1: EFTERKLANG – Parades (The Leaf Label) – Efterklang are wonderful, they’re probably unique, they’re a band crammed and bursting with musical treasure – trinkets, details, bits of silver, shinny bits, bits that catch the sunlight, bits that make you glow, make you swell with warm delight – and yes this does sound like great colourful parades –great big happy engaging breathtaking panoramic parades – www.efterklang.net

2: UPSILON ACRUX - Galapagos Momentum (Cuneiform) - Extravagant, dazzling Upsilon Acrux are talent billionaires, and generous with it. . With every track an astonishing mini-masterpiece, Upsilon Acrux have delivered an album of complexed hard-boiled hardcore avant prog that will have jaws hitting floors for many years to come. Quite possibly the coolest band in the world  - www.myspace.com/upsilonacrux

3: TOMAHAWK – Anonymous (Ipecac) – Third album finds Tomahawk trimmed down to a trio and this time reverentially interpreting traditional native American music for these Other Rock post-everything avant musical times we happily swim in. a very different, rather rewarding very respectful, rather fine album, an album that, in going back to the source may well just be groundbreaking - www.ipecac.com

4: MICHAEL J SHEEHY - Ghost On The Motorway (Red Eye) – It will enter your ear like honey to your heart. Michael J Sheehy has made about half a dozen albums now, they’re all rather good - this is by far the best. Singer/songwriter blues drenched in Catholic guilt and step in to the strip joint, descend in to hell, then get right on up again and crawl to church, the one with the bar in the corner. Hell, he probably did try to burn that church down, he’s probably still paying for it, you really really really do need this album a lot more than you need any absolution – www.myspace.com/michaeljsheehy

5: SLEEPYTIME GORILLA MUSEUM - In Glorious Times' (The End) - In which magisterial, expansive anthems to the coming darkness are laced with stabs and dashes of emphatic, brutal classicism. Avant-prog-punk - with their Idiot Flesh pedigree and array of remarkable home-made instruments, reports are that SGM shows are not shoegazing experiences.  If the first two albums caused a thrum of word-of-mouth and web buzz, this is the one that breaks them out of the Oakland creative crucible, the one you force your friends to hear.  Massively massively gloriously recommended - www.sleepytimegorillamuseum.com

6: AHLEUCHATISTAS - Even In The Midst... (Cuneiform) - Ahleuchatistas are a contradiction: a fiddly name that rolls off the tongue with practice, and super-complex instrumental music made easy. It's not their obvious skill at playing, but what they do with it. 'Even In The Midst...' might dazzle technically, but ultimately it's the emotion and empathy radiating from every moment, and the sheer delight at what they're creating, that makes this 'difficult' music so accessible. www.ahleuchatistas.com / www.cuneiformrecords.com

7: PRE – Epic Fits (Skingraft) – London’s Pre coming at us via Skingraft - they found their perfect home. This is a hissy fit of high pitched screeching hardboiled pronkoid song noise, this is awkwardly difficult listening and pointy stabby twitches of new wave pink paint on pale flesh.Screaming yelling yelping relentless girl voice and erase all errata and have Karen O make the tea before they bring on a Cardiac Arrest - www.myspace.com/prepreprepre

8: 65DAYSOFSTATIC – The Destruction Of Small Ideas (Monotreme) – A third 65Days album that takes us to new highs that we now rightly demand from them. There now familiar epic prog-glitch - real prog, real progression and they never stop grabbing you, sometimes gently, sometimes demanding, every listen brings out another set of details and warm textures - www.65daysofstatic.com

9: DEERHUNTER – Cryptograms (Kranky) – They’re from Atlanta and they’re like some sparse visceral sharkhunt of an American alt.rock road trip. Kind of Sonic Youth for Spaceman 3 disciples who don’t mind a dark slice of strung-out primal space-rock Joy Division via the minimal side of those beautiful Liars. Loosely structured and awkwardly focused, like they’re challenging you to hang in there with them - www.myspace.com/deerhunter

10: CHROME HOOF - Pre-Emptive False Rapture (Southern) – A firework of an album - a spectacular no-holds-barred unflinching declaration of world domination.  Swollen with so many incongruous influences, Pre-Emptive False Rapture defies belief. Disco-prog? Doom metal, , the P-Funk of George Clinton, the complex, colourful mythologies of Sun Ra and no doubt Magma Pre-Emptive False Rapture is for real - true Other galactic funk. - www.myspace.com/chromehoof
 

THE LIST IN FULL....

1: EFTERKLANG – Parades (The Leaf Label)
2: UPSILON ACRUX – Galapagos Momentum (Cuneiform)
3: TOMAHAWK – Anonymous (Ipecac)
4: MICHAEL J SHEEHY - Ghost On The Motorway (Red Eye)
5: SLEEPYTIME GORILLA MUSEUM - In Glorious Times' (The End)
6: AHLEUCHATISTAS - Even In The Midst... (Cuneiform)
7: PRE – Epic Fits (Skingraft)
8: 65DAYSOFSTATIC – The Destruction Of Small Ideas (Monotreme)
9: DEERHUNTER – Cryptograms (Kranky)
10: CHROME HOOF - Pre-Emptive False Rapture (Southern)

11: THEE MORE SHALLOWS – Book Of Bad Breaks (Anticon)
12: GALLHAMMER – ILL INOCENCE (Peaceville)
13: THE FUTURE KINGS OF ENGLAND – The Fate of Old Mother Orvis (Backwater)
14: FRANK TURNER – Sleep Is For The Week (Xtramile)
15: MINSK – The Ritual Fires Of Abandonment (Relapse)
16: SHINING – Grindstone (Rune Grammofon)
17: DEERHOOF – Friend Opportunity (ATP/R)
18: LIARS – Liars (Mute)
19: BY THE END OF TONIGHT / TERA MELOS split - Complex Full Of Phantoms (Temporary Residence)
20: EVERY TIME I DIE – The Big Dirty (Ferret)

21: TURBONEGRO – Retox (Cooking Vinyl)
22: YOU AND THE ATOM BOMB – The Spirit Of Things (Sink And Stove)
23: ORIGINAL SILENCE – The First Original Silence (Smalltown Supperjazz)
24: GEORGE WASHINGTON BROWN – On The Night Plain (Static Caravan)
25: CAR BOMB – Centralia (Relapse)
26: EYVIND KANG – Athlantis (Ipecac)
27: LOU REED/ZEITKRATZER – Metal Machine Music (Asphodel)
28: ANTIGAMA – Resonance (Relapse)
29: ANEKDOTEN – A Time Of Day (Virta)
30: NEUROSIS – Given To The Rising (Neurot)

31: WEEDEATER – God Luck And Good Speed (Southern Lord)
32: AMERICAN STEEL – Destroy Their Future (Fat Wreck)
33:  TWO BANDS AND A LEGEND – Featuring Cato Salsa Experience and The Thing (Smalltown Superjazz)
34: ATHLETIC AUTOMATON - A Journey Through Roman's Empire' (Skin Graft)
35: SLEEPING PEOPLE - Growing (Temporary Residence)
36: LASSE MARHAUG – Alive: Live Recordings 1998-2006 (Smalltown Superjazz)
37: AKERCOCKE – Antichrist (Earache) 
38: RASHOMON - The Ruined Map: Film Music Volume 1 (Mirrors)
39: APSE - Spirit (Acurela)
40: SHORT SHARP SHOCK – SSS (Thrashgig)

41: RICHARD PINHAS - Metatron (Cuneiform)
42: BIONIC – Black Blood (Signed By Force) 
43: ODD NOSDAM – Level Live Wires (Anticon)
44: MOTORHEAD – Better Motorhead Than Dead – Live At Hammersmith (SPV) 
45: SOHODOLLS – Ribbed Music For The Numb Generation (Filthy Pretty)
46: MIKROKOSMOS – Is The Heart Of The Home (Ignatia)
47: CHARGER – Spill Your Guts (Undergroove) 
48: LEFTOVER CRACK / CITIZEN FISH – Deadline (Fat Wreck)
49: MORVISCOUS - Free Pop (self released)
50: DJ MAYONNAISE – Still Alive (Anticon)

Now send us your top 10 and we'll have the readers poll here for the start of the year
 

1: FIGHT LIKE APES – Jake Summers (Cool For Cats)
2: CARDIACS - Ditzy Scene (ORG)
3: VILE VILE CREATURES – Wilderness (Anchor Age)
4: EFTERKLANG – Mirador (Leaf)
5: DAN LA SAC vs SCROOBUIS PIP – Thou Shalt Always Kill
6: OIB SPLIT VOL 1: 7” GAY AGAINST YOU / LONELY GHOSTS / MUNCH MUNCH / THE TUMBLEDOWN ESTATE (OIB)
7: DAN DEACON – Crystal Cat (Carpark)
8: F*CK BUTTONS - Bright Tomorrow (ATP/R)
9: I LIKE TRAINS – Spencer Perceval (Beggars Banquet)
10: HONEY RIDE ME A GOAT / MOTHGUTS – spilt 12” (Kitchen Dweller)

11: THE SMEARS – Bring It On (ORG)
12: TINY MASTERS OF TODAY – Hey Mr DJ (Mute)
13: SILICON VULTURES – Silicon Vultures EP (Captains Of Industry)
14: DINOSAUR Jr – Been There All The Time (PIAS)
15: IMPERIAL LEISURE – In A Letter  (ORG)
16: DAS WANDERLUST – Sunday School (Cool For Cats)
17: CHRONICLES OF ADAM WEST – We Walk Unbalanced (Holy Roar)
18: THE GENTLE GOOD  - Dawel Disgyn EP (Gwymon)
19: THAT F*CKING TANK -  The Awesome Magnet (On The Bone)
20: SOULSAVERS – Kingdoms of Rain (V2)

21: GIRL SCOUT HAND GRENADE – They Want You Sedated So You Never See The Truth (Nuclear Goat)
22: TRUCKDRIVER JNR – And You’d Burst into Fire...Forever (We Like Danger)
23: HERZOGA / TO THE BONES – Things To Say/Tycho (ORG)
24: 4 OR 5 MAGICIANS – Forever On The Edge (Alcopop)
25: NATO – Ballroom Dance With Angels And Demons (Rising)
26: AND THEIR EYES WERE BLOODSHOT – Prologue EP (Small Town)
27: THE CULT – Dirty Little Rockstar (Roadrunner)
28: LIARS – Plaster Casts Of Everything (Mute)
29: 65DAYSOFSTATIC – Don’t Go Down To Sorrow (Monotreme)
30: ODD SHAPED HEAD – Egomatic Annie (Construction)

Now send us your top 10 and we'll have the readers poll here for the start of the year