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
" Simply put, it’s one of the singles of the year" music OMH
Listen on SpotifyListen on grooveshark
" Metamorphoses commence in unison on the mighty creepiness of the album’s near-seven-minute centerpiece, Simmer. And does it ever" Pop Matters
" Highlights include DJ Ease My Mind which is sure to become a club anthem" The Line Of Best Fit
" The finest jangle pop this side of the Rockies" The Digital Fix
" When they hit full, throat-ripping, riff-driven throttle, such as on Gebbie Street, they sound superbly riotous" The Fly
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Third self-released mixtape of 2011 from Canadian R&B singer-songwriter Abel Tesfay
7.7
Let the complete composition wash through your neurons and take it for what it is: a completely brilliant beginning to what hopes to be a long and bright career Read Review
The final mixtape in his trilogy is a perfect ending Read Review
House of Balloons, Thursday, and, now, Echoes of Silence, thus far, capture one of the most singular musical acts of the decade Read Review
A more straightforward take on contemporary R&B than its predecessors Read Review
Echoes of Silence exudes a brazen, animalistic confidence. The production is impeccable but never showy. The songwriting is tighter and more streamlined Read Review
Echoes of Silence and its two predecessors represent a pretty staggering achievement from a brilliantly provocative and daring new artist Read Review
This is his most straightforward take on radio R&B yet Read Review
Tesfaye has explored some of the dankest, darkest corners of our world, and thus has crafted some of the most compelling and captivating music for its genre Read Review
Maintains some of the sounds fans know and love while evolving and establishing Tesfaye as a powerful vocalist who can tackle a mic like the best Read Review
A record that goes well beyond the plush glumness of his pal Drake to make sex seem downright sepulchural Read Review
Disappointing as Echoes of Silence may be as a collection of songs, it nonetheless serves its purpose in giving the Weeknd's triptych a suitably grim finale, and pushing the most extreme aspects of Tesfaye's sound about as far as it can go Read Review
Echoes of Silence shows that Abel Tesfaye continues to evolve, and it offers a glimpse of potentially exciting future Read Review
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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