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.
Browse specific styles
Trevor Powers' third album of neo-psychedelic dream pop, produced by Ali Chant (Perfume Genius, Gruff Rhys)
6.6
Trevor Powers has produced another remarkable album in a discography that seems to be ever-expanding, never content to stick with one style, yet consistently delivering a style fully his own Read Review
Powers has expanded the Youth Lagoon sound without losing any of the intimacy of his bedroom pop beginnings Read Review
Forever surfing skywards on euphoric dreamrock currents. Print edition only
He could tell stories for days, and he compresses tragic, ponderous tales into striking songs backed by strings and wild instrumentation Read Review
Savage Hills Ballroom has highlights worth celebrating. Three albums in, Youth Lagoon will likely remain as lauded as before Read Review
On his third album, Powers is back to building, but he’s ditched the pillow forts in favor of more ambitious frameworks, surpassing even the wonders of Bughouse… musically Read Review
The most truly self-searching Youth Lagoon album Read Review
An incredibly textured album full of nighttime philosophising Read Review
Not to say that Ballroom lacks the charms and flourishes that signify a Youth Lagoon record; they’re just honed to their bare essentials Read Review
The 26-year-old from Boise, Idaho, sounds bolder, the production is crisper, and the wondrous effects that characterized his dreamy sound have nearly disappeared Read Review
An acquired taste, but those who enjoy a bitter pill will swallow it whole. Print edition only
Demonstrates Power’s unpredictability and it will certainly be interesting to see which direction he chooses to take Youth Lagoon in next Read Review
Powers is blessed with one of the more appealingly idiosyncratic voices in indie rock, a kind of eunuchoid Appalachian warble Read Review
Can a band thrive when it’s stripped of everything that made it unique? Read Review
Roll over video for more options
Youth Lagoon: Savage Hills Ballroom
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