3 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.
Browse specific styles
Third album from the UK electro pop artist Victoria Hesketh produced by Ariel Rechtshaid and Com Truise
6.2
A dancefloor-ready celebration of British womanhood, full of melancholy rave pianos and synth twinkles, somewhere between Girls Aloud’s Biology and Chvrches’ Tether in tone Read Review
Pseudo-corporate imagery to satirise yuppie culture with sardonic understatement. Print edition only
Working Girl is an immensely self-aware and controlled effort that confirms Hesketh works best when she works for herself Read Review
It can be a little too sterile in places but for the most part, 'Working Girl' shows that Little Boots is a canny operator Read Review
Seems to have made peace with her place in the pop pantheon Read Review
The album keeps its BPM up and its personal stakes high, as Hesketh articulates the ennui of a high-powered life Read Review
Plenty of pop- little snap and crackle. Print edition only
Like its predecessors, Nocturnes (2013) and Hands (2009), it packs a selection of nagging tunes that could easily light up the mainstream Read Review
There are plenty of tracks on here that would suit the soundtrack to many a summer barbecue. It’s nice to have her back Read Review
An entertaining, if mostly chilled out affair that effectively displays both Hesketh’s versatility as an artist and a humorous side that is as surprising as it is charming Read Review
There’s something about this evolution that just works Read Review
If you're not a Little Boots fan this album isn't going to convert you, but if you don't mind looking over some average tracks to find some real electro-pop gems this album is worth picking up Read Review
From the simple-yet-memorable clubby constructs to confident themes of empowerment, Little Boots is consciously following pop music's torchbearers Read Review
She hits enough gold to not seem like an irrelevance, but her goals are murky Read Review
With few exceptions she just sounds bored. Print edition only
Roll over video for more options
Little Boots: Working Girl
Lorde Virgin
Because for all the grand ideas here, it feels like Lorde has more to say about them, and as the aesthetic and songcraft of Virgin illustrates — almost despite all of this — she is more than skilled enough to do so Beats Per Minute
Frankie Cosmos Different Talking
Different Talking feels like Frankie Cosmos finally coming into its own. By self-producing, the band articulates a broader sound palette than on 2022’s Inner World Peace Northern Transmissions
A thrilling comeback that puts Lorde’s trajectory to the stars back on track DIY
Haim I quit
It’s easy to wonder if the soft-rock trio’s fourth record would be better if it were just a few songs — or, ideally, about 10-15 minutes — shorter Spectrum Culture
Hotline TNT Raspberry Moon
By opening up the recording process to accommodate more people and more ideas, Hotline TNT embrace a different side of themselves on Raspberry Moon, one that feels warmer and more open-hearted while still retaining the fuzz and noise that made their early albums so bracing Spectrum Culture
U.S. Girls Scratch It
While Scratch It lives up to its aged influences, Remy gives these nine tracks an undeniable immediacy, both with her singing and lyricism — which are eerily left of field — along with her spot-on taste in backing musicians and homage-motif Under The Radar
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 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
Different Talking introduces some novel elements to the Frankie Cosmos sound, but despite that, their core identity remains intact Spectrum Culture
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
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