1 July 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.
Browse specific styles
Fifth studio album of indie rock from the Kansas City five-piece and first since they reformed in 2008
5.6
Represents experimentation and growth from a talented, maturing band, and it’s a worthy addition to the music collection of any ardent emo fan Read Review
Listeners who dismissed the Kids in the past as overwrought emo drivel might actually find things to like this time around Read Review
Revisits the raw, yet melodic sound of their classic debut, liberally sprinkled with gorgeous vocal harmonies and pop hooks Read Review
By breaking the rules of what they were supposed to sound like, they've given themselves a second bite of the cherry Read Review
For once this is a re-union not just trading on old glories Read Review
A plethora of bittersweet singalong choruses as well as the odd curve-ball, like the synth-and-phaser heavy Automatic Read Review
Back at their corrosive best. Print edition only
An inherently youthful band gracefully making good into their thirties. Print edition only
The truly surprising moments come via electronic flourishes that show up throughout the record Read Review
A just-all-right record from a band that always felt a step behind even in their own genre Read Review
It’s hard to truly love an album that tries this hard Read Review
Matthew Pryor's bellowing sneer still cuts, but nothing can cover up the hookless, by-the-numbers weakness of the materia Read Review
They've neglected to include anything memorable on it. Print edition only
Knowing what this band is capable of, its hard to shake the sad feeling that perhaps they should have just stayed broken up Read Review
Sounds like the product of a band that knows well where it’s been, but can’t quite figure out yet where it wants to go Read Review
There Are Rules aims for an aggressive aesthetic, but it ends up as mostly empty bluster as the Get Up Kids tries to put their pieces back together Read Review
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The Get Up Kids: There Are Rules
Loyle Carner hopefully!
The sounds are slightly different here than on previous albums and his tentative sojourn into singing is a success because his voice connects as easily as his rapping does Albumism
Lorde Virgin
Lorde trades in her secrecy and mystique for a tremendously healing, desperately relatable record that cements her mark as her generation’s defining artist Northern Transmissions
On the uncomfortable paths of the 28-year-old’s fourth album, slam-dunk bangers are substituted with reinvention and restraint surrendered through hushed, reflective, and carnal synth-pop vestiges Paste Magazine
The New Zealand pop star chips away to reveal her purest self on her fourth album NME
For Lorde, it's an opportunity to reclaim something she thought she had lost long ago, but has always been within her: her true self Exclaim
Frankie Cosmos Different Talking
Different Talking introduces some novel elements to the Frankie Cosmos sound, but despite that, their core identity remains intact Spectrum Culture
U.S. Girls Scratch It
Musically Scratch It will probably be the least memorable in U.S Girls’ discography and aside from ‘Like James Said’ and ‘Bookends‘, the relatively thrill-less album does sort of fly by unnoticeably, made worse by the weak closing track No Fruit God Is In The TV
Lorde may not break entirely new ground on fourth album Virgin, but its warmth and texture make it consistently compelling and quietly brilliant The Skinny
yeule Evangelic Girl Is A Gun
A sun-drenched pop album — perhaps the pop record of the summer Under The Radar
The album is a hesitant step in the right direction for the singer Slant Magazine
Virgin is Lorde at her best yet as an affective poet and, frustratingly, at her most tamed as a digital sound designer The Line Of Best Fit
The New York band’s sixth LP feels like a scaled-up team effort. The newly expansive sound suits Greta Kline’s hard-won self-knowledge Pitchfork
Lorde’s fourth album returns to the digital, physical sound of Melodrama. While rooted somewhat in her past, it’s a gritty, tender, and often transcendent ode to freedom and transformation Pitchfork
Her fourth album celebrates the messiness of being human – and is also her most compelling and revealing musicOMH
BC Camplight A Sober Conversation
It’s perhaps the finest release of his career from start to finish, and that’s beating some stiff competition Far Out
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