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
" 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
" Metamorphoses commence in unison on the mighty creepiness of the album’s near-seven-minute centerpiece, Simmer. And does it ever" Pop Matters
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The debut album from an indie pop trio from Brooklyn, New York
6.9
Hospitality’s balance of happiness and melancholia gives weight to its soaring melodies Read Review
The melodies are stickier than hot tar, but it's those vivid little scenes that lodge in your head the longest Read Review
If this is bedroom pop, it surely stems from the most cluttered yet colourful bedroom imaginable Read Review
This album is about the comings and goings that can consume a certain kind of twentysomething's life, about fuguing and settling and sometimes not being able to tell one from the other Read Review
Shortcomings are well disguised, and even when they are exposed, the originality of Papini’s storytelling is enough to keep the ears alert for several listens Read Review
Considering how well crafted Hospitality is, it’s tempting to think that the trio is more experienced than its years Read Review
Hospitality's debut is a sugar-rush of an album, albeit one given acerbic snap by Papini's delivery Read Review
It might even have some musical wannabe’s fingering the textbooks once more, feverishly searching out the blueprint for indie-pop perfection Read Review
It’s not aggressively innovative or ahead of the curve, but then again it’s not trying to be. If you can make peace with that, there’s lots of fun to be had here Read Review
Catchy indie pop jangly gems. Print edition only
Her half-shy, half-strident tones slink through sugary melodies atop sparkling acoustic guitars and gentle drum work Read Review
A solid pop album through and through Read Review
The Brooklyn quartet vacillates between Camera Obscura’s mawkish indie-pop, Regina Spektor’s endearing flirtations, and The Clientele’s autumnal vision Read Review
A world furnished not with myth and allusion but only the pedestrian details of life after higher education Read Review
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Hospitality: Hospitality
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