
...the music is basically mild-mannered, often suggesting a Nordic Portishead that specializes in drowsy lullabies rather than icy-burn torch songs Read Review
Little Dragon: Machine Dreams
Ladytron Paradises
Ladytron have produced an album that, from its inception, sought to invoke the same spirit that the band had 25 years ago Far Out
Gorillaz The Mountain
The strongest case in years that Gorillaz can still make records that matter as records Dork
Kim Gordon Play Me
'Play me' doesn’t try to comfort. It tries to provoke, energise and outlast the scroll Dork
The Orielles Only You Left
These songs come from months of demo-hoarding and forensic listening, the band archiving every practice-room spark before lovingly picking through the results Dork
James Blake Trying Times
Blake sounds energised by the room he has carved out for himself Dork
Harry Styles Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally.
This isn’t an album built like a straight line from hook to hook. It moves in waves, often favouring texture and atmosphere over immediate release Dork
Underscores U
It’s technical excellence as a musical product cannot be overstated. For a pop album to be this busy yet possess a pocket as deep and rich as underscores displays here is simply amazing Sputnik Music (staff)
Indie rock icon Kim Gordon acerbically wrestles with the state of the world over hip-hop and industrial beats on Play Me PopMatters
The former electro-pop enfant terrible swings big on her latest album, compressing all her split personalities and eclectic tastes into a high-gloss, high-stakes gamble to remake pop on her own terms Pitchfork
On U, she finds a clearly-defined, rounded-out identity in her music for the first time, and she delivers the most immediate and the most robust work of her career The Line Of Best Fit
Performing, writing and producing everything herself, April Grey pares back her hyperpop electronics for an LP in thrall to 90s pop-R&B, with songs that big stars would die for The Guardian
April Harper Grey’s latest hits all the beats of a classic pop record — a choreo-primed single, a power ballad, a post-breakup closure anthem — without overstaying its welcome Paste Magazine
A tour-de-force of production chops that cements April Harper Grey as a key auteur in the future of the genre NME
Alexis Taylor Paris In The Spring
Paris in the Spring is a gem of a record which, while never over-reaching its ambition, sparkles with electronic ingenuity as it takes in all seasons of human experience Spectrum Culture
It's a beautiful collection of genre-hopping songs. Print edition only Uncut
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
Rosalía Lux
Kendrick Lamar Damn.
D'Angelo And The Vanguard Black Messiah
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds Ghosteen
Spiritbox Tsunami Sea
Self Esteem Prioritise Pleasure
Hayley Williams Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party
Bob Dylan Rough and Rowdy Ways