We finish up of Albums of the Year list with a selection of absolute showstoppers.
Arctic Monkeys - AM
From the opening riff of ‘Do I Wanna Know?’ to the closing salvo of ‘I Wanna Be Yours’, Arctic Monkeys demonstrated a brooding confidence and thematic clarity which has been unapparent since their debut. Undoubtedly the best British album of the year, and probably the best in the world too.
Kings of Leon - Mechanical Bull
Like Fernando Torres scoring a hat-trick in the FA Cup Final, Mechanical Bull saw one of the world’s biggest names return to devastating form. Gritty blues rock layered up with sentimental crooning and bar room brawls, it was just like being back in the early days for the Kings of Leon. Rarely have a band enjoyed making a record so clearly.
London Grammar - If You Wait
There’s little to be said about London Grammar which hasn’t been said already. If you’ve been determined enough to avoid them all through 2013, then now’s your time to give them one last try. If You Wait is not an album which immediately grabs you or stuns you into silence, but it is one which builds on the second or third listen, and will stay with you for a long time afterwards.
James Blake - Overgrown
The Mercury Prize winner seemed to be a big surprise to many but it really shouldn’t be. Fans of his first album and of lead single ‘Retrograde’ can expect an album full of haunting, electro-soul laments; a surprisingly unique sound yet one which will speak to many.
Jai Paul - Jai Paul
Despite this debut album not actually being a debut album, but instead being an illegal leak, this record made a huge impact after its surprise appearance on BandCamp with a host of eclectically influenced, well crafted p0p songs on offer. Makes you think what the real debut is going to be like.
Haim - Days Are Gone
An inevitable album of the year considering the band’s ubiquity, but Haim have far more to offer than that. A Madonna vs. Dixie Chicks, sugary sweet version of country rock pervades Days Are Gone; an album which sounds refreshingly new and nostalgic at the same time.
Laura Marling - Once I Was An Eagle
Having coasted a bit off the back of her brilliant first two albums, Laura Marling returned to form with an album which is punchy, throaty gutsy. The real kind of folk music which won’t get you a Glastonbury headline slot, but which at least says something worthwhile.
The National - Trouble Will Find Me
The National are the perennial band-you-should-be-listening-to and this year they took a huge step towards wider recognition. A soulful, and at times melancholic, album, Trouble Will Find Me amazed us, not with musical innovation, but with a depth and complexity of feeling it is hard to find elsewhere.
Disclosure - Settle
In the year when everyone suddenly claimed to have always loved house music, these guys were the primary cause. Settle saw the Disclosure brothers deviate from their more experimental earlier work (see ‘Carnival’) to produce an album full of pop-dance classics (apart form the awful ‘Grab Her’).
These New Puritans - Field of Reeds
Retaining their status as perhaps the most beguiling British band of the past decade, TNP brought us their third studio album in five years. It is hard to pin down what is so different about Field of Reeds to the first two because it was hard to understand what they were about either. What we do have, however, is the same frenetic, anxious energy, complicated structures and altogether dark experience of a TNP album.
