24 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
Debut album of pop rock from the French five piece famed for their energetic live shows
6.4
The Concrete Knives will be a nice addition to the Bella Union family as they fit right in by not fitting in, instead, carving their own path while instructing us to do the same Read Review
It’s exuberant, lively in most parts and features a whole raft of musical styles with the underpinning of an urgent need to keep a rhythm going Read Review
They're wholeheartedly fun with an incessant joy for life and youth Read Review
A smart, well-executed set of staccato dance-rock anthems that flirt with excess, yet never overstay their welcome Read Review
The Caen fivesome largely dispense with language and let the treble dials do the talking. Print edition only
The earnestness and warmth of the thing succeeds in making the record almost as addictive and loveable to hear as it clearly was to perform Read Review
An impressive debut with a crate-load of ideas Read Review
Like a less wimpy Of Monsters and Men, the Caen quintet pursue a line in male/female-fronted indiepop that occasionally flirts with the solemn side of the genre Read Review
There’s colour and youth splashed all over these songs: noodly guitars chime with steel drums Read Review
The tail end of the record does come to a bit of a standstill Read Review
So chipper and catchy it comes over like an indie version of Alphabeat Read Review
French indie collective attempt to shout you into submission. Print edition only
Stakes a claim for quirk-pop supremacy. Print edition only
Melody rich, this album is in fact too much so and will leave you feeling bloated on its sickly candy Read Review
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Concrete Knives: Be Your Own King
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