24 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.
Browse specific styles
Third album of synth pop / indie rock from the Santa Barbara five-piece
6.2
Gardens & Villa have granted themselves a new lease on their artistic life, and have produced one of the year’s best rock albums Read Review
Music For Dogs kind of ends up resembling a bag of chocolate misshapes: weird-looking and questionable, but still somehow oddly loveable Read Review
More in the mode of the band’s self-titled 2011 debut album than 2014’s Dunes Read Review
It's the songs rather than the production that will keep repeat listeners coming back, even if they don't notice at first Read Review
The slinky synthesizers and psychedelic flute flourishes have been toned down in favor of frantic pianos and increasingly spaced-out vocal echoes Read Review
The third and best album yet from Santa Barbara’s Gardens & Villa Read Review
The band is worried about the status quo being upset, and that applies to how they approach their music, too Read Review
Will it give you something think about? Something feel? Something to inspire you? Something to get you up to dance? Something to soundtrack your day with? Something to remember? Unfortunately not Read Review
This album takes time to blossom, flowering when they leave behind the uneasiness of Maximize Results and find bliss in Paradise Read Review
The potential in lieu of this makes it that much sadder that Gardens & Villa didn't take more time to polish the sounds of last year's Dunes Read Review
The guitars are thin, the drum beats flimsy, the vocals frequently obfuscated by a droning synth or a similar effect Read Review
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Gardens And Villa: Music For Dogs
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