DECEMBER
Yo-Yo Ma & Friends: Songs of Joy & Peace
This ecumenical gathering sounds like a meeting of minds.
Roy Orbison: The Soul of Fock and Roll
Bruce Springsteen said: “Nobody sings like Roy Orbison.” No, they don’t.
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What a discovery
The understated beauty of Rusby’s voice is perfectly framed by a brass quintet.
This is monumental
Young’s genius is apparent.
Glasvegas: A Snowflake Fell (And it Felt Like a Kiss)
A midwinter treat for those allergic to tinsel.
NOVEMBER
It knocks for six recent efforts by rivals such as Madonna and Beyonce
Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan: Keep Me In Mind Sweetheart
If you’re not already addicted to Lanegan’s grow and Campbell’s whisper, this is a good way to get acquainted.
A bizarre, brave and brilliant album.
The Fireman: Electric Arguments
The most exciting Paul McCartney album since Band on the Run.
Holland can turn out swing and boogie pastiche at the drop of a beret.
A quietly powerful album
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They trounce the competition for immediacy and emotional force.
His first album in nine years proves to be worth the wait
Death Vessel: Nothing is Precious Enought For Us
You’re in for a bit of a treat.
Tony Christie: Made in Sheffield
This album is an unlikely triumph
May well be her best album.
Jolie Holland: The Living and the Dead
With a rockier approach, she has a new confidence in her songs
Worth the wait, wonderful stuff
Nina Simone: To Be Free - The Nina Simone Story
Does justice to a protean artist who pushed herself to the limit
Victoria Hart: The Lost Gershwin
Gershwin songs handled with a sassy stylishness
They show no sign of flagging in their quest to push the boundaries of the pop song
OCTOBER
Damien Jurado: Caught in the Trees
He is one of the finest songwriters out there.
So powerful, so artfully placed.
Joseph Arthur and the Lonely Astronauts: Temporary People
The loose, rocking swagger and country melancholy of early-1970s Stones.
A surprisingly fine album.
Quietly mesmerising.
More fun than you might expect.
Arthur Russell: Love is Overtaking Me
Who would have guessed that he could sound like a hip James Taylor?
Gang Gang Dance: Saint Dymphna
A weird beguiling mixture of ambient electronica, thumping percussion, vocal yowls and pan-global melody.
Kaiser Chiefs: Off With Their Heads
They make it look far easier than it is.
Bonnie “Prince” Billy: Is it the Sea?
He is among the best singer-songwriters around
Sugababes: Catfights and Spotlights
Just in case you hadn’t noticed that they can actually sing.
The Acorn: Glory Hope Mountain
A folky, eclectic and uplifting album.
A triumph.
Attic Lights: Friday Night Lights
Rich and tasty.
John Mellencamp: Life Death Love and Freedom
Authentic spiritual gloom.
F***ed Up: The Chemistry of Common Life
An aggressively thoughtful record
The Unabombers: Electric Chair Saved My Life
This does justice to an institution.
Jim White: A Funny Little Cross to Bear
An excellent memento of the man’s dry, witty stage presence
Eugene McGuinness: Eugene McGuinness
How wonderful to hear melodies as rich, complex and serpentine as these.
Entertainingly punchy.
Bob Dylan: Tell Tale Signs: The Bootleg Series: Vol 8
It’s a mighty addition to the old curmudgeon’s brilliant body of work
Tempos and moods shift with jittery speed.
Heady escapism.
Her talent is extraordinary.
The Clash: Live at Shea Stadium
Unforgettable.
SEPTEMBER
Amibtious, challenging and unfocused - but in a good way
Seasick Steve: I Started Out with Nothin’ and I Still Got Most of it Left
He continues to breathe new life into blues.
James Morrison: Songs for You, Truths for Me
Morrison is everything James Blunt isn’t.
Each of the 13 tracks has a chorus to kill for
A thrilling album.
An understated delight
A treat from start to finish.
Kings of Leon: Only by the Night
A hugely important album
Lindsey Buckingham: Gift of Screws
Sensational.
A Zeitgeist-nailing debut.
It races out of the traps on shufflign western-swing grooves.
Superbyly confident exercise in future pop.
AUGUST
While their contemporaries are standing still, Bloc Party are pushing things forward.
James Yorkston: When the Haar Rolls In
Yorkston’s modern iteration of folk is neither cold nor wet
This is sensational. Buy it.
Thomas Tantrum: Thomas Tantrums
They are adored by playlisters at 6 Music - and with good reason
Teddy Thompson: A Piece of What You Need
He’s one of the most important singer-songwriters of his generation.
Jackie Leven: Lovers at the Gun Club
A beautifully sequenced album.
The Real Tuesday Weld: The London Book of the Dead
Stephen Coates remains the wry and waspish boulevardier his fans admire.
The Week That Was: The Week That Was
Excitingly complex stuff.
The Bookhouse Boys: The Bookhouse Boys
These people have seriously good taste.
A wild and captivating listen.
Noah and the Whale: Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down
The band’s debut is a dark affair.
Slow, quiet and spine-shiveringly gorgeous.
The Zombies: Odessey & Oracle (Revisited)
Strong and astounding.
Roots Manuva: Slime and Reason
Dirty South London rises again.
An utterly charming and fun debut.
Wild Billy Childish & The MBEs: Thatcher’s Children
Childish can summon instant punk classics from the Thames estuary at will.
His warmest, friendliest album yet.
JULY
Strong, warm, brooding, hypnotic.
Stephanie McKay: Tell It Like It Is
Equal parts late1960s soul and early1970s funk.
Kitty, Daisy & Lewis: Kitty,Daisy & Lewis
A swingin’, loose-limbed affair.
Ida Maria: Fortress Round My Heart
Punchy punk-pop dispatches.
Music that really sings.
Impassioned and fierce.
A mesh of hazy pop and unstable noise.
Packed with pretty tunes, catchy hooks and haunting harmonies.
CSS are growing up, and it’s a wonder to watch.
A charming debut album.
Levi’s continued obscurity is a mystery.
The Hold Steady: Stay Positive
Extraordinary.
Marvel at how a band can work in such limited territory and yet keep everything so fresh.
Leon Jean Marie: Bent out of Shape
He has a talent worth cherishing.
Her warmest and richest record yet.
Smith intones, acid-priest style, filled with yearning, Shields flutters the filigreed flanges of sound.
A gloriously original debut chock full of youthful enthusiasm.
JUNE
Eli “Paperboy” Reed and the True Loves: Roll With You
Reed looks ready to hit the big time with his first widely distributed effort.
This is a comprehensive overview of Parton’s rich output during the past 40 years.
Eliza Carthy: Dreams of Breathing Underwater
A folk phantasmagoria of a record.
Sigur Ros: Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust
It has the urgency and raw beauty of something made in a hurry, with love, self-belief and zeal.
It’s never less than fascinating.
Things In Herds: Nothing Is Lost
Singer-songwriter Pete Lush has cut everything back to the bone, musically and lyrically.
The sound of a sweaty club at 3am.
An intricate, gleaming 1980s pop opus.
The latest in a long tradition of idiosyncratic Texan talents.
A brilliant album that immediately tops the must-have summer-listening pile.
Dennis Wilson: Pacific Ocean Blue
The lyrics have a zen simplicity that works perfectly against opaque, orchestrated arrangements.
Ubiquitous they may be, but here they’re buzzing.
Emmylou Harris: All I Intended to Be
Forty years into her career, her voice retains a heartbreaking simplicity.
his is a debut with the feel of settler songs arranged by the Beach Boys and played by Fairport Convention.
The 22-year-old Swede Lykke Li has been lighting up the blogosphere.
Joan As Police Woman: To Survive
To Survive draws from a deep well of mature woe, due in part to her mother’s death from cancer.
MAY
Their fourth album is positively Gothic, with melodies lurking in the gloom.
The Fallen Leaves: It’s Too Late Now
Sharp, angular, melodic garage-pop
The excitement is infectious.
His voice, so full of humour and joy, that stands out.
Born Ruffians: Red, Yellow and Blue
Songs veer from madcap punk to folksy strumming or doleful country and western.
Martha Wainwright: I Know You’re Married But I’ve Got Feelings Too
A continually intriguing record that stands out even in a crowded field.
Midnight Juggernaughts: Dystopia
Assured in both its vision and execution
Death Cab for Cutie: Narrow Stairs
Customary melodiousness with dashes of sonic bitters and unpredictability.
Phil Campbell: After the Garden
He is a gifted songwriter and his work is consistently sing-alongable.
The Black Angels: Directions to See a Ghost
Six furious Texans with multicoloured rays of sound shooting from fissures in their trepanned foreheads.
Bon Iver: For Emma, Forever Ago
Minimalism is key to these bleached-out soundscapes.
Neil Diamond: Home Before Dark
A collection of tracks that couldn’t be more elder statesmanlike if they ran the IMF.
Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan: Sunday at Devil Dirt
The chemistry between the two is riveting.
Lonely Drifter Karen: Grass Is Singing
Ambassadors for musical polyglotism.
The Shortwave Set: Replica Sun Machine
The Deptford trio’s second album has credits that read like a winning hand in a game of pop Top Trumps.
They take boisterous punk rock, then assail it with all manner of disorientating noises.
APRIL
They bring a fresh energy to the usually stale hard-rock medium.
The bravest, weirdest and best album of their career.
Kathleen Edwards: Asking for Flowers
A lesson in firing hook after hook at the charts while denigrating yourself.
This is a dance album with rare personality
Laura Nyro: More Than a New Discovery
Her soulfulness remains spring-fresh.
The Last Shadow Puppets: The Age of the Understatement
Two talented musicians taking a madcap, for-the-love-of-it idea and powering it through to a brilliant conclusion.
Robert Forster: The Evangelist
Forster’s first release since his partner of 30 years died is significant in its own right.
The third studio album from the Parisian singer-songwriter is pretty wonderful throughout.
This concept has inspired some fine songs.
Various Artist: MoshiMoshi Singles Club
There is something of interest in every one of these oddball offerings.
It soars perhaps higher than his work ever has before.
MARCH
Brimming and crackling with invention, violence, beauty, mystery, humour and malevolence.
Having dropped the Frank Black moniker and reassumed his Pixies stage name, Francis is writing the best songs he has come up with in many years.
Among many highlights, the ten-minute title track is outstanding.
Hercules and Love Affair: Hercules and Love Affair
A flighty, hedonistic proposition. A terrific record.
Malcolm Middleton: Sleight of Hand
Middleton shows off impressive acoustic guitar skills oddly reminiscent of a young Paul Simon.
There’s equal parts warmth to the kitsch.
The Young Knives: Superabundance
Modern life has never sounded more thrillingly rubbish.
A delicate negotiation between manly sentiment and ethereal prog-rock.
A tour round Van’s comfort zone is a perfectly agreeable trip.
A memorable romp through the blues catalogue.
Gruff Rhys and Boom Bip are at their best when they pastiche 1980s synth pop
The boundless, youthful magnetism of Foals’ noise flags up a chemistry that no amount of ill-advised panel-game appearances can neutralise.
Put your faith in the innocent preposterousness of it all and the moments of magic will, slowly, reveal themselves.
It’s Lambert’s hypnotic voice and irresistible melodies that hold the attention.
There’s a nothing-to-lose confidence in these songs that defies resistance.
Black Keys: Attack and Release
A genuinely unpredictable blues album.
Something seems to have clicked back into place since 2005’s disappointing Hotel
The band sound reenergised.
Gnarls Barkley: The Odd Couple
A hip-bumping, mind-expanding belter of a record.
The Dirtbombs: We Have You Surrounded
Their first album proper for five years grafts doo-wop backing vocals to explosive riffs.
FEBRUARY
Having long mastered clever, Hot Chip’s new album should catapult them to big.
From a group at the geekier psychedelic end of stoner rock, Dead Meadow’s fifth album is also their most satisfying.
Mlle Caro & Franck Garcia: Pain Disappears
A folk-pop songwriter turned deep-house DJ turned indie label boss, Ben Watt knows his musical onions.
Well-crafted pop songs with an art-rock bent are the mainstay.
Cass McCombs: Dropping the Writ
Fans of Josh Ritter or Brendan Benson will find a lot to like – though he’s not as mainstream as either.
Robots in Disguise: We’re in the Music Biz
They have become rather excellent electro-punks, specialising in cunningly interwoven call-and-response vocals that add extra hookiness to their hooks.
Baby Dee fashions an intricate, skittish and poignant distillation of incidents, setbacks and triumphs from her life story.
Envelopes: Here Comes the Wind
Based in Stockholm, Envelopes have conjured something special here.
Any band would murder for this number of viciously bouncy hooks.
Lucky is richly melodic, rounded and hugely rewarding.
Figurines: When the Deer Wore Blue
The Figurines’ jerky, groovy, psychedelic pop is very good.
Pete & The Pirates: Little Death
Fans of the Chills may be struck with d?jà vu.
Everything that is good about her, and none of what isn’t.
The Coal Porters: Turn the Water on, Boy
A cohesive group effort, spreading songwriting across the whole band.
Los Campesinos: Hold on Now; Youngster
A charmingly buoyant and fresh pop manifesto.
They mingle the whimsical energy of Kate Bush with the retro charm of St Etienne.
JANUARY
Her nu-Amy Winehouse status may seem a little too easily conferred. And yet the cap fits in all sorts of unavoidable ways.
Watershed is a seductive restatement of k.d. Lang’s talents.
Vampire Weekend: Vampire Weekend
This is surprising, barrelling proof that you’re never too posh to mosh.
One More Grain’s prime mover, Daniel Patrick Quinn, is both the man of the moment and a potential long-term proposition
Admirers of their bleak tub-thumping folk-rock won’t find this new pop direction too off-putting.
American Music Club: The Golden Age
Briefly hyped as the next Michael Stipe, Eitzel has long been a cult pleasure. But this is one of the best – and most approachable – records he has made.
The Lionheart Brothers: Dizzy Kiss
The band exhibit the same love of noise-layering as their compatriots Serena-Maneesh, creating a rich psychedelic sound that hints at both Secret Machines and the Flaming Lips.
Erlend ?ye, the voice of the “quiet is the new loud” poster boys Kings of Convenience, hasn’t so much decided to crank things up with this side project but funk out. In an impeccably lovely, Scandinavian way of course
Adrian Crowley: Long Distance Swimmer
On his fourth album, this great Irish songwriter continues to creep under the skin and behind your defences.
Skybound and A Night Like This are abetted by string arrangements that suggest someone hasn’t so much listened to Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks as studied it to PhD level.
British Sea Power: Do You Like Rock Music
The only band to blend post-punk vigour with a Dangerous Book For Boys worldview have made their third album their most stately
Kernow’s finest five-piece folk combo awake from their slumber with an entrancing set that could have been made in any century, let alone decade
This is as warm as a lover’s embrace and deeply soulful, that raw, gossamer voice at its most beguiling.
Stephen McBean’s classic rock crew summon up any number of sonic ghosts, from Deep Purple to Funkadeli.
Rufus Wainwrigth: Live at Carnegie Hall
When Wainwright slows down and his emotions unfurl, the goosebumps flare.
Lightspeed Champion: Falling off the Lavender Bridge
Falling off the Lavender Bridge is an ambitious foray into chamber-pop territory
Aidan John Moffat: I Can Hear Your Heart
One of Britain’s greatest lyricists, Moffat revels here in his discomfort and inadequacy, recounting, with raw, rude candour, the drink he’s taken, the relationships he’s botched, the infidelities he’s engaged in
Lacrosse: This New Year Will Be for You and Me
This is the perkiest, most upbeat pop album