It's the (insert made-up genre here, including the word 'progressive' and/or suffix '-core') album of the year.

You won’t hear a more exhilarating, dizzying record for a long time to come.

‘Nurse’ is the closest to creating a landmark on parallel with ‘Daydream Nation’ they’ve come since that particular record's nameday in ‘88, and in it’s dense textures it maybe signals the extinction of the antediluvian No Wave idyll; a Robert Zimmerman trip that somehow got mixed up with Joni Mitchell, Black Flag and a conceptualist oddball.

Colin Stetson is matchless, his record glorious, and you’ll likely never experience silence as dramatically as the moment when All This I do for Glory concludes.

Arguably the most influential rock album ever recorded... everyone that matters – and many who don't – between Bowie and Radiohead cites it as an influence.

Where Subtle use many words to convey many things, I will use one: perfection.

Past, present, and future rest patiently before Hoop, and she’s weaved them all into her most endearing album yet.

'Cuckoo Cuckoo' is another moment in which Animal Collective reach a new level of compositional mastery and broaden their territory.

One of the most illuminating facets of The Cutting Edge is what an unequivocal testament it is, both to the layered ingenuity of the session musicians and Dylan’s self-ordained composing pursuits.

It's practically a compulsory purchase.

It’s a vivid and beautiful painting that you can walk into; a magic window into another world that I'd be happy to get lost in, and never come back.

A remarkable record that simply demands your attention.

Stunning and dizzying, Sung Tongs’ strangeness will spin around your head for months to come.

Syro sees a master craftsman return with renewed inspiration. And while it might not technically be James' most innovative album, it way well be his best: his most complete and engaging under the guise of Aphex Twin.

With Pastoral Bernholz, excavates beneath the superficial lush turf of England’s green and pleasant land to reveal an angry mix of ancient and contemporary pus-filled sores.

If you’ve any interest, whatsoever, in rock music in any of its subgenre forms, you need to afford Blood Mountain some considerable attention.

The focus is all in forcing just a tiny a glimpse of the endless vastness of life outside of our species. Plonk yourself down, and wait for it to wallop you.

This is an important--a very important--piece of work that will stand the test of time. It’s also an utter blast to listen to and live with.

I Am A Bird Now is a beautiful, emotive, glorious, and sometimes sinister album that will top many a critic's list come the end-of-year polls, and justifiably so.

In fact, if anything time has only the strengthened the chemistry of the band, distilling its essence in to something much purer than its base product. In a year of excellent records, American Football have quite possibly made the best.

With his debut record Jamie T has--whether he meant to or not-- sound-tracked perfectly the condition of being, as described in Michael Bracewell's book "England Is Mine," today's ‘suburban dandy.'

The xx lay out all of their pieces beautifully. There are no extraneous parts. Not a second that they didn't intend. As a result, songs like 'Tides' or 'Chained' unfold as naturally as a ripple of wind.

It’s beautiful and utterly captivating in its own way and, after all the band and Lytle have been through, that’s triumphant enough.

An Introduction to Elliott Smith constitutes a worthy glimpse and gateway into a discography that has enchanted so many over the years. There are 14 songs here; 14 finer you'll seldom hear.

For all the remarkably fluid dialogue in Constant Image, none of that would matter if the songs didn’t connect in the first place. And reader, boy do they! Songs like 'Punching Up' and 'Pressure' sound like lost gems that popped up on your local college radio station.

'Mercury' from 1993 is widely regarded as AMC's finest moment, albeit their flawed masterpiece. This new album is right up there with it, and 1990's 'Everclear', too.

An extremely compelling, beautifully articulated, bonafide masterpiece.

Visions of a Life is a phenomenal achievement. It has captured on record the thrill, angst, sadness and uncertainty of being in your twenties and not really knowing what’s going to happen or should happen. All of it is never anything less than intoxicating, heartfelt and effortless.