17 October 2018
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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Fifth album, and first to be recorded in a proper studio, from the Australian punk quartet
6.5
An album shorn of sentimental nonsense, where Deaf Wish prove that their stubborn commitment to old-fashioned, back-breaking work still pays off Read Review
The Melbourne quartet’s fifth album doesn’t counteract any Sonic Youth comparisons, but it does conjure an alternate history where the rock formalism of Goo and Dirty became the band’s defining sound Read Review
While every song doesn’t work, they excel at instilling mood Read Review
There's a dark beauty across Lithium Zion Read Review
Deaf Wish are now as articulate as they are furious -- a subtle but vital change that makes this their finest work yet Read Review
As hip-hop and RnB dominate the charts and impress the critics, the championing of rock music in 2018 remains the fevered bleating of dads, which makes it hard to feel a band like Deaf Wish could change anyone’s life anymore Read Review
Perhaps the world has been round the spin cycle of weary Sonic Youth thrash once too often Read Review
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Marissa Nadler For My Crimes
It may not be the liveliest 35 minutes of the year, yet it’s filled with memorable imagery and some heartbreaking songs music OMH
Mudhoney Digital Garbage
The pace and passion of Digital Garbage can take the breath away music OMH
Neneh Cherry Broken Politics
The rage and weight of 2014's Blank Project has lifted but the explorations of life at every level--refugees in Calais; exhausted living under patriarchy; missing your parents--continue. Print edition only Mojo
The music is stripped-back but always eclectic. Print edition only Q
Broken Politics is a thoughtful, reflective record that twines the political and the person. Print edition only Uncut
How to Dress Well The Anteroom
For his fifth album using the How to Dress Well moniker as an intravenous exploration of the hold that music has over our fragile human hearts, Tom Krell has perfected his process The Skinny
Look past the unusual song titles and you’re presented with the past two years of Krell’s life in all its fragile glory The Music
It is a far more ambitious project than 2016’s Care, and the ambition pays off as Krell returns to form with an experimental, nuanced project music OMH
The singer's latest album features some of her most impressive songs to date The Arts Desk
Broken Politics is an expansive and heartfelt collection of songs — a communication from within one of the most singular artists working today, articulating the nuances of where politics start for many: in one's day-to-day existence Exclaim
Neneh Cherry's fifth studio album, Broken Politics may not always seem like an urgent inquisition into our times, but it may encourage a sense of reflection The Skinny
Karine Polwart Laws Of Motion
assured and atmospheric The Guardian
Powerful new songs on movement and migration from the award-winning singer The Arts Desk
Karine Polwart's latest album brims with new influences and new energy, and is all the better for it The Skinny
John Grant Love is Magic
The band sound is gone in favour of stark analogue synths. He still conjures warmth from them on The Common Snipe and the title track, but much is hard going Evening Standard
Since we've been around, that is. So, the highest-rated albums from the past eight years or so. Rankings are calculated to two decimal places.
Kendrick Lamar To Pimp A Butterfly
Kendrick Lamar Damn.
D'Angelo And The Vanguard Black Messiah
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds Skeleton Tree
Frank Ocean Channel Orange
Anaïs Mitchell Hadestown
Kanye West My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Leonard Cohen You Want It Darker
Sufjan Stevens Carrie & Lowell
Mount Eerie A Crow Looked at Me