1 July 2025
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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The Seattle indie rock outfit with album No.5, cementing a decade in the business
5.5
Infinity Overhead isn’t just a great return to form; it’s possibly one of the albums of the year and shows that if there’s any justice in the music industry Minus The Bear will stick around for a bit longer Read Review
It barely sounds like the same band, with the emo tinges of yesteryear long since buffed into a warmer, more mature sheen Read Review
Somewhere between their transformation from carefree and punchy to mature and structured, Minus the Bear lost a little of their spark Read Review
While the record is not particularly ground-breaking for Minus the Bear, it is still going to please fans of the group’s unique sound – though the odds of it becoming a favorite in their discography are slim Read Review
Diverse in the songs' styles and themes. Print edition only
Minus The Bear may have returned to the style that made their name, but there is still enough mileage in that sound to ensure that ’Infinity Overhead’ is a marked improvement on their previous album Read Review
It’s very technically accomplished and well put together, but Minus The Bear would do well to work out the melodies to hang everything on before jumping in with the production and effects Read Review
It’s hard not to think of these ten efforts as one last stab at the mainstream Read Review
The problem here is even the album’s highlights are not anything memorable. Minus The Bear has some serious soul searching to do before releasing another album Read Review
Rock this clinical just isn't exciting. Print edition only
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Minus The Bear: Infinity Overhead
Loyle Carner hopefully!
The sounds are slightly different here than on previous albums and his tentative sojourn into singing is a success because his voice connects as easily as his rapping does Albumism
Lorde Virgin
Lorde trades in her secrecy and mystique for a tremendously healing, desperately relatable record that cements her mark as her generation’s defining artist Northern Transmissions
On the uncomfortable paths of the 28-year-old’s fourth album, slam-dunk bangers are substituted with reinvention and restraint surrendered through hushed, reflective, and carnal synth-pop vestiges Paste Magazine
The New Zealand pop star chips away to reveal her purest self on her fourth album NME
For Lorde, it's an opportunity to reclaim something she thought she had lost long ago, but has always been within her: her true self Exclaim
Frankie Cosmos Different Talking
Different Talking introduces some novel elements to the Frankie Cosmos sound, but despite that, their core identity remains intact Spectrum Culture
U.S. Girls Scratch It
Musically Scratch It will probably be the least memorable in U.S Girls’ discography and aside from ‘Like James Said’ and ‘Bookends‘, the relatively thrill-less album does sort of fly by unnoticeably, made worse by the weak closing track No Fruit God Is In The TV
Lorde may not break entirely new ground on fourth album Virgin, but its warmth and texture make it consistently compelling and quietly brilliant The Skinny
yeule Evangelic Girl Is A Gun
A sun-drenched pop album — perhaps the pop record of the summer Under The Radar
The album is a hesitant step in the right direction for the singer Slant Magazine
Virgin is Lorde at her best yet as an affective poet and, frustratingly, at her most tamed as a digital sound designer The Line Of Best Fit
The New York band’s sixth LP feels like a scaled-up team effort. The newly expansive sound suits Greta Kline’s hard-won self-knowledge Pitchfork
Lorde’s fourth album returns to the digital, physical sound of Melodrama. While rooted somewhat in her past, it’s a gritty, tender, and often transcendent ode to freedom and transformation Pitchfork
Her fourth album celebrates the messiness of being human – and is also her most compelling and revealing musicOMH
BC Camplight A Sober Conversation
It’s perhaps the finest release of his career from start to finish, and that’s beating some stiff competition Far Out
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
Spiritbox Tsunami Sea
Kendrick Lamar Damn.
D'Angelo And The Vanguard Black Messiah
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds Ghosteen
Self Esteem Prioritise Pleasure
Bob Dylan Rough and Rowdy Ways
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds Skeleton Tree
Frank Ocean Channel Orange