23 October 2019
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 dream-pop with an 80s synth edge to it from the Portland trio
7.1
Underpinning all else, Blouse convey their vision with consummate ease and have created a rather splendid sound Read Review
Blouse realise the difference between drawing influence and becoming out-and-out rip-off merchants Read Review
Blouse amounts to something more evocative and suggestive than trendy pastiche. There's one obvious reason: Some of these songs are just really that good Read Review
A mightily impressive debut that slowly, but surely, creates its own space and time Read Review
It’s Germanic and aloof, yet somehow moving enough to make you feel as though your heart is inching its way up your windpipe in a bid for freedom Read Review
80s-tinged retro-futurism Read Review
Synthesizers bend and squeal like a bad VHS recording Read Review
A promising, if yet to be fully realized, project Read Review
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Blouse: Blouse
Michael Kiwanuka Kiwanuka
An album that's thoughtful, emotional, expertly crafted and often sublime. Print edition only Mojo
This isn’t as immediately powerful or riveting as Love & Hate. But the multifaceted material, along with the pioneering, organic and often offbeat production, grows on you. Listening closely with headphones heightens and intensifies the experience American Songwriter
Kiwanuka is loaded with memorable songs, but the best way to experience them is by listening to the album from start to finish. Print edition only Uncut
However bad things get, Kiwanuka wants you to feel better. Print edition only Q
Anna Meredith Fibs
Meredith's precision helps control the fun, but this is another buoyant invention from her musical lab. Print edition only Mojo
Like its predecessor, FIBS is a stubbornly uncategorisable hybrid of styles, tempos and angles on the traditional "song." Print edition only Uncut
Far from feeling like a jumbled assortment of styles, FIBS feels more like a sprawling spectrum that hits a spot somewhere between the irresistible and the intriguing Loud And Quiet
Finds the singer-songwriter continuing to defy genre and break the rules. Slant Magazine
A maximal and intricate album that blurs boundaries between the organic and electronic The Skinny
Neil Young & Crazy Horse Colorado
Colorado makes good on Young's promise that rust never sleeps — turns out, it gets better with age Exclaim
clipping. There Existed An Addiction To Blood
Clipping expertly use horrorcore to deliver politically pointed hip hop The 405
Elbow Giants of All Sizes
Elbow plant their feet and sing out defiantly with love. Spectrum Culture
Twin Peaks Lookout Low
It's an album that keeps it pretty simple, staves off the sadness with a hearty riff or two and delivers old-fashioned fun by the ferry-load Under The Radar
The album’s direst moments are still refreshing because they find Young doing whatever the hell he wants to Slant Magazine
Floating Points Crush
Floating Points' Crush is an album of profound contrasts. For every track designed to electrify the dancefloor, there is a gentle sweeping orchestral piece PopMatters
Since we've been around, that is. So, the highest-rated albums from the past eight years or so. Rankings are calculated to two decimal places.
Kendrick Lamar To Pimp A Butterfly
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds Ghosteen
Kendrick Lamar Damn.
D'Angelo And The Vanguard Black Messiah
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds Skeleton Tree
Frank Ocean Channel Orange
Anaïs Mitchell Hadestown
Kanye West My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Leonard Cohen You Want It Darker
Sufjan Stevens Carrie & Lowell