18 May 2012
Here's how it works: The Recent Releases chart brings together critical reaction to new albums from more than 50 publications. It's updated daily. Albums qualify with 5 reviews, and drop out after 6 weeks into the longer timespan charts.
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Tracks the critics are loving: hear them now
" Simply put, it’s one of the singles of the year" music OMH
Listen on SpotifyListen on grooveshark
" The finest jangle pop this side of the Rockies" The Digital Fix
" Metamorphoses commence in unison on the mighty creepiness of the album’s near-seven-minute centerpiece, Simmer. And does it ever" Pop Matters
" Highlights include DJ Ease My Mind which is sure to become a club anthem" The Line Of Best Fit
" When they hit full, throat-ripping, riff-driven throttle, such as on Gebbie Street, they sound superbly riotous" The Fly
The ADM newsletter lets you hear the tracks reviewers are rating as the stand-out songs from the best new albums. Sign up in that box on the top right.
New York ambient art rockers with the follow up to 2007's acclaimed Cryptograms
8.3
We’re never going to figure these guys out – and as long as they keep making instant classics like this, we really won’t have to Read Review
What they've done is use a stunning assortment of shrewd instrumental ideas to express contemporary anxiety and alienation, all in the form of pop songs, on albums conceived to be more than the sum of their parts. Read Review
Every song was a highlight. Read Review
After a few listens, Microcastle might take hold in your mind as an indie concerto. Broken into thirds, the album draws you in with some light pop fare before spilling its guts to you in a slow, dramatic middle section. Read Review
Resistance is futile, so turn it on, turn it up, and, at least for 40 minutes or so, tune the rest of the world ou Read Review
However prolific Bradford Cox is, it seems, unlike some, (cough Devendra Banhart cough), he manages to keep the quality of his produce at a stratospheric level throughout Read Review
...it takes the form of affirming their status as one of the most experimental, dynamic, exciting bands of our time Read Review
A real treat. Let it wash over you Read Review
Nothing Ever Happened's astonishing motorik wig-out, one of the finest songs of the year. Read Review
The songs are textured and shapely, with reverb and echo cranked to give an extra dollop of creepiness to lyrics about the joys of agoraphobia and being “captured by Victorian vampires.” Scary. And at times, scary good. Read Review
Deerhunter have rewarded those who applauded their bravery and may even convince the doubters that they are as significant an act as their fans have faithfully prognosticated. Read Review
Deerhunter : Microcastle
Squarepusher Ufabulum
In the form of his life. Print edition only Uncut
The Magnetic North Orkney: Symphony of the Magnetic North
Majestic yet frustratingly aloof. Print edition only Uncut
The windswept islands captured in music. Print edition only Mojo
No, Squarepusher doesn’t seem to give a damn, but he does want to smoosh eardrums with whacky stuff. More power to him The Arts Desk
Some of the tracks are over-arranged which gives the album, overall, a bit of an identity crisis Bowlegs
An evocative, indelible, and utterly majestic ode to Orkney AU Magazine
Ultimately Ufabulum’s jarring stylistic schism may make the album tough to digest for many people, but the quality of Jenkinson’s craftsmanship remains constant throughout The Skinny
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 The Quietus
Funky as he wants to be — EPCOT-rocking splatterjazz, rainbow-tasting ravewave, Inspector Gadget ringtone funk Spin
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 music OMH
A truly beguiling record Drowned In Sound
A bit cold, clinical and repetitive NME
Hugely impressive, technically, but too cold and forbidding for many tastes BBC
Public Image Ltd This Is PiL
It may not be of the calibre of Metal Box, but it finds its maker firmly in 2012, not 1979, and with plenty still to grouse about Uncut
Saint Etienne Words And Music By Saint Etienne
These songs are their sharpest in over a decade. Print edition only NME
What's finding favour with bloggers & other review sites
The Mars Volta Noctourniquet
Bruce Springsteen Wrecking Ball
Andrew Bird Break It Yourself
Following up the highly-acclaimed Teen Dream album was never going to be an easy feat but Beach House appear to have succeeded with Bloom. It has 10s from two sources and a 9.1 from Pitchfork, while FasterLouder see it as a "transportive journey"
Since we've been around, that is. So, the highest-rated albums from the past three and a half years or so
Anaïs Mitchell Hadestown
Kanye West My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
PJ Harvey Let England Shake
Ry Cooder Pull Up Some Dust And Sit Down
Arcade Fire The Suburbs
Tom Waits Bad As Me
Janelle Monáe The ArchAndroid
Joanna Newsom Have One On Me
Gillian Welch The Harrow & The Harvest
Burial Kindred