12 September 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
Fourth album from the Copenhagen-based synthpop band led by Swedish producer Hannes Norrvide
5.9
The melodies are joyously simple and memorable, and nearly every song on the album is infectiously catchy Read Review
While Compassion crosses over unapologetically into the realm of pop and new-wave, it still feels tethered to the post-punk and noise scenes from which Norrvide and synth player Loke Rahbek emerged Read Review
It’s a largely fat-free collection of club-ready Danish synth-pop Read Review
The band has some exciting years ahead Read Review
They save the best for last and In Return explores the more experimental side of the band Read Review
Lust for Youth's Compassion is danceable and hypnotizing, to the point where their songs' clichés of mystery and jealousy become erased in the trance Read Review
With incremental steps, Lust For Youth are evolving into far more than a facsimile of their influences Read Review
Lust For Youth have spent the last six years refining lo-fi darkwave into club-ready synth-pop. Compassion is the end product of that evolution, a once rough stone polished into a lustrous crystal Read Review
It’s a purposeful record that shows a trio holding on to the makings of something quite special Read Review
Compassion is at its most gripping when it decides to go against the grain Read Review
When the pace slows the group’s very affected 80s-evoking style becomes a bit overbearing Read Review
Channel their inner new romantic. Print edition only
Sees the Danish act rummage through a list of influences of the alternative, electronic and European varieties, and they’re doing it with lots of style, and some flair Read Review
While the second half of the album almost makes up for its flaws, it doesn't quite manage to make Compassion a memorable whole Read Review
For the most part plodding, unimaginative 80s-inspired synthpop Read Review
Compassion feels like a cover album of some lost early Depeche Mode EP Read Review
Roll over video for more options
Lust for Youth: Compassion
Bonobo Distance in Static
For all its multi-locale sessions and noble attempts at breaking down categorisation, Distance in Static just never ventures anywhere too thrilling Bonobo’s worldly electronica flex would try to convince otherwise Far Out
On what he has hinted may be his final “traditional” LP as Bonobo, the UK producer cycles through moods and styles, with a particular focus on the clubby soundscapes of his DJ era Pitchfork
By turns studiedly moody and urgently intense, Simon Green's global outlook is at once reassuring and thought provoking musicOMH
Lush, immersive, and deeply physical, this is his best in a decade Clash
It's all so smooth that you rarely get a sense of who he is. Print edition only Uncut
Simon Green's eighth album as Bonobo feels like a celebration - few blend club-adjacent electronica with warm-hearted downtempo quite as adroitly as he does here. Print edition only Mojo
The Tubs Hard Life
There’s only so many jangly guitars, high-pitched vocals, and tales of moving to the big smoke that one needs in an album before it starts to grate Far Out
It’s a ludicrous, entirely unexpected occurrence when a band release a single album that sounds like a Greatest Hits collection, but track after track, hook after blinding hook, and line after wry line, that’s what we get – every song building on the glistening brilliance of the last God Is In The TV
Britain’s best indie-rockers hold fast to their defiantly old-school sound, slipping wry sideways looks at despair in among hooky melodies that always sound like a good time The Guardian
Their most fine-tuned and sonically rich album to date, with 12 more fantastically catchy and emotionally turbulent songs in the style they’ve been perfecting along the way All Music
The Welsh band's classic rock twisted indie folk on their third album demonstrates their earwormy ability to write a hook musicOMH
The band’s post-punk-infused songs sink in quickly and stand up to repeat listens Slant Magazine
A record that is a ridiculously hook-heavy collection of songs - and one that unquestionably positions Williams as one of our most unique and arresting contemporary songwriters. Print edition only Uncut
An album that consolidates and amplifies both 2023’s debut Dead Meat and last year’s Cotton Crown, transcending notions of what indie rock is supposed to be in the 21st century Mojo
Bloc Party Anatomy Of A Brief Romance
Kele Okereke and co have made a concept album and a break-up album all at once – and with Trevor Horn on production duties musicOMH
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