16 August 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.
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Second posthumous album from the rapper following his death in February 2020 includes guest appearances from Kanye West, Pusha T, Rick Ross, 21 Savage, Future, Chris Brown, Dua Lipa and Pharrell
5.6
Faith is the ultimate affirmation of Pop Smoke’s musical transcendence Read Review
‘Faith’ succeeds by offering not ony an elegiac portrait of Pop Smoke, but also a vision of what he could have become Read Review
The rapper’s second posthumous album has some dazzling moments, but ultimately feels like business as usual for an audience whose attention may be elsewhere Read Review
Despite poor production choices and lazy song structures, Pop Smoke's energy and solo spurts of brilliance won't allow for this stale posthumous release to tarnish his legacy Read Review
The Canarsie don's raw talent is overshadowed by superfluous guest spots on the second album to be released since his tragic death in 2020 Read Review
Pop Smoke’s second posthumous album sounds like it’s solely designed to generate clicks as a new generation of rap fans continues to be exploited for their streams Read Review
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James Ellis Ford Lost In Another World
Tender, vulnerable and brutally honest Far Out
Whether made in a hospital bed, a million-dollar studio or an abandoned warehouse, ‘Lost In Another World’ is raw, rare and radiant — regardless of the world one is lost in Clash
It never resorts to heavy-handedness in conveying just how serious the days that it was made felt to Ford, and somehow transforms a life-shaking brush with a potentially fatal illness into something uplifting. At times, Ford even miraculously pulls joy and understanding from the horrors that inspired these songs All Music
The producer known for his work with Arctic Monkeys, Geese, and more recorded his second solo album while undergoing chemotherapy. It is surreal, tender, and achingly poignant Pitchfork
Creatively sure-footed while emotionally delicate, it's a powerful document of human vulnerability. Print edition only Mojo
The vocals are close and intimate, the music surprisingly fleshed out and poppy. The album captures the ennui of chronic illness, and while it stares into the void, it still elicits hope. Print edition only Record Collector
"Silver Lining" offers calm positivity, and "The Ever After" even guides us cautiously towards the dancefloor, before he touchingly concedes to sentimentality on closing ballad "This Will All Be A Memory Soon". Print edition only Uncut
Lost In Another World, then, is an impressively put together DIY electronic album that takes us under the covers of the hospital bed, lying around endlessly with just your thoughts to entertain you, punctuated by sundry temperature readings, injections that you barely notice, as well as the semidiurnal arrival of trays of inedible food The Quietus
Laura Veirs Temple Songs
On "No Masters", romantic contentment mixes with the 19th-century feminist-inspired disavowal of internal male subjugation in favour of a manifesto of self-sufficiency, emphasised by electric guita. Print edition only Uncut
There might be deliberate ambient intrusions and undeleted imperfections, but there is something very intentional going on here, the sense they ae made by somebody carving out space in the jostle of everyday life, consciously taking the time to step away and check in with yourself. Print edition only Mojo
Getdown Services Massive Champion
An album that remains delightfully impossible to predict from beginning to end. Print edition only Uncut
It is daft, not 'zany'. There is enough substance here to go far beyond the gags. Print edition only Record Collector
Some of the more niche references might fly over the heads of non-UK listeners, but regardless of whether you know the Cha Cha Slide dance or who Baby Oleg is, the pair's personality and sense of humour make Massive Champion a winner. Print edition only Mojo
Phoebe Bridgers Lost Weekend
A dense, introspective opus as complex and unpredictable as its author DIY
Ravyn Lenae Blue Island
Even if it's hard to imagine anything on Blue Island blowing up as much as "Love Me Not" did, the album continues Lenae's run of strong, adventurous records All Music
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.
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Spiritbox Tsunami Sea
Self Esteem Prioritise Pleasure
Hayley Williams Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party