It is also one of the most jaw-droppingly beautiful albums that I have heard since its predecessor.

Untrue is complex, stark, tender, blurred and breathtaking. Burial has managed the impossible and improved on his faultless debut.

Throughout Ants From Up There, they seem to revel in the creation of different atmospheres rather than the laying down of hooks or choruses.

It makes for a wonderfully life affirming record, capable of humour, joy and reflection. Every home should have one.

It’s one of those albums where favourite tracks keep changing and new things to enjoy are found upon each listen. In short, this is life-improving, morale-restoring music from three artists operating at the peak of their powers.

What Folklore ultimately achieves in its narrative of escapism is reinforcing the notion that Swift isn’t one of the greatest twenty-first century artists because her work is autobiographical, or because she leaves cleverly crafted clues leading up to her albums (although these are all interesting elements) but rather because she is, first and foremost, a storyteller. Folklore is sad, beautiful, somewhat tragic, a little bit off the wall, but most of all it feels free.

With the original foursome reunited it's as well that Midlife dwells mainly on the music they made together. As a playlist of what Blur were and capable of, it suggests a band with few peers.

Yes, it can be painful, but there’s a beautiful catharsis contained within Ghosteen that makes it one of the most essential records of recent times – a lifejacket for anyone surfing that dreadful wave of grief.

Widescreen ambitions should never be criticised, and as Prelude To Ecstasy ends with Mirror, a Cheryl Cole torch song with Nick Cave intensity and Bond-theme bombast, you have to conclude that this album is big, and it is clever.

The Underside Of Power is righteous, vicious and vital. If the world is a stage, then at the moment it’s hard to think of a better house band than Algiers.

It's lyrically depressing, but if you're down in the dumps about the ills of the world and frustrated by a lack of personal achievement, there's surely not a better companion piece to have to hand as you wallow.

It’s a remarkable, joyous and life-affirming record, a testament to remaining musically open-minded and progressive, and very much confirms O’Hagan’s under-appreciated genius.

West End Girl is an extraordinary album, one that not only belongs in the long list of great break-up albums, but also in the best pop albums of the year list. It’s often an uncomfortable listen, but it’s also one you can’t stop yourself listening to.

Somehow, from nothing, they’ve pulled off a surprising but oh so welcome return, and this record plays like a triumphant middle finger salute, coolly showing everyone how its done... and writing the first line on a thousand ‘album of the year’ lists before January’s even out.

It's much less forthright and immediate than Inverted or Chutes, but it succeeds in spinning a web that draws you in; once caught you just want to lie back and absorb its gentle bounce.

It might not be an easy listen at times, but make no mistake, this is a vital an important record and one that needs to be heard in order to make sense of it. A definite contender for album of the year and one whose impact will stand alongside Lou Reed‘s Berlin for years to come.

Beams is an uncompromising, forceful and darkly beautiful album from a formidable musical talent.

This is undoubtedly Liars’ most engaging work, and certainly the best Mute album since, well, WIXIW.

Is it a rewarding listen? Most definitely. It will take time to fully get to grips with everything that the album has to offer, such is the breadth and depth of Iconoclasts. Its importance lies in its central message, which is (possibly) that healing is possible, even when it doesn’t seem to be. It’s a stunning achievement and quite possibly the album of the year.

A record of many highs.

Its real strength lies in the fact that it implores you to return for repeated visits to a world riddled with other people's cast-offs. Ironically, it recycles nothing; everything here is box fresh.

It’s a stately and urgent reclamation of intent from all involved. If you expected a band with such a long and storied history to ever be elegiac or pedestrian that would be a grave misstep. Under Marshall Allen’s all seeing eye, they’ve untethered themselves from the oppressive gravity of their past and launched themselves head first off back into the furthest reaches of outer space from whence they first came.

Inspiring and ingenious, this is an album you shouldn't be without.

So minimal and calm is much of The Harrow & The Harves that Six Horses comes as something of a shock. It displays the same studied but honest approach to American folk music that characterises the whole album but adds harmonica and, yes, handclaps!

It has a daft title, and a few daft songs with hammy lyrics. It has variety, diversity and its heart on its sleeve. It has pretence, artifice and ambition. It has, basically, everything.

An album that feels alive and joyous in its creation and performance.

With Young Man In America, Anaïs Mitchell has created her second consecutive masterpiece.

Blue Weekend is Wolf Alice’s best work yet – a confident, euphoric, blistering 40 minutes that’s guaranteed to be on many people’s ‘best of’ lists at the end of the year.