20 The Weeknd – House Of Balloons/ Thursday/ Echos Of Silence
19 Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues
18 Arctic Monkeys – Suck It And See
17 Ghostpoet – Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam
16 Iron And Wine – Kiss Each Other Clean
15 Bon Iver – Bon Iver
14 Tom Vek – Leisure Seizure
13 Jay Z and Kanye West – Watch The Throne
12 Girls – Father, Son and Holy Ghost
11 Slow Club – Paradise
10 Gil Scott-Heron and Jamie xx – We’re New Here
9 SBTRKT – SBTRKT
8 Los Campesinos! – Hello Sadness
7 Yuck – Yuck
6 Drake – Take Care
5 Summer Camp – Welcome to Condale
Welcome to Condale encapsulates the extremes of teenage love, angst and rebellion. The album is a scrapbook of tales concocted by duo Elizabeth and Jeremy.
A blending of 80’s synth pop melodies, youthful desires and juvenile ramblings combine to make one of the best collections of songs this year.
4 Tune Yards – W H O K I L L
With lyrics about freedom, war and death, a chaotic array of instruments blending together and Merrill Garbus unmistakable rallying vocals made W H O K I L L one of the year’s most fun records.
Tune Yards second album came out of nowhere and became one of the year’s most beautifully weird and unique records.
3 James Blake – James Blake
With his self-titled debut James Blake managed to separate himself from his earlier down tempo dubstep mixes and create a genre blurring ‘blubstep’ record.
Throughout the album he tears himself apart, eloquently deconstructing his life and this is all surrounded by Blake’s own unique and intriguing sound.
The album’s minimalistic yet perfectly produced sound lends itself perfectly to Blake’s warbling vocals. The year’s best debut from the year’s busiest artist.
2 Metronomy – The English Riviera
Much like The Horrors and The Maccabees before them Metronomy’s reinvention saw them become the band they were always meant to be.
Their third album ‘The English Riviera’ saw them transport from indie dancefloors to exotic paradises.
Like its predecessors the album still focuses on the isolation and solitude of love however this time it’s drenched in sun kissed melodies.
1 Wild Beasts – Smother
With their third album ‘Smother’, Wild Beasts have refined the sound they began to define on Mercury nominated ‘Two Dancers’.
Overtly sexual, flamboyant, gorgeous wordplay, elegant production and Hayden’s effortless falsetto are just a few reasons why this is my favourite album of the year.
