16 September 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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31st studio album from Mark E Smith's legendary post-punk outfit
7.1
Easily the best since 2007's Reformation Post TLC Read Review
Spidery riffs look back to the band’s 1980s heyday while Korg synthesiser melodies blossom like the wayward fruit of krautrock Read Review
The "anti-musical" contents are head-smashingly great, as well as head-smashingly demanding. It's like nothing else in music Read Review
It’s mighty good, the most on-message Fall album since The Infotainment Scan. Rejoice-ah. Print edition only
In terms of coherence, it’s quite possibly their best LP since Imperial Wax Solvent Read Review
Finds The Fall continuing to mine their seam of proto-rock'n'roll influences Read Review
A well-rounded and surprisingly busy album Read Review
Sub-Lingual Tablet is this incarnation of The Fall’s most impressive addition to the band’s canon Read Review
Each new album is an addition to their previous work, and to judge in isolation is perhaps of limited value as a result Read Review
Sub-Lingual Tablet seems intended as an acerbic swipe at how social media and the internet relates to music, but much of the attack is blunted by just how stuck they are - The Fall's obstinacy is starting to feel like less of a virtue Read Review
Powered by enough energy and spark to burn through any reservations. Print edition only
Predictable and surprising in almost equal measure Read Review
The Fall are nobody's idea of a pop band, but Smith has always understood the value of a big hook, something you can grab and swing on while the ground below crumbles Read Review
There’s nothing wrong with anything on Tablet, simply that Smith has been doing the same thing for so long that one starts to wonder what he might be able to do if he set his sights a little higher Read Review
The Fall: Sub-Lingual Tablet
The Beths Straight Line Was A Lie
They’ve made their most mature, most incisive album yet. Not reinvention. Continuance. The long way round, mapped with clarity Dork
Baxter Dury Allbarone
Allbarone is the next destination for Dury as an experimental artist; he’s successfully been able to capture something new with his twist on hyperpop. The result is an intriguing effort that catapults him into the future realms of pop Beats Per Minute
Allbarone is Baxter Dury’s most hypnotic and groovy record yet, fusing his sardonic wit with club-ready beats. Distinct, contemporary, and utterly Dury, the artist’s ninth album proves he’s far from running out of ideas Northern Transmissions
Jade That's Showbiz Baby!
Clearly learning from her time in a supergroup, JADE’s debut — her first exercising of creative control — is as clear-headed and funny as you’d expect from a veteran Northern Transmissions
The chameleonic former Little Mix member, ever-captivating as she shapeshifts through park ’n bark ballads and synthy, up-tempo dance music, goes big on her solo debut Paste Magazine
Maruja Pain To Power
The Manchester quartet’s long-awaited debut album is a feral and loving atmosphere calling attention to world crises. The songs are overwhelming but never threadbare, packed with colossal brass, elastic diatribes, and tourniquet rhythms Paste Magazine
Big Thief Double Infinity
A kaleidoscopic view on 60s-inspired psychedelic, rock/country-tinged folk music Sputnik Music (staff)
Saint Etienne International
Though hardly a crippling disappointment, Saint Etienne’s reported final album is a far-cry from their superior earlier work Spectrum Culture
Ed Sheeran Play
Sheeran’s career opened the door to a deluge of cack The Arts Desk
Shame Cutthroat
The rawness of the album, which compliments their live sound exponentially, comes from the throw away lyricism and the manner of Steen’s animated vocal delivery Clash
Gruff Rhys Dim Probs
Dim Probs engages with deeply rooted truths. Print edition only Record Collector
What may be lost slightly in translation is mitigated by the musicality of the vocal tones, with Cate Le Bon and H Hawkline H adding a plaintive backing chorus on "Pan Ddaw'r Haul I Fore". Print edition only Uncut
Even with zero knowledge of what is going on lyrically, these songs are often beautifully evocative. Print edition only Mojo
While ‘Dim Probs’, on initial listens, may not appear the most substantial addition to Rhys’ work, it is nevertheless a relaxed (and relaxing) thing of warm humanity and beauty that, in the long run, may be more durable than much of his more lavish and accessible outputs Clash
Former Super Furry Animals man celebrates the Welsh language while taking in rich influences and instrumentation from countries far and wide musicOMH
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
Kendrick Lamar Damn.
D'Angelo And The Vanguard Black Messiah
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds Ghosteen
Spiritbox Tsunami Sea
Self Esteem Prioritise Pleasure
Bob Dylan Rough and Rowdy Ways
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds Skeleton Tree
Frank Ocean Channel Orange