15 MERMAID CHUNKY: “Slif Slaf Slof”

“Mermaid Chunky are currently one of the most fun live acts on the planet. Looping electronica, recorders, sax and a variety of unconventional percussion instruments, Freya and Moina construct weirdly psychedelic pop epics that fuse ravey techno with baffling monologues. Impossible to describe, but they do a splendid job of capturing all this madness on their second album, now signed to James Murphy’s DFA label. This album has brought me more pure sheer pleasure this year than any other. When the beat kicks in on Chaperone is my favourite single moment of the year”. Nick

14 FATHER JOHN MISTY: “Mahashmashana”

“With one of the best albums in his career the 2020s Elton John (but on a diet of weirder drugs and shot through with Instagram-scrolled wisdom) delivers a glory of lyrical knowing winks and musical sidesteps that is welcoming and rewarding. The opening five tracks play like a greatest hits and it feels eccentric and warm, like the Uncle you don't see much turning up on Christmas Eve with a lifetime of stories to share. More concise in its sound than his last few, this would likely be higher up the list if we'd had more time to spend in Mr Tillman's company since its end of year release”. Adam

“Screamland as a single blew my socks off (partly due to my allegiance with Alan Sparhawk) but beyond that Mr Tillman has created an album than needs to be played as a collective. It tells stories of love and loss and pulls you in the further the album goes”. Mark

13 STILL HOUSE PLANTS: “If I don’t make it, I love u”

“What even is this? There’s a guitarist making peculiar swooping sounds with an array of what sound like decaying Kevin Shields effect pedals, a bluesy jazz vocalist, and a jazzy drummer who never plays any rhythm you might reasonably expect. Never fails to get a reaction when played in the shop. Probably the most startingly original album of 2024” Nick

“Every time I play this I find more to love and even more to be curious about. It's an album that feels like opening the window in a foreign city at night, disorienting and dramatic but utterly beguiling. Much of the guile to be beguiled by is in Jess Hickie-Kallenbach's vocals which sound like one of John Coltrane's saxophones gained sentience and started singing one day. The drums are all over the shop in just the right way and the guitar locks into the gaps, soaking and swamping the songs in bright, staccato riffs. The most art-school band album of the year by a mile, and one of the best”. Adam

12 BILL RYDER-JONES: “Iechyd Da”

“This album is simply beautiful, at times it’s simple singer songwriter esque music whereas on other tracks the vast production makes some of the songs feel huge. A beautiful record from beginning to end”. Mark

“Oh, it's all just very sad and very very beautiful and very very very well done. A one man Flaming Lips at times, the most approachable kind of singer-songwriter at others - this pulls you in with deluxe orchestration and a laid back, nonchalant delivery but it's the heartfelt and heartbreaking songs that really elevate Bill's best album yet”. Adam

11 LAST DINNER PARTY: “Prelude To Ecstasy”

“Part of the reason I adore this album so much is because it completely surprises you by being much more assured than the sum of its parts (being Florence, Roxy Music, Kate Bush, Queen). Dramatic, frilly and arty, this absurdly confident debut album is studded with songs that could be late 70s classics - The thudding Burn Alive, tricksy Caesar on a TV Screen and exhilarating The Feminine Urge deliver a dramatic dance within the art rock template that those old bands played a hand in drawing up, and the big hit (Nothing Matters) that will be all over the place for years to come, hopefully”. Adam

10 CHARLI XCX: “Brat”

“Not many albums manage to become literally iconic in the space of a year. Channelling all flavours of 90s and 00s dance music from the rave scene to Daft Punk /Justice, fused with lyrics of raw emotional honesty and vulnerability. Unignorable in every sense” Nick

“Charli has been releasing top-tier pop music for almost a decade now, but Brat is the album that made that click for most people. Presumably to her surprise, it wasn't 2022's 'Crash' (which seemed to have the sole purpose of commercial success), as that album tried to appeal to everyone which kind of had the adverse effect. The difference is that Brat feels absolutely effortless. It feels like she is playing no one but herself, at times that being an arrogant party girl, and at times that being vulnerable person riddled with anxiety, about complicated relationships with other female artists in the industry, her fluctuating view on starting a family and her position as an artist ('My career feels so small in the existential scheme of it all' might be lyric of the year). This is such a time capsule of where pop music is in 2024 and no pop albums really came close this year. Honourable mention to “Girl, So Confusing” featuring Lorde from the remix album which might be the best pop song of the decade”. Jake

9 VAMPIRE WEEKEND: “Only God Was Above Us”

“The pin-sharp songwriting is still here just like it always was, and it's produced so differently from the last record that it feels like a cross between a side project from one of the best bands around and a progression from Father of the Bride's technicolour handclaps and ringing guitars. It's busier, scuzzier and more authoritative than what they’ve done before and sounds brilliant”. Adam

“One of the absolute best, smartest, most consistent, and most creative bands around have delivered a fifth album that expands their sound while still sounding unmistakably Vampy Weeks. Great songs, clever lyrics, perfect production.” Nick

8 ADRIANNE LENKER: “Bright Future”

“We all love Big Thief. Of course we do. There's little not to find beauty in across their entire back catalogue and Adrianne Lenker's vocals sound wounded, proud and rinsed out by love and life in a way that makes me think I'd probably get tearful listening to her read out the emails in her spam folder. This album is more stripped back and relaxed - cozy, even? - than a Big Thief record, less highs and lows and more a consistent hum. The Dylanesque return to her band's absolute stormer, “Vampire Empire”, is a ragged glory and the country soul of “Sadness As A Gift” and “Ruined”'s piano heartbreak are both peaks in a career filled with highs. One for the late nights, this”. Adam

“This album is a campfire hot chocolate with marshmallows kind of album”. Mark

7 BETH GIBBONS: “Lives Outgrown”

“We waited a long time but boy was the wait worth it. Beth has come back into our world with an epic album that does holds her voice at the absolute centre. Her voice sounds every bit as good as it did 25 years ago on an album full of experimentation, beautiful imagery and passages of music where you can drift away. It’s lazy to say it reminds me of Talk Talk given who’s on it...but it does” Mark.

6 THE SMILE: “Wall Of Eyes”/”Cutouts”

“What a collective The Smile treated us to this year. Both of these albums are every bit as essential as their debut and manage to create their own identities. I love that Thom, Johnny and Tom did not allow The Smile to just be a one off side project and whilst there is some inevitability to Radiohead comparisons these are different enough to hold interest. Can’t wait to hear where they go next”. Mark

“I didn't think that Thom, Jonny and Tom's first record would be anything other than an amazing side project in the Radiohead Portfolio Of Superb Albums so I was twice surprised by The Smile's second and third albums this year. Absolute bangers, plangent synths giving way to afrobeat and the most interesting guitar work that any of these musicians have put to tape so far. If you are a fan of anything Radiohead-shaped and you still haven't got these two albums, you are in for a treat. Two treats. Two treats for the Radiohead fans, no treats for the rest of you”. Adam

5 ENGLISH TEACHER: “This Could Be Texas”

“English Teacher gave some great lessons this year with their fuzzed-up rush of guitars, post-everything song structures and the deadpan, mannered and softly emotive vocals of Lily Fontaine. “World's Biggest Paving Slab” and “Nearly Daffodils” are two of the best singles of the year by some way and it was lovely to see a genuinely homegrown band pick up the Mercury award this year” Adam

“Debut Album Of The Year. Just a fantastically varied array of every flavour of indie rock delivered with talent and personality and great song after great song. They make it look so easy.” Nick

4 NICK CAVE: “Wild God”

“This album does not let you go. It grabs you by the shirt collars with the opening song and hugs you, makes you cry, puts it arm round you and then sets you free”. Mark

As a somewhat fairweather Nick Cave fan, I was FLOORED by this record. It is emotional like watching a baby being born in a cathedral made out of candlelight and clouds. Every song is woven with sunsets and starlight and sadness and serenity. Am I being overly loquacious? Florid in my description of this collection of gospel-infused meditations on life? If I am, it's because Wild God made me like this, dear reader. I remember this year pre-and post-Wild God and that's high praise, I reckon”. Adam

3 KING HANNAH : Big Swimmer 

“Their debut album was one of our Albums In The Year in 2022, and their second album is quite possibly even better. Lyrically, much of it is a kind of US tour travelogue but rather than the glamour it focuses on the dull minutiae of vending machines and gas stations and watching documentaries about serial killers, and listening to John Prine on the radio. The best songs on the album (Suddenly Your Hand, Somewhere Near El Paso) follow their “slow-burning starter until the gloriously incendiary guitar kicks in” model…. which they do better than literally anybody right now. Spectacular, moving, sometimes darkly funny. Also, one of the absolute best live bands around at the mo. See them if you get any chance.” Nick

2 FONTAINES DC: “Romance”

“It’s just brilliant. Great songs, great lyrics. Every time they put something in the world I’ve thought it better than the last and this is no exception. Grian’s lyrics are just growing in their poetic nature and musically they continue to push themselves. Probably my most played album of the year”. Mark

“Easily one of the best bands in recent times with an already exceptional back catalogue of post punk poetry, they could have churned out more of the same and it would have been well received. The fact they have tweaked with the formula is far more satisfying… and in “Starburster”'s wall of sound with a dayglo stream of consciousness running down it they delivered a party tune to end all parties with. In “Favourite” they have distilled The Cure into a Panda Pop bottle and shaken it until it fizzes”. Adam

1 THE CURE: Songs Of A Lost World

“Fabulous just to have them back after 16 years, but this massively exceeded even optimistic expectations, delivering EVERYTHING you could possibly want from a Cure album for NOW. Epic, Gothic, Melancholy but weirdly uplifting…ideal in every possible respect” Nick

“I thought I’d completed The Cure. This was a mistake. This album is truly epic. Alone brings you in the same way Plainsong opens Disintegration. Endsong is the best piece of music released this year and everything in between is bloody marvellous. Buy this album, play it loud, love it and then play it again”. Mark

"After swimming around in Robert Smith's bathtub of glitter-soaked tears for a few months, happy to say this album sounds fully formed and perfect, not a late career post-hiatus shrug but a statement of intent. The synths and bass are still there like they were on whichever Cure Greatest Hits you already own, but there is now an ache and an urgency to the songs (which are almost all about the fact that we are getting old and death is coming). But if you need to sit with that irrefutable but not especially uplifting thought, then this album is what you listen to while you do it. There is love and wonder and nostalgia and longing in these songs, and about seventy synth fills to let you catch a breath and pour another whisky to help with all the emotion. Easily my album of the year, by a rain-soaked and windswept mile”. Adam