It’s as brazen, bold and brilliant as anything it’s done thus far. It is, as Thom Yorke claimed, very minimal. Yet, the album never sounds half-finished, but instead focused and refined. It’s as vital as anything the band has done.

Floating gracefully, and guided by a stylish demigod of his own imagining, he glides atop the current of the zeitgeist as globalized and immediately accessible as the modern urban hub he calls home.

It’s beautifully conflicted and human, and does provide a unique and unforgettable experience that will continue to charm with its paradoxical qualities for years to come.

Abstractions give way to specifics, and the result is a cascade of feelings, ideas, and images overlapping and enhancing each other in the listener's mind.

It's black metal for prog fans or math rockers, Liturgy's attention to arrangement and speed the sort of maddeningly precise output nerds like that eat up.

I can tell that you are dubious, but I can assure you, gentle listener – these are the goods.

A stunning collection of songs, in the grand Brit-pop tradition.

Clocking in at a mere 32 minutes, the album is conceptually and sonically tight.

Dum Dum Girls have graduated from a class of reverb junkies to becoming potentially one of the most potent and distinct pop bands of our time. End of Daze is on a separate level of artistic creativity and economy.

A Crow Looked at Me is what all art should aspire to be: honest, affecting, and unforgettable.

a record that is both this good and a display of a band with so much more to show us does not come along often.

This is Newman’s most touching, musically rich and consistent record since "Good Old Boys" way back in 1974; and it’s hilarious to boot.

Scrape back the artistic pretensions and what's left may be one of 2011's most purely enjoyable, and boldest, records.

For sheer instant appeal, the winner has to be Cyberspace and Reds, which is clearly one of the most bizarre, absurd, and exhilarating records dropped in 2011, while Computers and Blues requires a great deal of thought and introspection before it can be truly valued.

Hand. Cannot. Erase. is an incredible addition to Wilson's body of work. Drawing from the simple and the complicated, progressive and pop, light and darkness, it proves that no force can erase his talent and standing as one of the best and most underrated musicians of today.

Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce to you, coming all the way from left field, the best album of 2012 so far.

Only one year later and we have Two Dancers an album so laden with lush densities and provocative melodies that you would be forgiven for thinking this album had taken ten years to make.

The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here is up there with the best Alice in Chains albums, with each track a conquest of structure and composition.

Both immediate and a grower, Boys and Girls in America stands tall as The Hold Steady’s masterwork – full of grace and gritty charm, full heartbreak and raw emotion.

Ta Det Lugnt is that rare joy, a work of art that both demands and rewards your attention.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart can easily be at the forefront of this scene because, simply put, they have the best hooks.

It’s dark and joyous at the same time, fun and epic sounding enough to seem meaningful, despite my inability to make out most of the lyrics.

There are two primary things that make Once I Was An Eagle take flight: Lyrics and progression, which together make the album intelligent, confident, and, perhaps most importantly, recursive.

By pushing pop into the dreary without all the drab, Iron and Wine strikes a balance of truth and hope that can get muddled by a scene dominated by pessimists.

Drenge’s debut is excellent, and it will no doubt have you appropriately ‘drenged’.

Wind in the Wires is a beautifully executed album that has everything: pace, panache, and clean sentiment.

What's being attempted here is sensational, an unmissable combination of common emotions and abstract anxieties that shouldn’t work. And yet, when Lindeman shares with us, these songs explode with the air of something incredible.

By stripping things back a little, Low have turned in their most confident, consistent record to date (admittedly this might have something to do with the fact that, running to only ten tracks, C'mon is also their shortest), and even, in places, sound like they're actually enjoying themselves.

Measure can be described as being the metamorphosis that translates Field Music’s born again status. Ambitious as it sounds, it locks itself into a pop compendium, which has always been a strong suit in the past.

With an immediate appeal and an evocative and nervous twitch throughout, Mating Surfaces maintains a gratifying pace, balancing energy and peculiarity throughout its 29-minute runtime. ... They manage to be playful without being poppy, succeeding in this case where a lot of modern punk rock fails.

The record’s lack of organization and resistance to stasis work against its accessibility. Those willing to mine such a dense work will be rewarded in a visceral sense, but may be left groping in the darkness for a specific, externally-fabricated meaning. Either way, the abstractness and wandering abandon of Mutant define not only the album, but Alejandro Ghersi’s approach to music.

Now seven albums deep into their career, Liars remain a lasting and distinguished presence, one that continues to question the confinement of genre and fashions their identity around a refusal to do so.

They're taking everything they have at their disposal and mixing it all together, creating something undeniably unique and fantastic.

On Negative Capability, she captures John Keats's timeless view on artistic beauty with genuine conviction.

The Fiery Furnaces are more than capable of producing catchy three-minute pop songs. They simply waited until now to do so, resulting in one of their best albums yet.

With The Bride, Khan has created a sublime tale of sorrow and recovery, of accepting loss and working through pain to become a stronger person. Likewise, Khan has taken her interest in similar journeys from earlier albums and used them to make her most consistently captivating work thus far.

I don't think it would be a stretch to say The Men were picking up where The Replacements left off.

This one is probably the closest rival to Merriweather Post Pavilion we’ve heard this year.

Modern Vampires of the City is nothing short of a pop music achievement, a standout album in a year full of standout albums.

She didn't just write an excellent, expansive album that pushed her boundaries in all directions. She underwent a journey of catharsis. With a dazzling set of songs, she's also given other broken hearts a path to the green light at the end of the tunnel.

A Seat at the Table is intensely rich and gracious in its candor, so much so that it’s quieter, painstakingly personal moments are every bit as robust as direct aggression. Its soulful flow is luscious and languid, and simply dazzles in the graceful, airy beauty of Cranes In the Sky, where Solange’s voice floats to stratospheric altitudes.

Grounded enough to know the limits of the listener (songs meander, but only to the confines of their ideas, never tiring out a single theme), but more than adventurous enough to remain extremely exciting.

Sonic Youth have captured that exploration perfectly and transformed it into a piece of work that not only embodies the various degrees of emotions and thoughts we all experience, but it creates new ones whilst doing so, through it's exploratory and deeply affecting methods.

In keeping it complex, shy and out of the ordinary, Broder has accomplished a composition of delicate and post-modern-day-genius proportions.

That they somehow manage to fit together to seemingly describe an entire world makes Engravings something of a minor (key) marvel.

Taken as a whole, Monomania is arguably their most imposing, and by far their most courageous, proving that Deerhunter have a frontman who’s willing to open up his soul to fit the demands of the stage.

In Colour is one of the best albums of 2015 and one of the best dance albums in recent memory, simultaneously a moving homage to London rave culture and a realization of the potential of one of the most exciting and original minds in music today.

As snobbish as that may sound, you have to lose yourself in Wavering Radiant to hear and feel the big picture.

After you shake off the initial conceptual strangeness, Brill Bruisers builds up to a breathtaking whole.

Death Deams almost faultlessly conveys the volatility and incomprehensibility of their particular genius. There isn't even one clunker in here, which is a lot to say in a year that's already seen another rock renaissance.

Write About Love may not be a great leap forward for Belle and Sebastian, but it's such an enjoyable record it's difficult to hold it against them.

This isn’t the breakthrough album that nobody expected. This is precisely the album everyone was waiting for from Metric, a culmination of all their strengths and a slicing off of the fat that may have slowed them down in the past.

Wolf Alice have come up with the goods again with their second LP, and in Ellie Rowsell they have a frontwoman who hypnotises and enthralls at will.

I’d be surprised if the genre can produce anything much better than this.

When it's all said and done, Tesfaye has presided over a mind bending, drug induced tour through an underground world of debauchery that only leaves him hollow. He commands the mood better than artists who have been in the game for years and yet this his first release.

On A Mission is the sound of the dancefloor being brought to the pop charts.

There’s a disagreement about whether this should be classed as their fourth, fifth or sixth album, but there’s little doubt that Wide Awake! is up there with their very best.

When it closes with the eerie, smoky gospel influenced Youlagy, you know it’s fantastic and you know you’ve found the most breathtakingly beautiful album this year.

With Ha, Ha, He., they have refined that formula [of the self-titled debut] further, sharpening up the edges of their sound and ultimately delivering a superb record.

In both songwriting craft and execution of recording, The Coldest Winter For A Hundred Years is exceptional.

Dignity and Shame is just another day in the world-weary lovelorn characters that Bachmann has so vividly brought to life for the past five years with his Crooked Fingers entourage.

Somehow, the 21 minutes spent with Vivian Girls are innocent and punctuated by brief moments of euphoria that make this debut more than worthwhile.

So, this may be Sic Alps' best album to date.

His synth work on this record is nothing short of remarkable, and his ability as a producer is further enhanced to a level at which he has no contemporaries. Parker is a once-in-a-generation talent, and this album is conclusive evidence of it.

The Suburbs is about a search for home, for a place in the world when the home you knew is gone.

House of Balloons is still his finest hour to date, but Echoes of Silence comes damn close to it.

By no means a feel-good record, Travels With Myself and Another is rich with enough black humor, sharp perspectives and tight muscular music to make it one of the best rock albums of the year.

Cocoa Sugar is an invigorating listen from beginning to end, and it's hard to imagine any other band making a musical work of art that's as visceral this year.

An album of incredible songs.

Rather than a credible follow-up, it’s another great album in its own right.

With Furman already establishing a consistent sound over his previous records, it was perhaps expected of him to cover some well-worn ground again here. Instead, and appropriately, Transangelic Exodus is an album that constantly takes left turns and refuses to slow. It turns out that with the right driver, there are plenty of miles left on the old road yet

On this, her latest and most emotionally charged album, she's managed to create a painful outpouring of honesty, one that strikes that coveted balance of both melodic and lyrical expression; her message is equally powerful from each direction.

Everything about Arrivals points to it being a landmark release for both post-rock and IDM, two genres that seem to be well past their prime.

Nearly everything about Audio Vertigo works, offering one of Elbow’s most consistently great entries in their catalog. It’s the type of album that has an easygoing, buoyant vibe and rewards dedicated, repeated listens.

Put simply, it's lovely.

The greater the risk, the greater the reward. And I can think of no better reward than this album.

BRAT showcases every facet of Charli XCX. She’s a club diva, she’s a pop girlie, she’s a partner, she’s a friend, she’s a daughter, she’s a woman trying to navigate her 30s and she’s a person who’s still mourning the death of someone very close to her. On the evidence of BRAT, it’s also justified to say that, right now, she’s the greatest pop star in the world.

It’s the adequate album to write when you’re on a quest to become something, later to realize that you’ve no idea how to carry on fulfilling that need. It’s a transition that Toledo perfectly captures, one that he’s relieved to have outgrown.

Under Color of Official Right is built with a steely fortitude, treating its subjects with respect and bluntness even if there’s nary a hopeful or comforting prospect to look forward to.

It's a remarkably sharp pop record that retains her fascination with pop-culture iconography and the rosey simplicity of a post-war America where classic rock and blue jeans ruled and takes them to much deeper places. ... Think of it as an hour-long car ride peeling down the highway with classic rock blaring out of the radio and no real destination in mind other than where your impulsive nature might take you.

Regardless of what the future holds for Led Zeppelin, the record shows that this single concert in the O2 Arena certainly was a celebration day for all.

One of the most insightful pop records this year.

It’s a glorious mess of a record, reaching for everything at once, and hitting most of it.

It isn't perfect, its sheer restlessness prevents it from being so, but it will undoubtedly come to be remembered as another masterpiece from possibly the greatest electronic composer to walk the earth.

Cut for cut, this is a triumph of melody and intelligence, with hooks that aren't cute and noise that doesn't dampen introspection, cosmic and prosaic at the same time. Parquet Courts have conquered rock 'n' roll's biggest hurdle: to move forward while staying true to themselves

Akron Family II: The Cosmic Birth and Journey of Shinju TNT isn't a big departure in that respect, but it is a more polished affair than any of their previous attempts: most of the songs seem to follow a more established structure than the wayward jams of old.

Newcombe has constructed his most level-headed and consistently engaging record since ...And This Is Our Music back in 2003.

Coming across as a familiar yet fresh sound, like a reconciliation of a past lover, Ventura’s soulful presence was crafted by time. Memorable and intimate from the start, Ventura completes Oxnard, as Malibu did to Venice; tying up all loose ends and graciously ready for the next chapter.

One of the most spectacular and intense albums the group has released yet.

If nothing else can be said about The Terror, it at least represents the culmination of all of The Flaming Lips’ oddball experiments and elongated, anti-sonorous jams into a single, abrasively beautiful cacophony.

A favorite for punk album of the year.

As activist hashtags #MeToo and #TimesUp bear weight and stage heavy resistance against a significant and still increasing population of men with power, Remy’s words prop up the cause, not quite providing the movement its anthem(s), but certainly offering its reason(s) why.

There's something hypnotic about The Stars that Leave the Stage, one of the most inscrutable and forward-thinking cuts here, on which he establishes a calamitous tension over a spooky piano motif reminiscent of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds' From Her to Eternity. The band sounds largely more muscular and self-assured, with a terrific rhythm section to boot.

They admirably say as little as possible, yet somehow get the message across. It’s an amazing gift in this day and age, when every wanna-be reality star climaxes at the sound of their own voice, to be concise and minimalist, and I have to say I love them for it.

It reveals yet another side to this musician, who has continued to pull back layer after layer since she first appeared on the scene.

It's the album that makes her the comparative standpoint in her own right--suggesting subtly that she may one day be the talismanic songstress for her own generation.

It’s a beautiful, at times tragic album, a versatile hodge-podge of creativity and ambition whose influences are nearly undetectable (this critic hears Bjork and D’Angelo most apparently) and with nary a false note.

What is clear is that the Arctic Monkeys of 2011 have produced, probably by a significant margin, the best British Rock 'n' Roll album you will hear this year, and on top of that there's the comforting sense that Suck It And See will only age well.