1 October 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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Album number eight from the Northumberland folk group featuring self-penned songs and arrangements of traditional material
7.9
This is properly epic stuff. Brass and strings swell the sound, amplifying the emotion already existing in the songs Read Review
Mount The Air is their most ambitious work and places them in the same league as the likes of The Gloaming and the Punch Brothers Read Review
The sisters voices are often gossamer-like but combine into a choral anthem as this records swings and sways its way through their whimsical and charming tales Read Review
All these tracks have folk deep in their roots, but to label them simply as such would only tell half the story Read Review
Reinventing the sound of epic, even by their own standards, this is huge. Print edition only
More than muddy-hemmed revivalists but rooted in a time long gone. Print edition only
The Unthanks are stretching the parameters of their genre with an ambition that’s rarely been heard before Read Review
A floating, swirling, blend of folk, indie-rock, and jazz. Subscription required Read Review
It's the Unthanks' acumen for crafting highly refined overcast ballads that ultimately wins out, and some of us are all the better for it Read Review
Stylish and extremely skilfull, but a bit too much arr and not enough trad Read Review
There are times when Mount The Air does feels like an elaborately illustrated story book (engrossing yet, at times, hard to follow) but this a first class effort and - more often than not - a thing of true beauty Read Review
The band hit form on the gorgeous, unadorned Magpie, while Hawthorn is an elegant, plaintive treatment of Charles Causley’s poem Read Review
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The Unthanks: Mount The Air
Protomartyr Hotel Usona
Hotel Usona is the perfect accompaniment for Protomartyr's dark themes. It's a calculated mess, grandiose pomp in squalid decay, a steely examination of the modern moment Spectrum Culture
Gilla Band Pugnello
We’ll always need a challenging band that pushes us past our limits, and Pugnello continues their crusade to deafen their audience in the most wonderful way Under The Radar
Gilla Band emerge as spokespersons for our age of solipsism, dissecting and lampooning these proclivities. If we can’t laugh at ourselves, we’re doomed PopMatters
Tinashe Popstar
On Popstar, Tinashe remains at the front of the class, teaching material she has known long enough to deliver with her eyes closed Exclaim
For all of her career, Tinashe has questioned what it means to be a popstar, and here, she does so explicitly. But Popstar is less of a thesis statement than a coming to terms with the identity she's chosen for herself The Line Of Best Fit
The musician’s eighth full-length combines some of her most experimental, genre-blending sounds with her stickiest hooks on an autobiographical trip through stardom and celebrity Paste Magazine
Tinashe’s eighth album is her best and bravest yet: more ambitious, more focused, and effortlessly in touch with the zeitgeist. It’s the best pop album of the year Pitchfork
American R&B artist expands her palette and subverts expectation on liberatingly chaotic and fun eighth album musicOMH
Tinashe is no longer chasing approval. Instead, she’s bold, unpigeonholeable and certain of who she is as a person and artist NME
Beck Ride Lonesome
While many of the orchestral flourishes on Ride Lonesome do not feel as impactful as those on past albums, they still serve as a reminder that Beck can lend even his more nondescript moments a sense of refinement No Ripcord
Neil Young and The Chrome Hearts Second Song
The legendary Canadian looks back over his life in unashamedly nostalgic, romantic fashion with supremely poignant results musicOMH
Johnny Marr The Age of Everything
Former Smiths guitarist's fifth solo album may not contain any surprises but sees him refine his songwriting chops and deliver a solid record in the process musicOMH
Wishy Wishy
The Indianapolis band’s second album is all big feelings and bigger hooks as songwriters Kevin Krauter and Nina Pitchkites level up from their already promising debut NME
Nature's Pill is sexy and brash, but not without touching on the disappointment that comes with trying people on in an attempt to crystallize who you are Exclaim
Besides its transportive nature, this medicine is Wishy’s own because of the ponderous hooks from vocalists Kevin Krauter and Nina Pitchkites, who somehow find their place among the abundant sonic tchotchkes The Line Of Best Fit
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