12 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.
Ethel Cain Willoughby Tucker, I'll Always Love You
There’s so much pain and sadness that spans Hayden Anhedonia’s story, but there’s also poetry in the way it is written, and beauty in the way it’s all pieced together like one elaborate puzzle Sputnik Music (staff)
The Black Keys No Rain, No Flowers
The Black Keys deliver infectious optimism across their thirteenth studio album The Skinny
There are very few — if any other — artists creating work this obscenely profound in their mid-20s. And if she writes the score for the next Wim Wenders movie, the world will be a better place Under The Radar
Loyle Carner hopefully!
Loyle Carner brings his trademark earnestness and affable rapping style to the forefront in a stirring record using jazz chords, breakbeat drums, and live guitars PopMatters
Ada Lea When I Paint My Masterpiece
Rather than laboured, this album is patient. Rather than repetitive, it’s coherent and rather than unsure, it feels resolutely confident Far Out
She takes memories and splashes them around in them, a style she's made her own. Hokey, lo-fi acoustics and a fluid off-key croon add a surreal edge. Print edition only Mojo
If there's a knock on when i paint my masterpiece's 200-to-16 approach, it's that the album's recording style is its most cohesive trait, with the track list sometimes seeming like a Bob Dylan exercise, followed by a Frankie Cosmos op, a quasi-tango study ("dogs playing in the backyard"), etc. - xeven if that playful, adventurous spirit is also part of its charm All Music
With an unforced approach and humble wit, musician and visual artist Alexandra Levy reflects on creativity, community, and writing a song even Bob Dylan can’t Pitchfork
An intimate record full of poetic and melodic turns, giving you the impression that sometimes Levy herself is surprised by where it takes her The Line Of Best Fit
Amaarae Black Star
Amaarae’s third album has moments of truly sublime pop magic, but only once you get past its early bloodlessness The Skinny
This isn’t a pristine album. It mutates, glitches, repeats itself The Quietus
It completes Amaarae’s transition from a fringe Alté artist to a future-pop icon in the making Clash
Amaarae dives into love, lust and digital excess – and it’s a wild, hypnotic ride NME
With a sleek dancefloor-facing sound, the Ghanaian American singer is deliriously in thrall to wealth and celebrity – but most of all love The Guardian
The Ghanaian American singer’s latest album is a celebration of Black diasporic dance music—and a hedonistic, pleasure-soaked victory lap for a star at the peak of her powers Pitchfork
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"Velvets-style drone rock, trad folk, anarcho-punk and hippy whimsy are all discernible in the Brighton quartet’s debut album – all played with white-knuckle intensity" (8/10 - The Guardian)
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