This will surely be counted as one of the most remarkable, individual, and adorable albums of the year.

The bizarre take on folk, pop and anything else she sees fit is enchanting, joyful and thought provoking; it's everything at once.

Compelling and emotionally charged.

Wolf Parade is a great band, and while one will automatically think of Brock when they first hear You Are a Runner I Am My Father’s Son, (or any song featuring the first of the band’s two vocalists, Jason Krug,) many of the album’s strongest moments actually come when they more closely resemble other bands.

It may be his own manifesto, but when the music is this striking, it makes you appreciate life more.

Staples has so much to say in Summertime '06 that it’d be impossible to fully dissect in one listen, and his ingenious phrasing makes for a constantly amusing variety of vignettes. A record is only as good as the music that accompanies, though, and collaborative producer No I.D. delivers in spades and then some.

Powered by its fluid and seeming invincibility, Mirrored is almost frighteningly cosmic.

Matmos successfully craft an environment both musical and tactile, some of the elements stretched to such extremes and arranged so well that they sound convincingly like instruments.

A focused, yet relaxed, song-writing atmosphere has resulted in something completely sophisticated yet entirely effortless, and genuinely warm.

X’ed Out is unmarred by any narcissistic disposition, or pretentious or elitist demeanor, but it makes no creative sacrifice. Bravo.

The narratives it employs are true to life, the reverb drenched instrumentation was rightfully summoned, and the substitution of dark undertones over lighter sensibilities that such genre was commonly known for were ditched with good reason. No wonder Slumberland has wholeheartedly embraced Black Tambourine's influence to their label. That's good enough reason to bring another of independent music's long forgotten cult stories into the forefront.

From start to finish, The Hunter is a collection of songs that inadvertently expands their repertoire and capabilities while they turn off their heads and let their fingers tell the story.

Cox sounds comfortable and confident, and has made the best solo album of his prolific career.

Not everything dazzles, but it’s truly shocking what does.

It’s a vital record, one that’s Nick Cave through and through, and whether he’s exploring his garage roots or his spooky, narrative tendencies it’s at all points a triumph.

With this record, there is Britpop, Radiohead, Spiritualized, grunge, trip-hop and more basking under an astral, space-rock umbrella, and Pumarosa have turned it all into a contorting, ornamental obelisk.

Smoke Ring For My Halo might not be for everyone, but it will definitely find a wider audience than anything else in Vile's catalogue.

Magus captures well the force of its players throughout its near 90-minute runtime, the culmination of which occurs in the album’s final track, Supremacy.

The artistry on Shadows In The Night is as sharp as ever, which is a welcome reminder of how Dylan’s songwriting is only half the story. The emotional electricity of his albums stems from his composed and ardent delivery and the sonic poetry of the arrangements surrounding this delivery.

And Never Ending Nights may be Willner's most fully realized expression in an already impressive body of work.

The process of writing this album was personal and intimate, but the end result is a confident, bold debut.

As the name may suggest, it's a daring, sprawling effort that simultaneously ventures beyond hip-hop and celebrates the genre's very history.

Just this performance of Jubilee Street is worth the price of this EP. While on record, the song simmers to a boil, live, it explodes. Cave sings like a man possessed as the band rips through the tune behind him. Both From Her to Eternity and The Mercy Seat hit as forcefully as they did when first released.

What resulted is ultimately an album of destructive beauty. Elegance married with sonic destruction!

You're probably not going to find another record quite so beautifully produced this year, or quite so warmly inviting, or just quite so full of lovely stuff.

In spite of the album's wilfully hard-to-stomach intensity, [it] will appeal to fans of art music of many different backgrounds.

Saturnalia revels in sin while occasionally contemplating salvation. Mesmerizing comes to mind.

Route One or Die is many things--immense, joyful, weird and above all aptly titled, as you'd be hard-pressed to find another debut album released this year --British or otherwise--that sounds so completely vibrant and alive.

You can’t necessarily call this new music, but it works because it doesn’t sound vintage, nor does it completely owe itself to any bygone era of “remember when?”.

To put it simply, it’s a near perfect conclusion to one of the finest records I’ve heard this year.

Even when it seems a bit disjointed on close inspection, it's when you take a step back that this album really comes into focus.

Even with the songwriting differences, Hope Downs sounds like a unified partnership between five musicians who've known each other for most of their lives.

Her wordplay ducks and weaves among the braided guitar melodies and idiosyncratic rhythm section with a razor-sharp cutting edge, with varying levels of daintiness, allowing the dangerously catchy melodies and thicker-bodied hooks to amass into a fantastically fluid LP.

This is hip-hop that doesn't attack; it drifts. Black Up is full of ghostly howls and weird barely-there percussion, devoid of anything like a single.

Welcome to Mali was one of 2008's hidden gems, so do yourself a favor and go check it out now.

Beams builds on the dense, sexy sound of Black City. Great dance music makes you feel like a beautiful Adonis, like an existential god as you jerk your body around to the rhythm.

It might be the best example of her genre experimentation to date. .... I don’t know if any song or album could possibly encompass the entire experience of life, but St. Vincent’s made a pretty damn great effort.

Sound Kapital, with its concise length and sound quality (omit none of these songs), should be the flagship for such a shift. Spencer Krug should take note.

The reason The Futureheads is so good is because, quite simply, the music is simply stunning.

An eight-song trove of volume, emotional density, and social critique, its commonalities with sounds cultivated by labels like Touch & Go and Amphetamine Reptile not so much evidentiary of retread as they are respectful and refreshing pulls from an era of dissonant rock plentitude. ... Noise rock excellence.

Not only does Undercard not disappoint--there are more than a couple earworms here and there--but it's brilliant and fresh from two musicians who aren't exactly freshmen to the scene.

THE FILM is a showcase of intensity: SUMAC ably matches that of Irreversible Entanglements via alternate delivery, while Ayewa’s passion and spoken outbursts meet Aaron Turner’s guttural howl. Looking at the essence of both entities and their respective creative signatures, it’s somehow both remarkable and obvious how natural each of them sound together on this LP.

That the record plays out so consistently and yet flows with such apparent ease is testament to the skills honed by the band since its inception back in Copenhagen in 2000.

For her, it’s filtered through the attitude of the cowboy, her power coming through in her music and her words. Under these guises, she finds layers of emotional truth that are messy, confusing and often conflicting, but no less honest because of that.

The Unicorns’ Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone? defines indie-pop, laden with hooks boasting a charmingly lo-fi sound devoid of pretensions and true to whatever whimsy their muse has stricken them with.

I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead is a triumph that will, like its predecessor, take years to unpeel.

It’s a confident, fantastic and ultimately very rewarding record that should be met with an open mind.

Introvert is a beautiful collection of poems filled with stories and experiences, on which Simz doesn't skimp on resources and thinks big.

Largely magnificent.

It might be facile to attribute the highs of IT’S THE LONG GOODBYE to Graham’s backstory, but he and his bandmates tap into something special, earnest, and powerful.

The entire subject seems to be instinct, a bombardment from Friel’s own psyche, expressed in a way that words could never do. Being therefore, indescribable. But nevertheless astonishingly glorious.

The richest, most dynamic album to the legend's name in decades.

Due to awkward, clunky sequencing, Dark Days/Light Years takes longer to reveal its charms than maybe it should. Despite this, it’s still a marvellous record and evidence that despite their increasing years, Super Furry Animals are a long way from being out of ideas.

Attention Please makes them into something more profound: an often puzzling albeit enthralling and super-malleable "fuck you" to the safety of classification.

It is intelligent, thrilling, unique, and endlessly replayable—challenging, yes, but always worth the effort. .... This is her Hounds of Love, her Brat. Yes, it’s that good.

The Money Store might be the very definition of acquired taste, and will most likely alienate the vast majority who attempt to give it a spin, but it's undeniably an extraordinary record.

Where You Go To I Go Too is one of the finest pieces of music I have heard in years.

It kicks ass.

Intellectual without being snotty, encyclopaedic yet accessible, it takes the seemingly stalled electro model and kick-starts it into outer space.

Once you press play on this wonderful record, Josh T. Pearson will take you with him. It might be painful, but you will savour every tear and be thankful for the bruises. Be greatful for this dark pariah.

Ten Kens are hook-savvy, brilliantly subtle at change-ups and they really capture your attention without making your ears bleed.

As it is with his most defining works, Rough and Rowdy Ways will have us trying to decipher and untangle Dylan's thoughts for sixty more to come. But the one thing he wants to make clear above all else, even when contemplating his mortality and the transcience of life, is that he's far from writing his obituary.

British Sea Power are not only the best band around, they’re also the best songwriters.

With their infectious beats and clear guitars mixed with head-bobbing electronic, New Young Pony Club has what cannot be learned, yet what is one hundred percent necessary for achieving greatness: hubris.

It's exciting in its pacing, invigorated in its writing, and illustrious in its instrumentation. It's not mad - nor, indeed, prairie-mad - to think that this is an early contender for album of the year lists.

Make no mistake: it may be a good two decades late, but ONoffON is the follow-up that Vs. has always cried out for. And as a result, it’s one of the finest records I’ve heard all year.

Stunningly good.

It’s an album of perpetual fruition, payoff meeting payoff with gratifying speed and the rush of riff-borne frenzy.

The result is the most compelling case in years on the potential of the journey—the insights to be gleaned, the friendships to be strengthened, your own potential waiting to be untapped. Albums like DNWMIBIY make you believe in magic again.

Recorded at Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio studio, High Anxiety will encourage your neck to snap, Weil’s over-the-top vocal delivery combined with the band’s refreshing lack of constraint apparently “too heavy metal” as spoken aloud during the altered soundbyte that follows Riding the Universe.

The music is at turns bewildering, cathartic and questioning throughout; there is no separation. An exceptional record from one of the music world's brightest talents.

Calling Life Metal a great metal/rock/guitar album, ultimately, is a disservice: This is a sonic meditation channeled through humbuckers and hearts.

A record that is rich, varied and a little crackers as well, Lovers will certainly stand as one of the best debut albums of the year.

James Blake is an absolute treat for the ears.

In Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts, M83 have created an ethereal electronic masterpiece, and one which, thankfully, doesn't sound like a relic from the Warp Records back catalogue.

This is a truly mesmerizing follow-up for a band with few peers and even fewer fears.

They've deftly struck the balance between breaking new ground and retaining their sound while making a record that has – bold statement alert – NO bad songs on it.

These are adventurous pop songs with intricate arrangements and sophisticated chord structures.

Dry Cleaning have far more talent than they do irreverence. How satisfying, then, that where Miller was one and done, they’ve only just gotten started.

Foals create a testament to their longevity but also consider where this new era is going to take them. Is this Foals’ first front-to-back essential record? Not quite, but with Pt.2 around the corner, it’s surely just a matter of time.

We hear a lot of different sounds, but are never left in any doubt that they flow together with such fire and skill that you feel they could knock out a freeform jazz number and still sound like the same band.

Ultimately, The Wild Hunt's stumbles are too little to mask what could be Matsson's finest hour. He may act as if he's the tallest man on earth, but he may very well literally be a talent of Goliath proportions.

This ambiguity is precisely what makes New Brigade so exciting--there's no dogged political agenda, nor a desire to sound wiser than their 17 to 19-age range. And even if it sounds like a slush of trebly clatter, Iceage manage to pack a wallop of melodic transitions in each measure.

The welsh trio have taken their time to reach this point, but with The Big Roar they have taken their opportunity with great style, producing what I think is a mature, clever and exceptionally listenable record from start to finish--and that's a mighty thing.

This is a great album, possibly the finest covers record in recent memory, and it’ll take some beating in 2008.

Not only is Seeds the most direct and optimistic album, but in some ways, it's their poppiest.

Being interesting, unique, fun and damn good is near impossible to pull off. Sleigh Bells has done it on Treats, and goddamn is it good.

This is perhaps his most beautiful work to date; its vulgarity is restrained but a sense of humour remains, and Wells and Moffat reach new emotional heights.

It's still considered the band's last album as an underground presence, so it holds importance as something monumental in the band's development. As an album, Lifes Rich Pageant is enjoyable and clean.

Big Thief proves that it can feed your head, your heart, and your hands in equal measure. Like the musical giants of old there is nothing they can’t do, ably going from strength to strength. Two Hands serves as the band’s call to arms.

Even if the songwriting didn’t completely explore the full scope of Cobain’s capabilities, Bleach also represents that point in time when money was an object and the music was all that mattered, a precursor to a cultural shift that made Sub Pop a national brand.

Not only are the songs uniformly excellent, they also show a mastery of the art of controlled dynamics, of tension and release, that most young bands ignore to pursue the catharsis of sustained intensity.

Those of us who aren’t already familiar with these tracks and are getting limited mileage out of Chasny’s recent exercises in finely honed border-psych will find that these patient, meditative, sky-minded nocturnes are just what the witch-doctor ordered.

The result is that most rarefied of things, a Paul album with no throwaways.

The album’s generative “concept” is as strange and incredible as its music.

I love it the same way I love looking at signatures in my yearbooks: as distant reminders of past friends and better times. Sure, this album is awesome, but the fact remains that this is a continuation of an old idea in lieu of a new one.

Mering has concocted a successor to Titanic Rising that any gambler worth their salt would have no doubt taken the under on. That Mering topped her own prior masterwork is its own reward and one we are no doubt not worthy of.

I can’t say enough nice things about Tunes 2011-2019; there’s too much to love about this damn thing. I especially recommend it to those who aren’t very familiar with Burial and are looking for something other than Untrue to sink their teeth into. It’s a monumental snapshot of the “second act” of his career, and should be on all electronic music connoisseurs' Christmas wish lists. Prepare to get lost.