While The 2nd Law never hits the heights of some of Muse’s early work – especially their 2001 masterpiece Origin of Symmetry – there’s lots of good stuff on this record. I certainly prefer it to their previous effort, 2009’s The Resistance, but it remains inconsistent. When it’s good, it’s really good. Opener ‘Supremacy’ reminds me of early Pure Reason Revolution at the beginning, then eases into full-blown operatics before neatly shifting back into the chunky riff. Great start. ‘Panic Station’ is funky as hell and shows a really nice development of their previous ‘Supermassive Black Hole’ sound. If Prince made prog-rock... Album closer ‘The 2nd Law – Isolated System’ also sounds fresh: an understated but excellent journey. Equally, there are a number of tracks that are by-the-numbers bland stadium fillers. ‘Follow Me’ feels like a discarded offcut from a previous record, and Olympic-tune ‘Survival’ is just plain lazy. They’re so much better than this; shame it was the song they chose to play live at the opening ceremony to 900 million people.
Another album that’s a bit hit-and-miss, Django Django’s Mercury-nominated debut has lots of invention about it. I’ve seen it called ‘art rock’ but for me it’s just a quality indie-rock album that’s not afraid to delve into electronica or other random genres when it suits. Everything here is really well crafted, and the album is superbly produced by drummer David Maclean. I think it works best when it opts for the riff-led rhythmic approach: my two favourite tracks are the stompy ‘Wor’ (which makes me think of the Pulp Fiction soundtrack) and the slightly quirkier ‘Default’. The more genre-bending tracks – like, say, ‘Waveforms’ – are patchier, but there are loads of great ideas brimming here, even on the tracks that are less successful. Will buy album number 2, it could be awesome. 
A really good record that, as quite often happens, suffered a lot under the weight of my expectation. I adore The Avett Brothers’ last record, 2009's I and Love and You, so I had probably unreasonable hopes for The Carpenter. When I stop and try and judge it on its own merits, it stands up pretty well. Overall, it’s a rockier/heavier record than I and Love and You, with a significant amount of the beautiful melancholia that defined their previous record replaced with something a bit grander-sounding. Interestingly, the country-folk-rock songs (see e.g., ‘I Never Knew You’, ‘Pretty Girl from Michigan’, ‘Geraldine’) are actually more successful for me than the songs that more closely resemble the introspection of I and Love and You. Probably because I can separate these tracks in my mind and enjoy them for what they are. In terms of the mellower tunes on show, I certainly don’t feel that any of them are ‘bad’. The Avett Brothers have too much quality as a band for that: it’s just that they excelled themselves in this regard last time out. The Carpenter probably objectively deserves a higher placing on the list, but it’s telling that, when in the mood, I’m already reverting to playing its predecessor.
In some ways this is both a rebirth and a retrospective. For me, This Machine is easily the best Dandy’s album since the pop-party of Welcome to the Monkey House way back in 2003. Output since then has been rather dodgy, and I nearly didn’t bother getting This Machine because of recent turkeys and based on the fact that it was followed by a swathe of terrible reviews. Luckily I got it anyway: there’s lots to enjoy here, especially as the band seems to hop genres with ease throughout, calling to mind the full range of their earlier output. Previous Dandy Warhols albums, good or bad, have consistently been different from each other – nobody can accuse the Dandy’s of ever sitting still. This Machine plays something like a best of that doesn’t actually include the original songs. ‘Enjoy Yourself’ was surely on Welcome to the Monkey House
(right?), and both ‘Alternative Power to the People’ and ‘Sad Vacation’ belong
on the flawed but fun Odditorium or Warlords of Mars. There’s also
occasionally a return the comparative palatability of Thirteen Tales from
Urban Bohemia (both ‘Rest Your Head’ and ‘I Am Free’ could bother the
radio). Not a bad track throughout: a
super, if disjointed, return to form.
Feels a bit like they may be saying goodbye, though. We’ll see.
A bit like Muse’s The 2nd Law, Therapy?’s thirteenth studio album is a release by a much-loved favourite that’s an improvement on recent efforts while not getting at all close to the highs of the glorious past. Also like The 2nd Law, A Brief Crack of Light is a hit-and-miss affair. Single ‘Living in the Shadow of a Terrible Thing’ could comfortably sit on one of Therapy?’s mid-90s to mid-2000s classic records, both in terms of quality and style. ‘Get Your Dead Hand off My Shoulder’ is Therapy? at their disturbing radio-avoiding best, in the Suicide Pact – You First vein. Album closer ‘Ecclesiastes’ is a slow synth-voice lament that draws you in and lives in your head all day. So far, so awesome. The trouble is that certain other tracks (take, ‘The Buzzing’) are so wilfully discordant and unpalatable that the whole record suffers. Therapy?’s refusal to compromise is one of the reasons that they’re so great, but it also means they have a lack of quality control at times. Dirgy stuff of this sort was what brought down their previous record, Crooked Timber, too (though the damage on A Brief Crack of Light is less pervasive – this is certainly the better effort).
The cover art of Torche’s third album tells you all you need to know. It is a metal album, no question, but one that features a number of cute cartoon baby dragons vomiting out rainbows on its sleeve. That pretty much sums it up. Torche has always been an experiment in making metal as if it was bubble-gum pop, and this is by far the band’s most successful attempt in my eyes. The riffs are as head-mulching as anything you’ll get from Mastodon, but the song structures feel more like Green Day (especially the bouncy drumming). The vocals are melodic and the overall feeling is uplifting rather than gloomy. Hardly very metal. Stand out track ‘Kicking’ is entirely representative: you could opt to head bang to it quite happily, but you could also dance along to the jaunty bass-line at a wedding. Ok, maybe not a wedding. But you know what I mean. Every track is good: this feel like a band nailing a formula that they’ve been developing for some while. Harmonicraft is what the first two Torche records promised but never quite delivered. Let’s hope they now develop things further on album number four. The first really excellent album to make my list this year.
This Australian band’s debut really reminds me of Death From Above 1979: 1) they’re a two piece; 2) the music is largely bass driven metal-punk but with a lot of electronic weirdness added in and 3) the whole thing is bonkers. I wonder if the lyric “It’s 1979!” from ‘Cops Capacity’ is a coincidence or an acknowledgement of source material. To be fair, this isn’t exactly derivative, and it has its own identity. Where DZ Deathrays have carved something different out from rather similar granite to that used by DFA79 is the added garage rock feel. The riff that makes up the second half of the excellent ‘Teenage Kickstarts’ was made to be played in a sweaty basement and the snarl of album-best ‘Cops Capacity’ is similarly raw. The tracks that take a weirder turn, into grimy electronica, also work really well: see ‘Play Dead’ as probably the best example. Lyrically, this is a cut above the usual too. The anti-yuppie ‘Dollar Chills’ is both scathing and thoughtful. Overall, lots to enjoy. The low-fi production and detuned bass mean the album is beautifully filthy from start to finish. Get in the gutter. 
Not to spoil the excitement, but this is the only one of Green Day’s three-albums-released-in-a-six-month-period experiment that has made my list. I found the second entry, ¡Dos!, to be comparatively dull and formulaic (the first and last tracks aside) and I’ve not yet had the third installment, ¡Tré!, long enough to form an opinion (i.e., it essentially missed the cut-off date for this list). 
‘Been Away Too Long’ indeed. Lovely to have Soundgarden back after (I can’t believe it’s been) 15 years. And while King Animal isn’t perhaps quite up to the standards of their mid-90s masterpieces, there are so many good tracks on show here. As ever, Chris Cornell’s amazing and distinctive voice is the first thing that you notice when playing King Animal through, but repeated listens reveal a depth of quality from all members of the band. This isn’t an especially flashy record; much of Soundgarden’s early work is more technically impressive, but the song-writing on show is top stuff. I love the riff underpinning ‘Non-State Actor’, ‘A Thousand Days Before’ is so wonderfully Soundgarden-esque that it may as well have been released in 1994 and ‘Taree’ reminds me of quality stoner rock bands like Creature with the Atom Brain. This is an excellent album and a nice reminder of just how great this band was. Not a duff track: let’s hope this is not a one off reunion album but a genuine return. I’m continuing to play this and it has been shooting up my draft list in recent weeks; if it had been released earlier in the year it may well have found a place in the top 10.
In to the top 10 with a superb sophomore effort from Southampton’s Band of Skulls. The band has branched out from the southern blues-rock template of debut Baby Darling Doll Face Honey to cover a range of garage and alt-rock styles on Sweet Sour. The result is a little less focused, but is more ambitious and probably has more stand-out tracks. Yes, The Black Keys stylings are still greatly in evidence on tracks like the brilliant single ‘The Devil Takes Care of His Own’ and ‘You’re Not Pretty but You Got It Goin’ On’, but there’s also the scratchy riffing of ‘Wonderluster’ and the bittersweet acoustics of album-best ‘Navigate’. Band of Skulls benefit significantly from having two people who can sing: Russell Marsden’s classic rock howl is well complimented by Emma Richardson’s ethereal vocals. Exemplary playing (especially the bass) and a stockpile of quality songs means this is a superb listen start to finish.
Raise that fist with the index and pinkie outstretched: rawk! Good old fashioned metal. This is how you do it. Mark Tremonti’s first solo album is his best work. There’s no pretention here, just riffs. And they are awesome riffs. What sets it apart, though – aside from the quality of the riffage – is the interesting mixture of thrash verses and anthemic choruses. One review I read of the album said it “perfectly tips the scales between all-out shredding and hypnotic hooks.” That’s a great description that I can’t better, so I’m stealing it. This is as heavy as calcified elephant dung, but it’s also melodic and uplifting.
Nicely juxtaposed against the thundering riffs of Tremonti, Neil Halstead’s third solo album is a beautifully understated little record, full of autumnal shoegazing and whimsical folk. This is one of those albums that are all about large amounts of songwriting skill and minimal amounts of everything else. Simple guitar and piano, (with touches of double bass and violin) are deployed to create a heartfelt gem. Halstead’s voice is mixed throughout with female vocal support: the result is dreamy and intoxicating. There are obvious comparisons to be made to Nick Drake, but also, on the more playful tracks, there are hints of something more like Regina Spektor. The standout song is probably ‘Wittgenstein’s Arm’, which manages to make me happy about feeling sad. This album is a must-have. It’s my first taste of a truly superb British songwriting talent – from Reading originally – but I’ve read that his earlier work has been extremely influential. Easy to see why. The beauty of simplicity.
The best way of describing Maps & Atlases’ ambitious indie record is to call it textured. The band are regularly described in the music press as being ‘math rock’ (whatever that is), but I’d just call it alternative rock with elements of folk. What Maps & Atlases have added to the mix on their second album is significant use of sampling and other imported effects, and – crucially – the repeated layering of instruments and vocals. This gives the whole thing a kaleidoscopic effect and means that it rewards repeated listens in a way that comparable indie records can’t manage. On first play through, I thought this was just a straight indie album: good but unremarkable. Over time though, more and more is uncovered. There are elements of bands like Vampire Weekend, Foals and Grizzly Bear here, but the textured nature of Beware and be Grateful gives it a unique edge. The tentative steps of opener ‘Old and Grey’ bloom into a bass curio, giving things a nicely off kilter start. ‘Remote & Dark Years’ could be on MTV but it would be an interloper, and ‘Vampires’ is a spiky little rock song. ‘Old Ash’ is very Vampire Weekend, right down to the vocal stylings, while closing track ‘Important’ drifts away on waves of layered piano. A quirky labour of love.
Orange Goblin’s best record for quite some while (I’d say Coup de Grace in 2002 was the last time they hit these heights), A Eulogy for the Damned is a superb old fashioned rock-metal album. It’s full of thudding chunky riffs, spacey stoner sections and growling choruses. This is an unstoppable powerhouse of an album. The crunchy production adds to things perfectly (both clean and filthy at the same time – lovely). ‘Red Tide Rising’ starts things off with a crushing statement of intent, and from then on it’s one punch after another. ‘The Fog’ is a standout track nicely placed mid-way through, and the spacey closing title track also excels (gliding you through to the finish). No song is weak. What is quite weak is the lyrical content – the Goblin should really try a bit harder. It’s difficult to tell if they’re serious or if the lyrics are a joke: “there’s something in the fog…” Is there? I’m not scared. All told, though, this is about as good as heavy rock/metal gets, and no one has the right to expect profundity from a band called Orange Goblin. Bang that head. 
There were four albums in 2012 that for me were well ahead of the rest when I came to preparing this list; four albums that I knew were my four favourite albums of the year without even needing to think about it. My fourth favourite of them was the aptly named Four. 
The Mercury Music Prize winner is, for
once, a wonderful record. With their
debut, Alt-J have managed to tread
the path between accessibility and invention, and fair play to them. I had been waiting for this for ages, ever since
my brother gave me a demo of the utterly wonderful geek-gem ‘Breezeblocks’
about two years ago. A rerecorded
version of that song appears on this album and it is undoubtedly my favourite
individual track of the year by any artist: quirky indie guitar, rumbling bass,
layered vocal interchanges, odd electro.
Wow. And the album as a whole
follows this pattern. ‘Something Good’
carves a lilting little tune out of waves of piano, ‘Matilda’ is a simple
acoustic guitar song, though you’d never know it with all the keyboard samples
giving meat to its bones. The a-cappella
opening of the masterful ‘Fitzpleasure’ explodes into drive bass, then take a
left turn through piano ballad and plinky guitar, only to come full
circle. The eastern riff underpinning
the xylophone dappled ‘Taro’ is another standout moment. Utterly wonderful. These are just my favourites; this is truly
an album without a weak track.
The fact that this fairly easily beat three
really wonderful records in Bloc Party,
Alt-J and Bobby Conn to the number one spot, and yet is my second favourite Two Gallants album by some way shows
how much I love this band, and particularly their eponymous third album from
2007. Two Gallants delivered one of my favourite albums of all time and
then immediately took a five year break – so expectations for this were super
high. I wasn’t disappointed. This was already my album of the year by the
time I saw them in a small venue in Camden in the autumn, but the live
interpretations of these songs at that outstanding performance sent this
stratospheric for me.