18 May 2012
Here's how it works: The Recent Releases chart brings together critical reaction to new albums from more than 50 publications. It's updated daily. Albums qualify with 5 reviews, and drop out after 6 weeks into the longer timespan charts.
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Tracks the critics are loving: hear them now
" The finest jangle pop this side of the Rockies" The Digital Fix
Listen on SpotifyListen on grooveshark
" When they hit full, throat-ripping, riff-driven throttle, such as on Gebbie Street, they sound superbly riotous" The Fly
" Highlights include DJ Ease My Mind which is sure to become a club anthem" The Line Of Best Fit
" Metamorphoses commence in unison on the mighty creepiness of the album’s near-seven-minute centerpiece, Simmer. And does it ever" Pop Matters
" Simply put, it’s one of the singles of the year" music OMH
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Debut album of 80s-inspired guitar pop from Virginia one-man act Jack Tatum
7.6
Wild Nothing/Jack Tatum appear to borrow as much from Pains of Being Pure at Heart’s debut as they do Technique era New Order and a young Johnny Marr Read Review
This is a beautifully produced piece of heart stealing song writing Read Review
The album is chock full of the jangly guitar, under-stated bass, and unabashed whingeing that cemented its contemporaries into the sleeve-worn hearts of adolescent high-school drop-outs only decades ago Read Review
Tatum carves a tunnel from Ibiza's beaches to Manchester's rain-soaked fairgrounds, and in the process, captures a lot of what is exciting about underground music's current classic indie-pop fixation Read Review
If you can imagine a loitering scene of scattered cassettes, records and a shitty amp surrounded by stale poster plastered walls and a 4-track hiss, then you may be able to conjure the airy new wave aesthetic that Wild Nothing is dripping in Read Review
Jack Tatum seems to have staked his claim for one of the albums of the summer; Bowlegs for one will enjoy basking in its ambient guitar gliding beauty for a long while yet Read Review
Jack Tatum has an uncanny ability to transform bedroom-born lo-fi indie into lusciously textured examinations of the human condition that pluck at the heartstrings and tug at the tear ducts Read Review
Anyone can do nostalgia or homage; the trick is bringing it back to life as an expression of your own personal feelings and dreams. Only an excellent songwriter such as Tatum can make that happen Read Review
Unlike fellow '80s-indie-pop necrophiliacs the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Tatum buries his strong hooks under layers of hazy reverb Read Review
While he could’ve taken the introspective DIY route effectively, Tatum comes up with a basement-rock effort that blows up what’s in his head into colorful soundscapes that are more expansive than the suburban scenes that his songs are about Read Review
The album really needs to be appreciated as a whole, rather than cut down into separate chunks. A beautiful document, propelled yet weighed down by melancholy Read Review
Stylistically a mix of The Smiths, Cocteau Twins and New Order, the youngster’s ditties for the most part contain hummable melodies Read Review
A mostly very good example of a sound that takes the best bits of '80s indie and somehow recreates that feeling you get on those long summer nights, where happiness is tinged with the fact that you know it won't last Read Review
An indisputably average debut that is far too contrived to place it among the elite indie-pop contemporaries. The melodies are often flat, with arrangements that serve as supplementary renditions of more memorable eighties acts Read Review
Roll over video for more options
Wild Nothing: Gemini
Squarepusher Ufabulum
In the form of his life. Print edition only Uncut
The Magnetic North Orkney: Symphony of the Magnetic North
Majestic yet frustratingly aloof. Print edition only Uncut
The windswept islands captured in music. Print edition only Mojo
No, Squarepusher doesn’t seem to give a damn, but he does want to smoosh eardrums with whacky stuff. More power to him The Arts Desk
Some of the tracks are over-arranged which gives the album, overall, a bit of an identity crisis Bowlegs
An evocative, indelible, and utterly majestic ode to Orkney AU Magazine
Ultimately Ufabulum’s jarring stylistic schism may make the album tough to digest for many people, but the quality of Jenkinson’s craftsmanship remains constant throughout The Skinny
These are timeless songs which rather than being of any genre - not even the hard-to-define 'folk' - seem to spring from the bare open horizons, low-lying islands and sea of Orkney, creating a unique bleak and windswept aesthetic The Quietus
Funky as he wants to be — EPCOT-rocking splatterjazz, rainbow-tasting ravewave, Inspector Gadget ringtone funk Spin
Each track is rich with strings and woodwind, but all with an unavoidable folky edge. It’s a formula that works, and works to the extent that sets it aside in terms of originality music OMH
A truly beguiling record Drowned In Sound
A bit cold, clinical and repetitive NME
Hugely impressive, technically, but too cold and forbidding for many tastes BBC
Public Image Ltd This Is PiL
It may not be of the calibre of Metal Box, but it finds its maker firmly in 2012, not 1979, and with plenty still to grouse about Uncut
Saint Etienne Words And Music By Saint Etienne
These songs are their sharpest in over a decade. Print edition only NME
What's finding favour with bloggers & other review sites
The Mars Volta Noctourniquet
Bruce Springsteen Wrecking Ball
Andrew Bird Break It Yourself
Following up the highly-acclaimed Teen Dream album was never going to be an easy feat but Beach House appear to have succeeded with Bloom. It has 10s from two sources and a 9.1 from Pitchfork, while FasterLouder see it as a "transportive journey"
Since we've been around, that is. So, the highest-rated albums from the past three and a half years or so
Anaïs Mitchell Hadestown
Kanye West My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
PJ Harvey Let England Shake
Ry Cooder Pull Up Some Dust And Sit Down
Arcade Fire The Suburbs
Tom Waits Bad As Me
Janelle Monáe The ArchAndroid
Joanna Newsom Have One On Me
Gillian Welch The Harrow & The Harvest
Burial Kindred