23 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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Fifth album of electro-folk from the Norwegian singer-songwriter
7.7
Sundfør’s combination of careful, detailed arrangement and unrepentant magic realism is visionary and enriching Read Review
Though the strength of certain arrangements can feel all-engulfing, there are too many moments of near-inexpressible, extravagant brilliance on The Silicone Veil to deny Sundfør's overall accomplishment Read Review
An album of spectral, elemental romance and intrigue, playfully but precisely woven into a tremulous tapestry of seemingly ever-oscillating sound. Read Review
Carefully orchestrated, beautiful sung, and imaginatively written Read Review
If there's a more beautiful and ambitious song this year than "White Foxes"... well. there just isn't. Print edition only
The songs dive off in unexpected directions, but remain linear. Print edition only
Her vocal power is of course comparable to Kate Bush – as is her ability to shriek and shrill on cue. The songs meanwhile band between the sublime to the over-saturated Read Review
Sundfør has a fantastically powerful, window-bending face-melter of a voice. Print edition only
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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