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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Fourth studio album from the English hard rock quartet produced by their guitarist Dan Hawkins
5.6
The sound of a band unencumbered; it's an album that was probably as much fun to make as it is a joy to listen to Read Review
There are reasons to cheer aside from survival - cultish single "Open Fire," "Mighty Wings" and the Rush-like title track. Print edition only
The music industry is lacking an abundance of epic bands – The Darkness’s glorious return could be the answer Read Review
This is the sound of a band fired-up and focused, and the result is a Darkness album to be proud of Read Review
Last of Our Kind is nothing groundbreaking, but it shakes the Earth with pumping fervor; it’s not a mindfuck, it’s a facemelt Read Review
For suckers of old-school guitar riffs and songs about the Viking invasion of East Anglia, there's much to enjoy. Print edition only
Darkness have stockpiled all the best riffs- again. Print edition only
Last of Our Kind does not exactly show a “musical evolution” for The Darkness Read Review
This is their darkest record yet, but it's saved from drudgery by a heavier sound delivered with furious energy Read Review
There's a theme, but it's loose and undeveloped Read Review
It sounds like The Darkness are having fun again, even if their posey cock-rock sounds more than a little stale Read Review
Justin Hawkins’ falsetto delivers every time, but it’s hard not to think a bit more focus might have worked more effectively Read Review
Ironically, trying to sound less like a parody has, if anything, made the band even more cartoonish Read Review
Fifteen years into their career, there seems to have been a conscious removal of tongue from cheek Read Review
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The Darkness: Last Of Our Kind
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