Whatever all this means, Dragonslayer is an album to get your teeth into. As on the final chorus, it's: "a bigger kind of kill". You need this.

The Seer is the culmination of Gira's 30-year-journey; his finest two hours, if you will.

A work of formidable and pristine beauty.

With their debut Mbongwana Star have made a really classic record for the ages, and what’s more, one that could shape a whole lot of music to come.

Stetson is stepping it up a notch; inexplicably adding drama to the music that is already steeped in powerful emotional sensations.

The Money Store thrills like no other set heard this year.

True Widow have laid down an album so strong that I can't see anything usurping it as album of the year for me (or anyone else who gives it a few listens). And at the end of April, that's a mighty bold claim. But the glove is on the floor now, and everyone else will simply have to step up or cower away and hide.

Thirty years later and Appetite For Destruction still packs a visceral thrill; a combination of real attitude and proper songcraft that very few bands, if any, have ever combined so perfectly.

With this fine writing, you show us you, unguarded, complex, sincere, like a dear friend I’ve invited over for tea that I haven’t seen in ages.

If you only buy one album this year, make it Finelines.

It’s a determined, seductive experience, brimming with belief and completely torching everything they’ve done before. As of now, The Twilight Sad are basically untouchable.

Daze challenges the listener more than most dime-a-dozen electronic music.

The opening half of 'Penance...' alone blows every so-called rock act polluting our airwaves clean away, such is the savage malevolence that resonates within every single syllable that spouts from Joe Cardamone's mouthful of poison.

A truly elemental opus.

Halo cements itself into yr ears. This is logic in motion, and it’s dead beautiful to watch every piece of these puzzles fall into place.

It’s the closeness and the honesty which makes ‘I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning’ a thing of awe.

Room remains Ought’s most beautiful--yes, beautiful--album to date.

Bluntly, if you consider yourself in any way interested in rock music and don't already own this album, you're doing yourself a rather large disservice.

Master is a record of real and rare magnificence.

With Highway Hypnosis, the cool kid sets the trend yet again--now floating almost entirely away from the bass, Moolchan cranks down the tempo for a decisively more urban flair that draws from the streets of Lisbon, Atlanta, and London in equal measure. And somehow, even with all this new swag, our sneaky protagonist loses none of the prankster wit that turned heads in the first place.

Overall, Still In A Dream: A Story Of Shoegaze 1988-1995 is an essential purchase for anyone with an interest in the genre. And while the omission of certain acts make it just fall short of being definitive, there's more than enough sonic gold here to compensate.

Brutally hip-hop with post-punk tendencies, Ratking’s debut album is a wonderfully dystopic record that is as progressive as it is anarchist. Ratking really is that thing.

This isn't a rave record. It was never supposed to be. It's a wildly varying catalogue of melody and energy that eschews genre and scene in favour of songwriting and awe-inspiringly beefy production.

There’s enough continental plate-shifting histrionics to keep any unsatisfied Godspeed! fans amused.

My album of the year - whatever year it is.

Bursting with new inspiration and direction, After the Party is the triumphant sound of a songwriting duo reaping the rewards of those sacrifices, a group of friends on an unstoppable streak of home runs.

He is, however, a radiant example of an artist with the ability at his fingertips to close the schism between the true avant-garde and the leftfield mainstream, and in this respect Until the Quiet Comes is the record to date we'll most likely crown his masterpiece.

Their best yet: it’s multi-faceted like no release before it (from the band’s catalogue), and each and every nuance is super funky.