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
" When they hit full, throat-ripping, riff-driven throttle, such as on Gebbie Street, they sound superbly riotous" The Fly
" Metamorphoses commence in unison on the mighty creepiness of the album’s near-seven-minute centerpiece, Simmer. And does it ever" Pop Matters
" The finest jangle pop this side of the Rockies" The Digital Fix
" Highlights include DJ Ease My Mind which is sure to become a club anthem" The Line Of Best Fit
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Speed pop, lo-fi punk and fuzzy new wave on the 6th album from the Alabama retro rocker
7.1
he ghosts of The Ramones are never far away in this record; indeed Johnny and Dee Dee appear to be looking over Dan’s shoulder most of the time checking to see if he’s got it just right. And he surely has Read Review
He’s looked back on the history of the genre and, with the brevity of Wire and the speed of Buzzcocks, made one of the punchiest and best punk records of recent times Read Review
In reducing his music to the more base elements and adopting a new style, Sartain has played a risky hand but come up trumps Read Review
The perfect antidote to the bloated, anodyne conveyor belt of modern day pop-punk Read Review
Too Tough To Live is the album for those who dig The Ramones but find their songs a bit too meandering and needlessly complicated Read Review
Effervescent bursts of Ramones-inspired punk Read Review
Remains true to the spirit of punk by not worrying too much about who or what it offends Read Review
This is an album which precisely and concisely achieves everything that it sets out to. It is minus fat, pretence and extraneous bullshit. Something that is both rare and kind of great Read Review
In upping the pace Sartain has eschewed the variety and depth of his earlier songs and although this rapid material might be more exhilarating in a live environment it is not aided by the tinny basslessness of the recording Read Review
He’s created an authentic punk album that pays perfect homage to the time - the only quibble is that it’s too faithful to that sound Read Review
Repositions him from artful garage/rockabilly saviour, to one-man Johnny-Joey-Dee Dee. Print edition only
Sort of makes you want to wear shades indoors. But is that enough? Read Review
Rock'n'roll throwback goes punk. Print edition only
Dan Sartain: Too Tough to Live
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