4 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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Debut album from the South-London dance / house band led by twins Will and Matt Ritson and produced by Leon Vynehall
6.3
Like the churches they attended in their youth, Formation’s music is a call to arms to come together – not in the name of God, but society. Join them now Read Review
Formation’s greatest strength is in their deep, propulsive hooks Read Review
They make all the right moves on this brilliant debut. Print edition only
Are Formation part of the problem, or part of the solution? Thankfully, it’s the latter. But there’s a smidge of the former to muddy the waters Read Review
This London-based quintet have delivered a debut with all the hallmarks of a band who will continue to refine their own distinctive niche Read Review
Fifteen years after The Rapture and LCD Soundsystem unified the electronic and alternative music scenes, Formation are underpinning their urgent, politically motivated tunes with house sensibilities Read Review
A debut packed album with rich grooves tailor made for the dancefloor, but their socio-political ambitions fall disappointingly short Read Review
Their snarling debut album, all cowbells and warped grooves, is competent punk-funk that rarely deviates from the model established by the Rapture and LCD Soundsystem, whose vocals singer Will slavishly imitates Read Review
The temptation is to listen to some of their mentors instead, as many of the acts who have walked this sonic highway before have done so with much more swagger, a better inclination for a danceable tune, and an inherent dose of innovation Read Review
A surfeit of vocals is distracting. Print edition only
Begins with 54 of the most exciting seconds of music I’ve heard in 2017. And then they start talking Read Review
Post-Brexit rabble-rousers Read Review
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Formation: Look At The Powerful People
Lorde Virgin
Because for all the grand ideas here, it feels like Lorde has more to say about them, and as the aesthetic and songcraft of Virgin illustrates — almost despite all of this — she is more than skilled enough to do so Beats Per Minute
Frankie Cosmos Different Talking
Different Talking feels like Frankie Cosmos finally coming into its own. By self-producing, the band articulates a broader sound palette than on 2022’s Inner World Peace Northern Transmissions
A thrilling comeback that puts Lorde’s trajectory to the stars back on track DIY
Haim I quit
It’s easy to wonder if the soft-rock trio’s fourth record would be better if it were just a few songs — or, ideally, about 10-15 minutes — shorter Spectrum Culture
Hotline TNT Raspberry Moon
By opening up the recording process to accommodate more people and more ideas, Hotline TNT embrace a different side of themselves on Raspberry Moon, one that feels warmer and more open-hearted while still retaining the fuzz and noise that made their early albums so bracing Spectrum Culture
U.S. Girls Scratch It
While Scratch It lives up to its aged influences, Remy gives these nine tracks an undeniable immediacy, both with her singing and lyricism — which are eerily left of field — along with her spot-on taste in backing musicians and homage-motif Under The Radar
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 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
Different Talking introduces some novel elements to the Frankie Cosmos sound, but despite that, their core identity remains intact Spectrum Culture
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
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