24 March 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.
Browse specific styles
Second album from the Sheffield-based indie pop power trio
6.4
Standard Fare have become a band who’ve found themselves, or at least one that’s heading in that direction Read Review
Their relentless cheer might wear thin for some, but Standard Fare have returned with 12 songs that fans will devour. A late contender for indiepop album of the year Read Review
An accomplished set of intelligent, sparky old-school indie-pop. Print edition only
Standard Fare are young at heart, and despite their thoughtful and sometimes cynical outlook on life, their music seems to soundtrack that of a teenager with a big imagination stuck inside the confines of a big city Read Review
The album is exuberant, neatly sequenced, and over in about half an hour: a modest joy, but great indie pop is an accumulation of modest joys Read Review
Feels like a cleaner, slightly more sophisticated realization of Noyelle Beat's potential Read Review
What Standard Fare do feels more honest: they’re not trying to change the world; they are trying to make you pogo away your woes with them on the dancefloor Read Review
A bunch of surging melodies, all delivered with self-effacing charm. Print edition only
The trio’s made-in-my-bedroom sound makes listening to their music feel like your own private concert, which is great but can occasionally do them a disservice Read Review
An album that is fundamentally pretty samey - a jaunty, power-chord style that was all the rage ten years ago, but nowadays feels tired Read Review
We’re not seeing much in it, apart from an opportunity to reminisce, which probably isn’t the point of it Read Review
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Standard Fare: Out Of Sight, Out Of Town
Ladytron Paradises
Ladytron have produced an album that, from its inception, sought to invoke the same spirit that the band had 25 years ago Far Out
Gorillaz The Mountain
The strongest case in years that Gorillaz can still make records that matter as records Dork
Kim Gordon Play Me
'Play me' doesn’t try to comfort. It tries to provoke, energise and outlast the scroll Dork
The Orielles Only You Left
These songs come from months of demo-hoarding and forensic listening, the band archiving every practice-room spark before lovingly picking through the results Dork
James Blake Trying Times
Blake sounds energised by the room he has carved out for himself Dork
Harry Styles Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally.
This isn’t an album built like a straight line from hook to hook. It moves in waves, often favouring texture and atmosphere over immediate release Dork
Underscores U
It’s technical excellence as a musical product cannot be overstated. For a pop album to be this busy yet possess a pocket as deep and rich as underscores displays here is simply amazing Sputnik Music (staff)
Indie rock icon Kim Gordon acerbically wrestles with the state of the world over hip-hop and industrial beats on Play Me PopMatters
The former electro-pop enfant terrible swings big on her latest album, compressing all her split personalities and eclectic tastes into a high-gloss, high-stakes gamble to remake pop on her own terms Pitchfork
On U, she finds a clearly-defined, rounded-out identity in her music for the first time, and she delivers the most immediate and the most robust work of her career The Line Of Best Fit
Performing, writing and producing everything herself, April Grey pares back her hyperpop electronics for an LP in thrall to 90s pop-R&B, with songs that big stars would die for The Guardian
April Harper Grey’s latest hits all the beats of a classic pop record — a choreo-primed single, a power ballad, a post-breakup closure anthem — without overstaying its welcome Paste Magazine
A tour-de-force of production chops that cements April Harper Grey as a key auteur in the future of the genre NME
Alexis Taylor Paris In The Spring
Paris in the Spring is a gem of a record which, while never over-reaching its ambition, sparkles with electronic ingenuity as it takes in all seasons of human experience Spectrum Culture
It's a beautiful collection of genre-hopping songs. Print edition only Uncut
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Kendrick Lamar To Pimp A Butterfly
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Rosalía Lux
Kendrick Lamar Damn.
D'Angelo And The Vanguard Black Messiah
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds Ghosteen
Spiritbox Tsunami Sea
Self Esteem Prioritise Pleasure
Hayley Williams Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party
Bob Dylan Rough and Rowdy Ways