12 November 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.
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Erland Cooper and Simon Tong from folk pop band Erland And The Carnival combine with singer, multi-instrumentalist and orchestral arranger Hannah Peel for an album celebrating the Orkney Islands
7.2
A truly beguiling record Read Review
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 Read Review
An evocative, indelible, and utterly majestic ode to Orkney Read Review
The windswept islands captured in music. Print edition only
It’s frightening, oddly seductive and often quite brilliant Read Review
Songs as gloriously haunted as the land that spawned them. Print edition only
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 Read Review
Majestic yet frustratingly aloof. Print edition only
Some of the tracks are over-arranged which gives the album, overall, a bit of an identity crisis Read Review
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The Magnetic North: Orkney: Symphony of the Magnetic North
Twisted Teens The Holy Cross Tigers
They revamp the work of their progenitors while at the same time transcending it. Never wandering too far from the music that inspires them, Twisted Teens occupy a space that is distinctly theirs Beats Per Minute
Shygirl Swallow!
The UK electronica figurehead takes a sentimental turn on her tender but assured sophomore release Paste Magazine
U2 Carnaval de Luz
The Irish stadium legends’ latest is pedantic and ambiguous, rife with centrist pandering that ends up saying nothing at all Paste Magazine
On their sixteenth studio album, the Irish legends sound more playful than preachy for the first time in a long time NME
Ambitious but accessible, catchy but substantial, they've returned with a record that feels energized and alive, as though they have once again arrived at the start of something inventive and exciting Exclaim
Shygirl’s sophomore album is an idiosyncratic, heartfelt and interesting entry in the pop canon Spectrum Culture
As a burgeoning pop star, Shygirl is absolutely the real deal Slant Magazine
Lyrically, SWALLOW! is brutally romantic. Having turned 30 while writing the record, Shygirl revisits her past to write love songs with far more depth than her younger self could reach The Line Of Best Fit
In palpitating trip-hop and wind-tunnel big beat, the producer’s lovestruck second album seeks a softer, more romantic home on the dancefloor Pitchfork
Where her debut felt like the high, ‘SWALLOW!’ feels like the afters: the pulse hasn’t quite settled, and the feelings that were once easier to muffle are now impossible to ignore Clash
On album two, the London artist again shows she is able to combine genre-hopping experimentation with big pop songwriting NME
DIIV ZIRP!
ZIRP! is neither a radical reinvention nor a straightforward continuation, but an uneasy negotiation between the band's established identity and its desire for something new Spectrum Culture
What could have been a crash landing has instead pushed Twisted Teens to new heights Spectrum Culture
It’s not that 'Carnaval De Luz' is bad. It isn’t. It’s just humdrum The Arts Desk
PISS You Made Me / Skin on Linen
At once grueling, wounding, healing, intelligent, and poetic, you made me / skin on linen should also—it goes without saying—be played very, very fucking loudly Under The Radar
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