15 November 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.
Browse specific styles
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
Roll over video for more options
The Unthanks: Mount The Air
U2 Carnaval de Luz
On their first album of new songs in nearly a decade, even earnest Bono-isms carry weight amid music that is impassioned and rejuvenated The Guardian
Letting loose and finding renewed purpose, U2 have delivered one of their most fun and engaging albums with Carnaval De Luz, a celebratory injection of positive vibes to both the world and this band All Music
This is not a radical reinvention of Rattle And Hum-to-Achtung Baby magnitude, or even a wilful evolution akin to that from How To Dismantle An Atom Bomb to No Line On Th Horizon. The ghosts of U2's past are summoned in numbers, though they are frequently mischievously partnered to interestingly incongruous effect. Print edition only Uncut
The Irish legends' best work in 25 years homages their eras, brings Brian Eno to bear on keys and even wheels out the late Dolly Parton musicOMH
Royal Blood Dead Company
It’s a record that sounds exactly like you would hope a new Royal Blood album would sound like, it’s little wonder that they are as big as they are, a consistently fine listen God Is In The TV
Kings Of Leon O My Beloved
With Carnaval De Luz they are not reinventing themselves or trying to be the current flavour of the month. What they do with this album is revisit their older glories and create new music and sound Spill Magazine
U2 return with a defiant and celebratory record that captures them still at the height of their powers Hot Press
This is Lorelei The Singer In My Band
Nate Amos fills his latest album with other people’s stories: some linger, others get lost in the scenery Still Listening
Out for blood! Brighton bruisers Royal Blood blast back-to-basics on fifth album Kerrang!
Mike Kerr and Ben Thatcher floor the accelerator and embark on another collision course of energised and uncompromising riff-rock for album number five NME
Dead Company is arguably the best album they’ve released since their debut, but doesn’t exactly come close to topping it Sputnik Music (staff)
Royal Blood's latest album is competently made and frequently enjoyable, but almost entirely foreseeable The Skinny
There are no frills on this fifth set, once again self-produced by Kerr and Thatcher; instead, it provides a brisk hard rock assault that should please the faithful and entice newcomers to dig into their back catalog All Music
Bono and co. return to full strength with a celebration of hope over despair Mojo
Twisted Teens The Holy Cross Tigers
They revamp the work of their progenitors while at the same time transcending it. Never wandering too far from the music that inspires them, Twisted Teens occupy a space that is distinctly theirs Beats Per Minute
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