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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First album in 20 years from the Manchester alt. rock band formed in 1983, now renuited with original singer Stephen Holt
5.8
Sounding surprisingly fresh and sprightly for a band now well into their 50s, Inspiral Carpets seem to have changed remarkably little in all these years, and even more remarkably their songs are just as vibrant Read Review
The moves and feelings may be anything but what's new and now, but compared to where too many bands with members in their fifties can be, this actually feels fun and anything but forced Read Review
Uptempo limbshakers ‘You’re So Good For Me’ and ‘Changes’ are as solid as anything they did 20 years ago Read Review
Never disgraces their solid back catalogue and, occasionally, lights up with the melodic sweetness of their best work Read Review
A little momentum is lost towards the end but this is, by no means, a stain on their legacy. Indeed, Inspiral Carpets sounds a lot like a band re-finding their mojo after a long time away. Read Review
In their heyday, the Inspirals were under constant pressure to best themselves. On Inspiral Carpets, it feels like they went on instinct, without any expectations Read Review
Right now these guys are their own biggest fans Read Review
Being the most punk of the original Madchester bands, Inspiral Carpets should mesh beautifully with Holt’s raw vocals here, but the music behind him doesn’t do him any favors Read Review
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Inspiral Carpets: Inspiral Carpets
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