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.
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Straight-up indie rock, the third album from the British act
4.8
The tousled locks, the Persil-challenge wardrobe, the ‘A’ List girlfriends … Read Review
Slipway Fires may be overblown, but is still worthy of your attention. Read Review
Wire to Wire, the first single, is a piano-driven ballad that builds to a decent climax, while Hostage to Love carries echoes of the sublime Golden Touch. Read Review
The album appears to be a more band-orientated exercise than previous efforts, which is no bad thing for those fed up of living on planet Borrell. Read Review
Razorlight may be the Boomtown Rats of the Noughties. Read Review
Forget all the drive-time rock and it does have its moments... Razorlight’s third album falls short of anything they’ve previously done. Read Review
The band's piano–shambles and scolding sentiments frequently conjure no less a Yank than Billy Joel. Read Review
Too bad the performances are so lamely tossed-off. Read Review
Their third album still bears traces of Borrell's previous incarnation as a lowlife hipster but Razorlight have found stadiums to their liking. Read Review
In simple terms, then, the third Razorlight album is utter, utter cobblers. Read Review
Slipway Fires is preposterous, and in a way I actually wish I liked it more – there's something quite punk rock about basically turning yourself into the living incarnation of everything people hate about you. Read Review
Musically, it treads water and lacks the drive and direction of former efforts...Fans will say that critics only review the frontman’s personality and can’t see the band for the Borrell. To which we must sigh and reply ‘If only you could… if only you could’. Read Review
Razorlight: Slipaway Fires
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