Arctic Monkeys – Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino
A stunning reinvention of their sound which nevertheless sticks with the classic crooning tendencies and clever observational lyrics of Alex Turner. Favourite track: Four Out of Five is the obvious contender – a lead-off single with a festival-ready chorus. I also find The Ultracheese to be strangely moving. Guillaume, 35, France
Suede – The Blue Hour
This album is Suede at the top of their game. It’s just gorgeous: theatrical, dark, and energetic. One of few albums I regularly listen to straight through while doing absolutely nothing else, just enjoying its beauty. Favourite track: Flytipping. It is such a delicate yet powerful track with that lush Suede sound from every single instrument – including Brett’s voice. Honourable mention for Tides (those drums!). Juliet G, 41, London
Janelle Monáe – Dirty Computer
Melodies jostle for space with defiant rap and meld to comprise her most commercial but also her strongest album yet – this soundtracked my summer. Favourite track: Make Me Feel, the squelchy Kiss-esque masterpiece she reportedly co-wrote with Prince, is enough to make summer come all over again. Cat, 40, Brighton
Parquet Courts – Wide Awake
Idiosyncratic, varied songs with arresting, sparky, loose energy and a lyrical deftness which flatters the listener. Also doesn’t suffer from the production homogeneity which blights some otherwise interesting pop albums. Favourite track: Total Football. Amazing vocal delivery of the best lyrical conceit wrapped up in the most arresting and just plain fun band performance I heard this year. Greg, Wiltshire
Wild Pink – Yolk in the Fur
A simply stunning slice of Americana. The first side features no silent space at all, as all the tracks bleed into one another with the listener unable, at first, to determine where one ends and the next begins. The reverse is more traditional, but the tracks still grow organically. Favourite track: The Seance on St Augustine St is a superb example of a song that develops from something quiet and contemplative into a rousing and thumping slab of rock. Stuart, 43, Oxford
Earl Sweatshirt – Some Rap Songs
The flow of the album is perfect with short, concise instrumentals that are moving, occasionally minimalistic, occasionally complex, and with lyrics that are honest and heartfelt and don’t dress anything up. The context of the album is also crucial: prior to release, Earl’s father had just passed away, he had cancelled a tour, citing anxiety and depression. Favourite track: Azucar – the most emotionally potent and one of the most personal and poetic songs Earl has ever written. Noah Sparkes, 16, West Midlands
Pusha T – Daytona
Despite the relatively short runtime of Daytona, Pusha T manages to deliver the best bars of his solo career. Production from frequent collaborator Kanye West gives Pusha the best backdrop since the days of Clipse and the glitzy production of the Neptunes. Favourite track: No better example of this can be seen than on the song Santeria where the beat slowly builds towards a crescendo during a legendary third verse. Jake Nolan, 19, Manchester
Beach House – 7
An immersive and technically stunning album. Beach House style appears monosyllabic, but the nuances and soundscapes are fresh and inventive. Favourite track: L’Inconnue. It shouldn’t work – it’s got overlayered choirs, sung in French, Victoria reciting numbers in French – but it delivers a glorious gooey pudding of sumptuousness. Bobby, Warwickshire
BC Camplight – Deportation Blues
The artist’s moods are conveyed with brilliance through various means: choir, glitches, brutal introspective lyrics. It’s a little too uncomfortably intimate and, in a funny way, reassuring too. Thank goodness somebody else is as confused and muddled up as you are. I have rarely felt so engaged with music. Favourite track: It’s a concept album so I am not sure I can pick one, but at a push I’m Desperate which drew me to the album. It’s manic, dissonant at times, random at others. Cori, Edinburgh
Anna Calvi – Hunter
Definitely most moving album of this year. Perfectly cinematic, with striking instrumental production and Anna’s freezing voice on top of that. This is an album that will never bore you. Favourite track: After the live experience, I would choose Alpha, because of its vibrant bass beat that transfer you to some dark, naughty club. Martin Husarik, 25, Czech Republic
Low – Double Negative
It is a tumultuous expression of our modern era with a balance of their gritty, heavy slowcore and a vocal clarity that demands attention. I can’t stop listening. Favourite track: Poor Sucker is a dark, intoxicating track that is raw and angry without some of the violence of the rest of the album. Totally haunting. Charlotte, 33, Bristol
Half Man Half Biscuit – No-one Cares About Your Creative Hub So Get Your Fuckin’ Hedge Cut
The lyrics are as incisive as always, hilarious, and filled with bathos and joy. The musicianship is as tight and rhythmic as anyone could wish for. This is the only album this year I’ve actually gone into a shop to buy! Favourite track: Knobheads on Quiz Shows – an accurate and wryly observed declamation on the increase in crass stupidity, and how unembarrassed people are to be ignorant.
Chantelle Bennett, 40
Gruff Rhys – Babelsberg
Gruff’s off-kilter charm, restless energy and deft way with a melody has rarely faltered in 20 years, or sounded better than here. The orchestral arrangements are never overbearing, but they give the record a beautiful texture, every listen revealing a new little detail. Favourite track: Frontier Man was an instant classic (a friend of mine who found it deeply irritating at first eventually yielded when our holiday playlist kept it coming – its the kind of tune to which resistance is futile). Ian Rose, Melbourne
The Orielles – Silver Dollar Moment
A breath of fresh air: old-school indie guitar standards with a side helping of funk from a bunch of guys barely out of college. Has restored my faith in new music – no wonder these kids are signed to a label as cool as Heavenly. Favourite track: Let Your Dogtooth Grow starts with a burst of drumming that Keith Moon would have been proud of and has a guitar hook to match some of the best from Johnny Marr. Mike Thomas
Beak – >>>
The most anti hi-fidelity, anti FM radio album I’ve heard in recent years and it is all the more glorious for it. It somehow manages to be simultaneously (post) punk and prog. It has heavy grooves and a heavy atmosphere and draws you in deeper with every listen. Favourite track: Brean Down. The shift into the chorus temporarily bends my head every time I hear it. Phil Greenwood, 43, Huddersfield
Young Fathers – Cocoa Sugar
A brilliant burst of rage, intelligence, disorder and rhythm that demands you listen to each track again and again to pick up on those subtle, almost inaudible tunes and harmonies that hide behind the, at times, full on sounds. It’s an album made up of all the glorious bits behind Joy Division’s Atrocity Exhibition but mixed for a 2018 vibe. Favourite track: Holy Ghost – lo-fi start then a burst of a rap that feels like it’s accompanied by an old Moog synth backing.Ned, 58
Black Peaks – All That Divides
No other band or artist has quite hit upon the intense feelings of division being felt around the world this year. From start to finish this record takes you on a journey through the highs and the lows, the whys, the hows and the seemingly endless search for answers. The way it effortlessly switches from the visceral to the sublime is key to the album’s appeal. Favourite track: Slow Seas – a song dealing with what it feels like to live in a world where seeing images such as those of drowned refugees is so commonplace. Rory Hall, 33, Banbury
The Lovely Eggs – This is Eggland
Strident, vibrant, absurd and poignant, you have to hear the whole thing from one of the hardest working and genuinely entertaining bands out there at the moment. Favourite track: Witchcraft tells of the emotional qualities of pregnancy with a nod to Mark E Smith. Kevin Jenkins, 57, Plymouth
Cuts – A Gradual Decline
An album very much of its time. Unnerving soundscapes and beautiful tones. It’s a piece of work you can either get lost in with headphones or experience the full visual engagement with each track’s allotted video. The best electronic music to emerge from Bristol in decades. Favourite track: From Here to Nowhere. Simple, beautiful. Along with the video it brings me to tears. John Kerridge, 57, Bristol
DJ Koze – Knock Knock
Fantastically varied with some great collaborations with the likes of Róisín Murphy and José González alongside fantastic sampling such as the Justin Vernon’s vocal on Bonfire. Each track brings something a little bit different, from the melodic and atmospheric to downright funky. Favourite track: The infectious Pick Up was probably the sound of summer and in many DJs’ back pockets during festival season. Phil Mellor, Glasgow
Thank you for all your contributions and comments on our critics’ list – you can continue the conversation below
