25 September 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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Debut album of chillwave from one-man band Chaz Bundick
6.9
Causers Of This infects your mind with pure psychedelia, splicing such conflicting sounds as soul, freak folk, hip-hop and electronica, and the result hits you like Animal Collective on a comedown Read Review
Gladly amasses 70s space-funk, 80s chart-soul and 90s piano house. Of course that means it’s excellent Read Review
The sound of the summer is here already Read Review
He’s got an ear for appealing sounds, a competent set of pipes (even if he still hasn’t located his ideal range), and can write a mean melody Read Review
Bundick embraces a cleaner and mellower sound that's more indebted to hip-hop. He wears his inspirations proudly, and throughout there's a clear nod to producers like J Dilla and Flying Lotus Read Review
This is the kind of dreamy, undemanding album that you can spin on repeat on a lazy afternoon and let it lull you to sleep Read Review
Toro Y Moi puts intelligence and inventiveness into a youthful music genre dumbing itself down at an unduly early stage Read Review
It squirms and shimmers for an all-too-brief 33 minutes, sounding like somebody melted a cassette with a mix of early-90s R&B jams on one side and Person Pitchon the other Read Review
This South Carolina daydreamer exhibits a talent for crafting songs which push all the tender buttons while displaying enough sonic invention to place them firmly in the present Read Review
Bundick's clearly a tech geek to rival that young fellow who does all the hard work for The XX Read Review
Pronounced experimentalism is one of the more appealing properties of Bundick’s record, while those most tolerant of tepid, early ‘80s tones will find certain segments easier to swallow than the rest of us Read Review
It’s easy to commend this album on the sole basis that despite coating his tracks with an incomprehensible amount of tripped-out trickery, Toro Y Moi still branches out into less protected songwriting Read Review
Causers of This is pretty much the musical embodiment of mellow, but after eleven tracks this gets a bit samey Read Review
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Toro Y Moi: Causers Of This
Blondshell Violins
This is an artist widening her frame without losing her bite. It’s confident, a little wistful, and often loud in all the right places Northern Transmissions
On her third album, Sabrina Teitelbaum fights to strike a balance between savage beauty and jagged home truths NME
Everything great about Blondshell is present on ‘Violins’, but it feels sharper, more adventurous and more assured then ever before Clash
LA alt-rock singer Blondshell trades plain-speaking lyricism for something more abstract, while Irish rock band Gurriers cut through the noise with their ambitious second album The Independent
While trying to find and assert herself, the song has her imagining walking down the aisle to Beethoven's Für Elise, even though no one, including her, would pick it as a wedding song All Music
An often-delicate inward vision that pairs frustration with beauty DIY
It's in her ability to take the everyday experience and turn it into an epic noise that Violins finds its sweet spot The Line Of Best Fit
It would be unfair to call Violins Blondshell’s finest work to date, given the strength of her previous albums. What’s clear, though, is that it’s every bit as good as what came before Under The Radar
Protomartyr Hotel Usona
The album is more eerie in tone than its predecessors, like a distant alarm sounding, trying to amplify the sounds we cannot hear Northern Transmissions
It’s a bleak listen, sure, but Protomartyr haven’t ever been the comforting types. In fact, they’ve chosen the perfect time to double down on their righteous anger and despair, and if everything were to come to a catastrophic end right now, you’ve got the perfect soundtrack for it Far Out
For newcomers, it's a perfectly moody entry point. Hotel Usona is the sound of a band settling into their own skin, creating a space that's uniquely theirs and generously sharing the key Exclaim
From singer Joe Casey’s handmade album artwork to drummer Alex Leonard’s impish, kinetic inversions of classic post-punk rhythm, the Detroit band crafts an austere, unflinching record as bleak as it is cathartic Paste Magazine
This is not a hotel you'd want to stay at any time soon, but it's a remarkable record to spend time with. Print edition only Uncut
Under dim hotel lights, Casey’s lyricism appears foreboding and alien in a way it never has before The Line Of Best Fit
Ezra Collective Here Because of Hope
Arguably the biggest jazz band in the country return with an album that shows off both their exuberant and more reflective sides musicOMH
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