26 May 2013
Here's how it works: The Recent Releases chart brings together critical reaction to new albums from more than 50 publications worldwide. It's updated daily. Albums qualify with 5 reviews, and drop out after 6 weeks into the longer timespan charts.
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Second album of folk / indie pop from the North Carolina band led by Ari Picker
7.5
Draws heavily from his [Ari Picker] classical training, yet maintains a smart, accessible core that brings to mind Sufjan Stevens at his least quirky Read Review
Lost In The Trees has constructed a beautiful memorial for the soul of Ari Picker’s mother to rest in Read Review
This may be one of the best records of the year so far Read Review
The tracks on A Church are beatifically mournful, its orchestrations minor key, and its vocals sung by an author distinctly heavy of heart Read Review
The album is stirring without wallowing; it can move even the listener who knows nothing of the backstory Read Review
Too deep in its emotion to idly listen to, and too warm in its instrumentation to wear you down, this record proves a strange, incomplete comfort -- one that embraces loss as much as it tangles with it Read Review
The tragedy that inspired and plagues this album seems to be offered as a celebration rather than an exercise in mourning Read Review
A stirring coda that embraces the aftermath of despair, ringing with a resilience that's inspired, ambitious, mesmerizing and majestic Read Review
The album is as intricate and well-crafted as a Radiohead release, with highly emotional content that was inspired by the recent suicide of frontman Ari Picker’s mother Read Review
A mother’s suicide inspires moving orchestral folk, beauty and hope found amid grief Read Review
Over the course of a dozen songs, frontman Ari Picker tries to make sense of his mother's suicide against a backdrop of rich orchestration Read Review
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Lost In The Trees: A Church That Fits Our Needs
Laura Marling Once I Was An Eagle
Laura Marling seems to be an unshakeable creature, whose art firmly belongs to herself. Compare her to Bob Dylan all you like, but to issue a bold statement, Marling here proves herself, not as a product, but as an equal This Is Fake DIY
The National Trouble Will Find Me
A layered, resoundingly human work that extends their winning streak without so much as breaking a sweat The Quietus
A work that demands to be taken as a whole, another reminder of the peculiar power of the album form, despite frequent premature declarations of its redundancy The Independent
CocoRosie Tales of a Grass Widow
Easily CocoRosie's most satisfying, fully realised work so far The Independent
Mount Kimbie Cold Spring Fault Less Youth
The pair focus more on song structure on their second album, so their soft-focus compositions don’t fade into the background so much Evening Standard
Her latest record is actually her most lighthearted and joyful Evening Standard
Tribes Wish to Scream
By the end you won't so much wish to scream as laugh out loud. Print edition only Q
Baths Obsidian
An uncommon ear for texture and rhythm. Print edition only Q
Bold and beautiful. Print edition only NME
An improbable shot of charity shop psychedelia. Print edition only Mojo
A neat balance of darkly powerful and whimsical. Print edition only Uncut
Vivid, dreamy songs from harrowing subject matter. Print edition only Q
It's uplifting, triumphant and inquisitive Drowned In Sound
It’s CocoRosie and it’s beautiful God Is In The TV
A bewitching, beautiful album, with no two songs alike Clash
The French duo's 4th album has picked up a good number of 10/10 and 9/10 ratings, but also a handful of 6/10s. Responses range from those who see it as an album that will still be being listened to a decade hence and others who are left thinking "is that it?"
Since we've been around, that is. So, the highest-rated albums from the past four years or so
Frank Ocean Channel Orange
Anaïs Mitchell Hadestown
Kanye West My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
PJ Harvey Let England Shake
My Bloody Valentine mbv
Ry Cooder Pull Up Some Dust And Sit Down
Kendrick Lamar good kid, m.A.A.d city
Arcade Fire The Suburbs
Tom Waits Bad As Me