1 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.
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Founding member of both Sebadoh and Dinosaur Jr releases his third solo album of lo-fi indie rock, his first since 2009
6.5
Isn’t exactly original or inventive, but what it lacks in innovation, it makes up for in emotional honesty Read Review
Life and relationships rarely offer easy answers, and Brace the Wave doesn't either Read Review
The album rides out on Barlow repeating the phrase "learn with me", as if it needed any further invitation: we've been learning with Barlow for 30 years now Read Review
The album's routinely sparse instrumentation — featuring his trademark down-tuned ukulele — puts focus squarely on Barlow's melancholic worldview Read Review
His uncomplicated acoustic sounds make way for his poetically distressed lyrics to be the focal point on the album Read Review
As good as anything he has done with Sebadoh or Folk Implosion. Print edition only
Thank goodness Lou Barlow has returned to soundtrack the onset of middle age life Read Review
Whilst it hardly breaks new ground, either generally or for Barlow as an artist, Brace The Wave offers further evidence of Barlow’s core talent Read Review
Wave is a different animal, though; this is a mostly unembellished, minimal collection of starkly maximal songs Read Review
I often feel centered and wiser after listening to Barlow’s music, and Brace the Wave is no exception Read Review
A skilled and timely reminder of his own uniquely vulnerable vision as a songwriter. Print edition only
It’s good enough Read Review
It’s a fix for now, but don’t worry, there’ll be another soon, in one of his guises anyway Read Review
Few are as willing to write with as much brutal honesty as Barlow Read Review
A surprisingly engaging listen. Print edition only
Feels like an opportunity missed Read Review
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Lou Barlow: Brace The Wave
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 Virgin
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
Frankie Cosmos Different Talking
Different Talking introduces some novel elements to the Frankie Cosmos sound, but despite that, their core identity remains intact Spectrum Culture
U.S. Girls Scratch It
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
The album is a hesitant step in the right direction for the singer Slant Magazine
Virgin is Lorde at her best yet as an affective poet and, frustratingly, at her most tamed as a digital sound designer The Line Of Best Fit
The New York band’s sixth LP feels like a scaled-up team effort. The newly expansive sound suits Greta Kline’s hard-won self-knowledge Pitchfork
Lorde’s fourth album returns to the digital, physical sound of Melodrama. While rooted somewhat in her past, it’s a gritty, tender, and often transcendent ode to freedom and transformation Pitchfork
Her fourth album celebrates the messiness of being human – and is also her most compelling and revealing musicOMH
BC Camplight A Sober Conversation
It’s perhaps the finest release of his career from start to finish, and that’s beating some stiff competition Far Out
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