27 August 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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Our archive of chart news from the past, and present.
Wolf Alice The Clearing
The band’s fourth album finds them entering cleaner, classic-rock terrain — with uneven results The FT
Earl Sweatshirt Live Laugh Love
Earl is having more fun with spinning bars out of his complex experiences, be they traumatic or joyful. Even his simplistic flexes ring out louder than the hardest lyrics from mainstream rappers Consequence Of Sound
The album is laidback, vibe-y, and sample-heavy, with cryptic, free-associative lyrics Slant Magazine
As ever with Earl Sweatshirt, nothing is truly as it seems, yet he gives you more than enough information to paint in the picture. ‘Live Laugh Live’ is a rap Escher diagram, a Greek maze with MC as Minotaur; it extends Earl’s world, and invites you forward with every step Clash
With a sunlit disposition and paeans to his daughter, the mood turns lighter on the US MC’s sixth album – but the glitching, crashing beats are as esoteric as ever The Guardian
A soulful snapshot of Earl Sweatshirt’s newfound happiness as he celebrates his hard-earned peace. His subject matter is not bleak this time around, and that’s okay. Let the man be happy for once Northern Transmissions
Nourished By Time The Passionate Ones
Stands out as a powerful sophomore record and an important step in Brown’s journey with the Nourished By Time project, pushing rock and post-punk genres to new places Northern Transmissions
Hand Habits Blue Reminder
It’s an album that confronts life’s fragility and complexity, uncovering moments of beauty even during the wreckage Northern Transmissions
The Clearing is Wolf Alice at their most assured: fearless, emotionally raw, and intent on carving songs that will outlast fleeting trends. A near-masterpiece XS Noize
The London band funnel the confusion of their early thirties into a pastiche of styles Paste Magazine
Mac DeMarco Guitar
Guitar is a great, albeit strange, record – one that’s rewarding to follow from start to end in one sitting Spectrum Culture
Adrian Sherwood The Collapse Of Everything
Adrian Sherwood is more than capable of bringing plenty to the party without having to rely on the big names The Arts Desk
Lyrically knowing and sonically eclectic, the fourth album from London four-piece Wolf Alice pushes indie-rock forward The Skinny
Blue Reminder’s many charms will in the end leave you helpless indeed Under The Radar
Wolf Alice look set to step out of the cult-status margins, not by reinventing themselves, but by turning up the volume on the brilliance that’s always been there Under The Radar
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"Hayden Anhedönia closes the ‘Ethel Cain’ chapter of her artistic journey with a bleak yet beautiful record" (10/10 - NME)
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