Widescreen ambitions should never be criticised, and as Prelude To Ecstasy ends with Mirror, a Cheryl Cole torch song with Nick Cave intensity and Bond-theme bombast, you have to conclude that this album is big, and it is clever.

The Underside Of Power is righteous, vicious and vital. If the world is a stage, then at the moment it’s hard to think of a better house band than Algiers.

It's lyrically depressing, but if you're down in the dumps about the ills of the world and frustrated by a lack of personal achievement, there's surely not a better companion piece to have to hand as you wallow.

It’s a remarkable, joyous and life-affirming record, a testament to remaining musically open-minded and progressive, and very much confirms O’Hagan’s under-appreciated genius.

Somehow, from nothing, they’ve pulled off a surprising but oh so welcome return, and this record plays like a triumphant middle finger salute, coolly showing everyone how its done... and writing the first line on a thousand ‘album of the year’ lists before January’s even out.

It's much less forthright and immediate than Inverted or Chutes, but it succeeds in spinning a web that draws you in; once caught you just want to lie back and absorb its gentle bounce.

It might not be an easy listen at times, but make no mistake, this is a vital an important record and one that needs to be heard in order to make sense of it. A definite contender for album of the year and one whose impact will stand alongside Lou Reed‘s Berlin for years to come.

Beams is an uncompromising, forceful and darkly beautiful album from a formidable musical talent.

This is undoubtedly Liars’ most engaging work, and certainly the best Mute album since, well, WIXIW.

A record of many highs.

Its real strength lies in the fact that it implores you to return for repeated visits to a world riddled with other people's cast-offs. Ironically, it recycles nothing; everything here is box fresh.

It’s a stately and urgent reclamation of intent from all involved. If you expected a band with such a long and storied history to ever be elegiac or pedestrian that would be a grave misstep. Under Marshall Allen’s all seeing eye, they’ve untethered themselves from the oppressive gravity of their past and launched themselves head first off back into the furthest reaches of outer space from whence they first came.

Inspiring and ingenious, this is an album you shouldn't be without.

So minimal and calm is much of The Harrow & The Harves that Six Horses comes as something of a shock. It displays the same studied but honest approach to American folk music that characterises the whole album but adds harmonica and, yes, handclaps!

It has a daft title, and a few daft songs with hammy lyrics. It has variety, diversity and its heart on its sleeve. It has pretence, artifice and ambition. It has, basically, everything.

An album that feels alive and joyous in its creation and performance.

With Young Man In America, Anaïs Mitchell has created her second consecutive masterpiece.

Blue Weekend is Wolf Alice’s best work yet – a confident, euphoric, blistering 40 minutes that’s guaranteed to be on many people’s ‘best of’ lists at the end of the year.

Shore is a glorious, life-affirming collection of songs, a move to the centreground that shows his absorbing of musical influences is paying rich dividends. It has ‘future classic’ written all over it.

It’s rare that you get an album by an established artist that genuinely shocks and irrevocably repositions them. Blank Project is one of those albums. This is a hugely significant return.

Nothing quite prepares you for the sheer beauty of The Magic Numbers' music.

This is an astonishing album.

The Loon will stand up as one of the best albums of the year, and Tapes 'n Tapes as a jewel in the American music crown.

Fucked Up have created a masterpiece that pushes boundaries, takes risks and delivers huge rewards.

Frank is a superb debut album that announces Amy Winehouse as a major young talent. With hardly any weak tracks on here, it's frightening to think what she could produce in the years to come.

Grapefruit is an exhilaratingly exciting album.

With not a dot ball or an overthrow, The Duckworth Lewis Method is an unqualified success.

One of the freshest, funkiest, tragic and joyous albums in recent times.