It may not quite be the equal of records like Exile On Main Street or Let It Bleed (very few are, to be fair), but if Hackney Diamonds really is to be the final Rolling Stones album, it’s one incredible swansong.

A varied and largely successful meeting of minds, this is peer-review done right, and the prospect of it influencing future solo outings from Case, lang and Veirs is golden.

His is a rare talent, demanding to be heard.

In a year where R&B and hip hop have proved the most innovative and original genres Solange has delivered a brilliantly crafted record that places her right at the top.

[A] supreme collection of future-perfect broken nostalgia.

Archangel Hill is another life-affirming encounter with a remarkable artist. Shirley Collins may be British folk music royalty, but this record once again shows her ability to communicate with her listeners as though they are the only people in the room.

Champs deserve to be gracing grander environs on the back of this album, and while that may not happen, Down Like Gold does ensure that they’ll have thousands of eyes trained on them when they make their next move.

Whether stark and menacing, grief-laden or simply plain daft, Lodestar is a triumph of storytelling and sound.

The last album was such a darkly compelling set that it’d be wrong to frame Lamp Lit Prose as a ‘return to form’, but it’s perhaps a return to the light, to uneasy listening of a different sort.

There's plenty of pop tunes here, but there's also enough self expression and leftfield rambling to make this an album of real interest.

Punisher is funny but serious, subtle yet obtuse, familiar and somehow simultaneously entirely unique. Even if in the final analysis it’s still not massively folky.

Second album Open features a significant amount of fine-tuning and finessing and as a result sees them operating at a markedly higher level.

For a 21st century rock band, there isn't a single moment here that threatens to turn into an 'anthem' to be balled out at the Nestle-Monsanto Rock Festival at a mud-pit near you next summer.

A Certain Ratio’s 2024 model is a lean, mean, fighting machine that delivers one of their very finest albums to date – and for a band who have been in existence for more than 45 years, that really is saying something.

Tunng presents Dead Club may be their darkest album to date but it is arguably their finest too. ... A creative peak even for a band with more than 15 years’ experience together.

They have formed the most remarkable of pairings, crafting an album of such beauty that past reference is made redundant.

The album's not for everyone, but if her sound is to your taste, then it will prove a rewarding, delectable, necessary thing: one of this year's most consistently interesting albums.

As this wildly talented, unpredictable and near flawless young singer and musician bids her farewell with the album's longest track, BaBopBye Ya, this time in cocktail club torch singer style, one can but marvel at the impressive range, ambition (realised) and detail of this deeply polished, professional yet utterly, brilliantly bonkers album.

By the time the spine-tingling hidden track after the closing Wanderer Wandering has faded out, you’ll be convinced you’ve heard one of the best albums of the year.

An album that’s up there with their best, one of their most powerful and cohesive statements to date.

Versions Of Us is an intense listen, dealing with weighty topics, yet thanks to the hooks running through most of these songs, it’s also their most accessible album to date. It’s taken a while, but Lanterns On The Lake may just be ready for the big time at long last.

Chaos For The Fly is a captivating debut that showcases his artistic evolution outside of the post-punk bombast of Fontaines DC. These songs bleed through in their honesty and lack of over-thinking to demand active engagement, to explore their intricacies and contemplate their themes.

Vulnicura feels, overall, as if it is one of Björk’s most successful albums, one where she mostly finds sonic strategies that are well matched with her concepts and themes.

The album sees a succession of warm, hushed acoustic guitar textures provide an accommodating bed in which Nadler's flawless vocals can rest. The hazy sound and crepuscular feel to parts of the album recall fellow vocalist Hope Sandoval, or occasionally a more fragile and more gothic Cat Power.

Narratively cohesive and relatable, it is in celebration of where he comes from that ultimately makes Last Man Dancing the essential, repeatable work that it is.

If you've any common sense, plot a listen soon.

They've succeeded in making an album that does well to second-guess its listener, whilst never disowning the sound that first brought Greene to the foreground. "Chillwave" might be dead and buried, but Washed Out has only just set foot in the water.

Oozing fun out of every pore, this record is the perfect tonic to the increasingly troubled times that 2009 brings with it and will most likely feature on many of those Best Of lists come December.