23 March 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.
Browse specific styles
Self-produced album from the Tennessee garage punk artist noted for his profilic singles output
7.0
Surprisingly well sequenced, Fall closes with its longest song, “There Is No Sun” (3:49), where the chorus bursts open like a 1967 Liverpool summer dawn. Reatard’s urges are old-school, which also can mean classic Read Review
Every now and then you come across an album that makes you say, without hesitation, this is going to be—or at least, ought to be—huge. Watch Me Fall is one of those albums. Read Review
A taut, sinewy masterclass Read Review
Reatard may not be for everyone's taste, and some tracks do find him coasting along, but it's an album bursting with confidence and energy. Read Review
He has found his musical voice on Watch Me Fall, and while it may not be the best album of 2009, it’s certainly one of the most enjoyable. Read Review
Neither a reinvention nor a holding pattern for Reatard-- walking the line between them is tricky, but he continues to make doing so look easy Read Review
There’s a weakness to this stinging hoard of glam tragicomedies. For all its coherence musically and in the persona presented by Reatard, Watch Me Fall doesn’t have any sort of arc as an album Read Review
There isn't an actual bad track on the disc: some numbers pack lyrical refrains and hooks that pierce the brain, but even the ones that don't have an interesting musical flourish or two. Read Review
Leaves something of the garage-punk edginess behind, and replaces it with ironically happy music, and an altogether more mature feeling Read Review
There's a case to be made that when you've heard one you've heard 'em all. In practice it's like opening a packet of Haribo - before you know it you're a dozen down Read Review
It’s an acute exercise in power-pop, with Reatard’s Cheap Trick fancies making for a helter- skelter burst of enthusiastic songs with a knockabout charm to them. Read Review
Print edition only
Jay Reatard: Watch Me Fall
Ladytron Paradises
Ladytron have produced an album that, from its inception, sought to invoke the same spirit that the band had 25 years ago Far Out
Gorillaz The Mountain
The strongest case in years that Gorillaz can still make records that matter as records Dork
Kim Gordon Play Me
'Play me' doesn’t try to comfort. It tries to provoke, energise and outlast the scroll Dork
The Orielles Only You Left
These songs come from months of demo-hoarding and forensic listening, the band archiving every practice-room spark before lovingly picking through the results Dork
James Blake Trying Times
Blake sounds energised by the room he has carved out for himself Dork
Harry Styles Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally.
This isn’t an album built like a straight line from hook to hook. It moves in waves, often favouring texture and atmosphere over immediate release Dork
Underscores U
It’s technical excellence as a musical product cannot be overstated. For a pop album to be this busy yet possess a pocket as deep and rich as underscores displays here is simply amazing Sputnik Music (staff)
Indie rock icon Kim Gordon acerbically wrestles with the state of the world over hip-hop and industrial beats on Play Me PopMatters
The former electro-pop enfant terrible swings big on her latest album, compressing all her split personalities and eclectic tastes into a high-gloss, high-stakes gamble to remake pop on her own terms Pitchfork
On U, she finds a clearly-defined, rounded-out identity in her music for the first time, and she delivers the most immediate and the most robust work of her career The Line Of Best Fit
Performing, writing and producing everything herself, April Grey pares back her hyperpop electronics for an LP in thrall to 90s pop-R&B, with songs that big stars would die for The Guardian
April Harper Grey’s latest hits all the beats of a classic pop record — a choreo-primed single, a power ballad, a post-breakup closure anthem — without overstaying its welcome Paste Magazine
A tour-de-force of production chops that cements April Harper Grey as a key auteur in the future of the genre NME
Alexis Taylor Paris In The Spring
Paris in the Spring is a gem of a record which, while never over-reaching its ambition, sparkles with electronic ingenuity as it takes in all seasons of human experience Spectrum Culture
It's a beautiful collection of genre-hopping songs. Print edition only Uncut
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
Rosalía Lux
Kendrick Lamar Damn.
D'Angelo And The Vanguard Black Messiah
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds Ghosteen
Spiritbox Tsunami Sea
Self Esteem Prioritise Pleasure
Hayley Williams Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party
Bob Dylan Rough and Rowdy Ways