23 March 2026
Here's how it works: The Recent Releases chart brings together critical reaction to new albums from more than 50 sources worldwide. It's updated daily. Albums qualify with 5 reviews, and drop out after 6 weeks into the longer timespan charts.
Browse specific styles
Full UK release for the debut album from the Icelandic chamber pop, indie folk six-piece
7.0
This is a resounding success of an album – equal parts delicate emotion and unabashed fun Read Review
A highly impressive debut that’s full of emotional lyrics, lush, diverse instrumentation, and a powerful and dynamic male/female vocals Read Review
A strong-willed, beautifully composed piece of modern day indie-folk Read Review
Truly a record full of expressive lyrics, diverse instrumentation and gifted composition Read Review
They turn campfire singalongs into skyscraping anthems Read Review
A highly promising beginning Read Review
Sincere, well crafted and beautifully rendered pop music Read Review
A 12-track sonic and lyrical tour of the frigid island country Read Review
Thoughtfully crafted and full of melancholic lyricism and quietly desperate romanticism, My Head Is an Animal should appeal to any fan -- whether man or monster -- of sweet and wide-eyed folk-rock Read Review
There isn’t a bad pop song here, and the balance between whimsy, sensitivity and boisterous fun is expertly weighted Read Review
One of the finest debuts of the year so far - one that more than maintains Iceland’s musical heritage Read Review
What keeps you locked into the occasionally twee and often hippie grandstanding is the band’s sinewy songwriting and arranging skills Read Review
Full of familiar indie-pop gestures: wintry, finger-picked guitars; lyrics full of woodsy imagery; tunes that swell into campfire-style singalongs Read Review
They're closer in spirit to the plague of emoters loosed upon the world by the success of Mumford & Sons. Print edition only
For all the wide-eyed charm of its finest songs – recent single Dirty Paws is electrifying – the sextet's debut album is too empty to excite Read Review
Roll over video for more options
Of Monsters And Men: My Head Is An Animal
Ladytron Paradises
Ladytron have produced an album that, from its inception, sought to invoke the same spirit that the band had 25 years ago Far Out
Gorillaz The Mountain
The strongest case in years that Gorillaz can still make records that matter as records Dork
Kim Gordon Play Me
'Play me' doesn’t try to comfort. It tries to provoke, energise and outlast the scroll Dork
The Orielles Only You Left
These songs come from months of demo-hoarding and forensic listening, the band archiving every practice-room spark before lovingly picking through the results Dork
James Blake Trying Times
Blake sounds energised by the room he has carved out for himself Dork
Harry Styles Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally.
This isn’t an album built like a straight line from hook to hook. It moves in waves, often favouring texture and atmosphere over immediate release Dork
Underscores U
It’s technical excellence as a musical product cannot be overstated. For a pop album to be this busy yet possess a pocket as deep and rich as underscores displays here is simply amazing Sputnik Music (staff)
Indie rock icon Kim Gordon acerbically wrestles with the state of the world over hip-hop and industrial beats on Play Me PopMatters
The former electro-pop enfant terrible swings big on her latest album, compressing all her split personalities and eclectic tastes into a high-gloss, high-stakes gamble to remake pop on her own terms Pitchfork
On U, she finds a clearly-defined, rounded-out identity in her music for the first time, and she delivers the most immediate and the most robust work of her career The Line Of Best Fit
Performing, writing and producing everything herself, April Grey pares back her hyperpop electronics for an LP in thrall to 90s pop-R&B, with songs that big stars would die for The Guardian
April Harper Grey’s latest hits all the beats of a classic pop record — a choreo-primed single, a power ballad, a post-breakup closure anthem — without overstaying its welcome Paste Magazine
A tour-de-force of production chops that cements April Harper Grey as a key auteur in the future of the genre NME
Alexis Taylor Paris In The Spring
Paris in the Spring is a gem of a record which, while never over-reaching its ambition, sparkles with electronic ingenuity as it takes in all seasons of human experience Spectrum Culture
It's a beautiful collection of genre-hopping songs. Print edition only Uncut
Since we've been around, that is. So, the highest-rated albums from the past twelve years or so. Rankings are calculated to two decimal places.
Kendrick Lamar To Pimp A Butterfly
Fiona Apple Fetch The Bolt Cutters
Rosalía Lux
Kendrick Lamar Damn.
D'Angelo And The Vanguard Black Messiah
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds Ghosteen
Spiritbox Tsunami Sea
Self Esteem Prioritise Pleasure
Hayley Williams Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party
Bob Dylan Rough and Rowdy Ways