24 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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Debut full-length from Bristol-based electronic artist Seb Gainsborough blends elements of techno and house
7.3
One of the key debut LPs of the year, the first important chapter of a body of work that will grow to dimensions we still don't know yet, because the sky may be too low for Vessel Read Review
Impenetrable on first glance but revealing a beauty Read Review
Dances that fine line between the club and something dreamier. And as such, it arrives with sharp impact, melding abstraction and direct sound to impressive effect Read Review
Order Of Noise shows off Gainsborough's more accessible side - a good thing - but it's also a signpost marking a good place to start digging a little deeper, both into his own music and that surrounding him Read Review
Gainsborough’s true talent is taking jarring, industrial sounds and marshalling them into remarkably organic shapes, almost as if he’s creating a space and just waiting for random sounds to match up Read Review
One of the most worthwhile genre-defying oddities of the year Read Review
This is an album that requires listeners to put in some work, to extract their own sense of logic and rhythm from its scattershot surface. Read Review
Eccentric blend of industrial grit, ethereal vocal samples, and dubstep sub-bass Read Review
Heavy on distorted bass and full of icy soundscapes, 'Order Of Noise' does enough to draw you in to listen to it a couple of times but never fully invites you in to its isolated world Read Review
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Vessel: Order of Noise
Laura Marling Once I Was An Eagle
Her best album yet; better individual songs may lie elsewhere, but her new record's cohesive nature makes it much more of an adventure than what came before The 405
Majical Cloudz Impersonator
A beautifully crafted album that teases at a big moment that never seems to come. The close of each song suggests that the following track will bear the climactic fruit Impersonator consistently promises Pretty Much Amazing
Mount Kimbie Cold Spring Fault Less Youth
One of the most engaging dance albums you're likely to hear this year This Is Fake DIY
Dirty Beaches Drifters/Love Is The Devil
It sounds intensely personal because it is — these are the kind of songs people record for themselves. Fortunately, Hungtai has let us into his world Consequence Of Sound
30 Seconds To Mars Love Lust Faith
Safe and samey and lacks the sense of drama upon which they've built their audience The Digital Fix
Ensemble Pearl Ensemble Pearl
A soundtrack for what sounds like the most melancholy, unsettling haunted house story ever Blurt
Primal Scream More Light
Primal Scream’s ninth studio album will probably do little more than enshrine them in the musical middle-ground State
Sam Amidon Bright Sunny South
A truly sincere and beautiful album The Line Of Best Fit
The Fall Re-Mit
As with nearly all of the Fall, this album does what it wants to do, forcing the listener to submit to its terms Pop Matters
Bright Sunny South is full of these unhurried, easy moments, and succeeds because of it Pop Matters
Flawed yet with some redemption, Love Lust Faith + Dreams is a mixed effort Pop Matters
More robust and eccentric than anything he's ever released before Pitchfork
The National Trouble Will Find Me
This is The National’s 4th or 5th comfortably strong album in a row, another slight variation on a tried-and-true theme No Ripcord
Majical Cloudz are far from the first to bring about a warming sense of humanity through electronic music, but rarely do you see a synth-based “singer-songwriter” album pulled off so convincingly No Ripcord
A masterpiece Daily Telegraph
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
Janelle Monáe The ArchAndroid