23 February 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: read then listen
" One of the album's obvious standouts, with beautifully harmonized vocals" Pitchfork
Listen on SpotifyListen on grooveshark
" A rousing, pleasing stomp, comprising this album's answer to previous 'hits'" BBC
" Night in the Ocean is the fulcrum upon which the set rests, a great four minutes" BBC
" Standout track Blaze Up A Fire is an intense but understated response to the riots that rocked the UK " The Skinny
" It would be a hard heart indeed not to fall for music as lovely as this" This Is Fake DIY
" The title track is the undoubted highlight ... it sets the bar high" music OMH
" Somebody I Used To Know is an infinitely relistenable ode" music OMH
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Album No2, after a 5-year gap, from English minimal post-punk / alt.rock duo Tobin Prinz and Suzi Horn
6.2
Although even the most studious of listener’s attention will wane momentarily throughout, Clay Class is nonetheless a class act. Understated, sloth-like and quick-witted all at once. An exercise in excellence, with one hand tied behind its back Read Review
Finds Prinz and Horn suffusing their brutally blasted musical landscape with enough human warmth to beguile a new and less austere constituency. Print edition only
We like it – maybe not as much as the debut – but we like it Read Review
Prinzhorn Dance School have made the same album two times in a row, but that would ignore the added intimacy, the hookier tracks, and the warmer sentiments that pop up every now and again Read Review
There's now a warmth which implies that the sardonic posture of the first album was untenable Read Review
Presents familiarly despairing scenes of "granite-gray" skies and "concrete hinterlands," while the band's instrumental economy extends to the songwriting Read Review
The straightforward dance-y quality of much of their last album is replaced instead by a lithe slinkiness here, a sweet tottering there. But rather than losing any consistency, the fluidity of form builds a richer world Read Review
Clay Class is nearly an indie classic. All that's missing are tunes—not quite enough of those bits Read Review
Increasingly their affectless irony bleeds into anger. Print edition only
There’s precedent for their approach in the work of PiL, Wire and Gang of Four, but it’s to the pair’s credit that Clay Class doesn’t become an exercise in pastiche Read Review
What we have here is an album that’s pretty good during its first half and pretty insufferable during its second Read Review
43 minutes of joyless hectoring becomes an endurance test. Print edition only
An album crammed with long, protracted crescendos that flat line before reaching the expected climax Read Review
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Prinzhorn Dance School: Clay Class
Windy and Carl We Will Always Be
Let the sparse waves wash over and the true soul of the music will slowly emerge The Digital Fix
Despite the familiarity of the sonic landscape explored here, however, Windy and Carl are evidently still excavating valuable finds The Skinny
Windy and Carl are the ambient music world's version of old bluesmen who have been masters of their craft for decades and refined it to a point of utmost precision Prefix
This is as impressive as any of their releases The 405
Executed with openness and sincerity, making it feel as if the usual barriers between audience and performer simply aren't there Pitchfork
There is a beauty to experiencing love that overwhelms the heart. Windy & Carl seem to aim to replicate that overwhelming sensation through their music Beats Per Minute
If you take an interest in ambient music, drone rock or related quasi-genres, it behoves you to own some of Windy and Carl’s catalogue; this is as useful and high quality a starting point as just about anything they’ve recorded Drowned In Sound
Seekae Dome
A semi-regulated torrent of live loops and samples. Print edition only NME
Skrillex Bangarang
Skrillex lacks anything beyond the bleeding obvious. Print edition only NME
Memoryhouse The Slideshow Effect
Mostly glowers in a dismally cloying, precious nostalgia. Print edition only NME
School of Seven Bells Ghostory
None of it even scratches the arse of 'euphoric' - once their forte. Print edition only NME
Fanfarlo Rooms Filled with Light
Large Hadron pop that'll frazzle yer neurons. Print edition only NME
Lambchop Mr M
If this really is to be Lambchop's final album, it's an undeniably lovely one. Print edition only NME
The Ting Tings Sounds From Nowheresville
It sounds a little bereft of ideas, and way too short. Print edition only NME
Nada Surf The Stars Are Indifferent To Astronomy
If you keep your expectations more fluid and enjoy it for what it is, rather than what you think it should be, then you may find enough to appreciate This Is Fake DIY
What's finding favour with bloggers & other review sites
The Twilight Sad No One Can Ever Know
Field Music Plumb
The Black Keys El Camino
First Aid Kit The Lion's Roar
Django Django Django Django
An impressive 7.6 rating for the 5th album of electronica-influenced pop from the Norwegian singer-songwriter. All but one review is an 8/10 rating, with The Fly calling it "a masterclass in sinister soundscapes"
Since we've been around, that is. So, the highest-rated albums from the past three 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
Animal Collective Merriweather Post Pavilion