9 May 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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Ninth studio album and first in over seven years from the R&B artist featuring guest appearances from 21 Savage, Burna Boy, H.E.R., Jung Kook of BTS, Latto, Pheelz, The-Dream and Summer Walker
6.1
Usher’s ninth album is another impressive display of his endless charm and vocal chops. Thirty years into his career, the R&B icon still knows how to keep it light and throw a great party Read Review
The album hits its stride with a sequence of slow jams demonstrating that Usher is at the top of his game as a singer, still much more than a mere entertainer Read Review
The star’s sprawling, twenty-song LP is nostalgic and familiar as Usher leans into the past without making it feel stale Read Review
Lyrical foreplay isn’t exactly the singer’s strong suit on this throwback album full of percussive panting Read Review
‘COMING HOME’ competently portrays love as part Afrodisiac, part pulse-racing chase, part languorous and lived-in sensation Read Review
The album feels less driven by creative ingenuity or an aesthetic vision than by sheer showmanship Read Review
Vintage effects in the singer’s first album in eight years underline the degree to which he has been left behind Read Review
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PUP Who Will Look After The Dogs?
Pup does a great job of dressing up radio friendly alternative rock as chaotic on Who Will Look After The Dogs? Spill Magazine
Emma-Jean Thackray Weirdo
It is pretty clear that this album represents a sink/swim moment of monumental scale for Emma-Jean Thackray Albumism
Model/Actriz Pirouette
Model/Actriz have the apocalypse on their side, as these songs of embodiment and frightening tenderness are thrown into ever cooler societies Beats Per Minute
This is an album that really hurts – but it’s also a defiant declaration that pain doesn’t last forever, even if it sometimes feels like it might Kerrang!
Lucius Lucius
A darn good album of wonderfully constructed and deeply confessional songs Northern Transmissions
Anchored by Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig, the music on the band’s latest effort recaptures the tightly focused, intensely collaborative energy of four people who are locked into each other’s creative capabilities Paste Magazine
William Tyler Time Indefinite
The newest album from the Nashville guitarist forgoes the restless psychedelia of his previous effort, collaging the purposeless play of Cage and finger-picking of Fahey into a flavor unbound to just one page of the American folk songbook Paste Magazine
Blondshell If You Asked for a Picture
The album is full of sonically gentle but emotionally cutting indie rock à la Phoebe Bridgers, Samia and Indigo De Souza, while also referencing the classic alternative rock of the '90s and early 2000s Exclaim
Arcade Fire Pink Elephant
Arcade Fire used to burn bright, but a fire can’t survive when all the oxygen has been sucked out of the room Sputnik Music (staff)
Who Will Look After the Dogs? is a long way from a perfect record, but this is no obstacle to respecting it on its own terms Sputnik Music (staff)
If You Asked for a Picture is the type of second album that doubles down on what makes an artist work, rather than attempt reinvention Spectrum Culture
On their fifth album, the grandeur, pseudo-concept and meta elements of Toronto-punks PUP’s last album are mostly gone—however, self-excoriation, a big sound and a willingness to change things up have always been part of the PUP experience Spectrum Culture
Car Seat Headrest The Scholars
If The Scholars falls short of greatness, it does so swinging for the fences Spectrum Culture
It balances huge arena heft, synth throb and an ear-pleasingly smeary murk The Arts Desk
Djo The Crux
For the most part, the album is a well pruned garden of musical history centered around Djo’s charming storytelling and personality Under The Radar
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