The Musical Advent Calendar - Door Number Twenty-Two

If this was a grand prix, there'd be a champagne-drenching, if it was the Olympics, there'd be medals and national anthems.

But it's neither of those things. It's far more important than that. It's the No. 3 albums of the year.

Ali Mason

Emmy The Great - First Love (Absolute)

Track: Easter Parade


"You know what they say about terrible hate - it will breed something good when it's through," sings Emma-Lee Moss on Museum Island, and she should know. Surely no artist in 2009 turned quite as much hate into quite as much beauty as Emmy The Great. First Love is an album soaked in bitterness and anger at boyfriends past, real or imagined. The fragile vocals speak of heartbreak, but the lyrics are smart and the rhythms unusual, stopping the album from being too morose, while in Easter Parade she has created one of the most beautiful tracks of the year.

Rory Dollard

Japandroids - Post Nothing (Polyvinyl)

Track: Wet Hair


Hollywood would have us believe the elixir of everlasting youth is found in some far off mystical valley. Nutritionists would argue it really lies in keeping tabs on your five-a-day. Andie McDowell, meanwhile, is still on the L’Oreal pay-roll telling us it’s mostly about expensive face creams. Well, the eight pop-rock gems that make up Post-Nothing are the best argument yet that the answer is really unabashed singalong melodies fused with fuzz guitar, pounding drums and lyrics about chasing girls and downing booze.

Dom Farrell

The Manic Street Preachers - Journal For Plague Lovers (Sony)

Track: Peeled Apples


Journal For Plague Lovers is a simply astonishing piece of work. Taking Richie Edwards’ final set of lyrics and weaving them around some white-hot slabs of post punk precision, the Manics sound more vital than they have done in over a decade. The pumping guitars and bass of opener Peeled Apples could probably strip paint, and a nod of credit must go to legendary producer Steve Albini. However the achievement here belongs to messes Bradfield, Wire and Moore, who complete a vibrant, moving and compelling record for a close friend they still miss dearly. That does not make Journal For Plague Lovers an exercise in nostalgia or the Holy Bible II. It stands alone as a superb album. This Joke Sport Severed is genuinely epic and one of their finest moments, while Jackie Collins’ Existential Question Time and Marlon JD showcase the articulate aggression that has been conspicuous by its absence some of their recent misfiring efforts. Bloody hell, I even quite like Williams Last Words, but you knew that already right?

Andy Welch

Richard Hawley - Truelove's Gutter (Mute)

Track: For Your Lover Give Some Time


If you’ve got any of Hawley’s five albums, you might think you have all the sepia-tinged, Yorkshire-based nostalgia you need. You’d be wrong. Truelove’s Gutter may be named after a Sheffield landmark like Lowedges, Coles Corner and Lady’s Bridge, but it’s much more adventurous than its predecessors. It features such wild instruments as the ondes Martenot, cristal baschet, Tibetan singing bowls, glass harmonica and musical saw, which give an ethereal, ghostly tone to the album. It’s a gloriously uncommercial album too, just eight tracks in length, some hitting the 10-minute mark, and add into that the serendipitous tales from the making of the album and you’re left with something truly special, even by the great man’s high standards.

Guy Atkinson

The Twilight Sad - Forget The Night Head (Fat Cat)

Track: Interrupted


After falling head over heels for debut album ‘Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters’ there was never any doubt that the follow up from these brooding Scottish gents would win me over. This is essentially a masterclass in epic, atmospheric rock that gets under your skin and refuses to go away. Stirring choruses are never far away and James Graham's potent Scottish accent spits out rousing lyrics like his life depends on it. In short, the record Interpol should have made after 'Antics'.

Pranam Prabhakar

The Phantom Band - Checkmate Savage (MRI)

Track: Folk Song Oblivion


Like The XX, I caught this band at Manchester’s Deaf Institute. Unlike the XX, the Phantom Band converted me instantly when they started their set playing home-made percussion to an insistent groove over a rootsy melodica refrain. They played the whole of Checkmate Savage live, albeit in a different order, and their curious mix of Scottish folk, krautrock, Beefheart and electronica was unlike anything I’d heard. This is a great album, totally unique in its charms, which is why I keep returning to it six months since I first heard it.

John Skilbeck

Pastels/Tenniscoats - Two Sunsets (Geographic)

Track: Song For A Friend


Two Sunsets is not at number one in my chart for two very good reasons, but it was by far the prettiest album I heard all year. It involved Stephen and Katrina from semi-retired Glasgow indiepop stalwarts The Pastels, and Japanese pair Tenniscoats, whose stock in trade is delicate, experimental pop, the kind you need large speakers not only to appreciate, but to hear. It was a project which could have become horribly lost in translation, yet a mutual admiration of each other's work helped it get off the ground, and the result was a record which soared above all expectations. The Pastels had not hidden the fact they have been moving away from the sound of C86 and in the direction of dreamy pop. There had been indications in their infrequent musical ventures of the past decade that they were ready to explore new territory, and on Two Sunsets they were led there by the hands of enthusiastic collaborators. Something special happened: Stephen Pastel's familiar low growl turned to more of a purring, perfectly complementing the fragile kitten voices of Katrina and Tenniscoats' Saya. 'Song For A Friend' was a heartbreaking tribute to a former Tenniscoats associate, DJ Klock, who committed suicide two years ago. It was the album's highlight, and you can listen to it now. Some tracks glistened, others noodled and ventured off piste, but every one was hugely rewarding as part of a luxurious listening experience.

Matt Collins

Fanfarlo - Reservoir (Fanfarlo)

Track - Drowning Men


Most reviewers are calling these guys a cross between Bierut and Belle and Sebastian. Not far off the mark, but beyond the singer's voice having a passing resemblance to Stuart Murdoch's, I think there's too much passion and pogo potential in these guys to compare that closely. The songs are consistently excellent, which is a rare trick to pull off on any album, and when achieved, almost instantly propels an album to classic status. There's something extremely triumphant in Fanfarlo's sound, helped along by the regal trumpets and stomping rhythms. And any band with about twenty members playing a mix of instruments like melodicas, mandolins and getting audience members to swing tubes will always, ALWAYS get my vote.

SP

BLK JKS - After Robots (Secretly Canadian)

Track: Lakeside


Judging a book by it's cover can have the sweetest results and when I picked up this band's Mystery EP because it was on Secretly Canadian and had a cool photo on the front, I was pleasantly surprised. It still didn't quite prepare me for the head-throbbing freak out that is After Robots though. This is a monumental record, the sound of South Africa jacking up on Fela Kuti and TV On The Radio, all distorted jerks and unexpected diversions. Lakeside is perhaps them at their most conventional, but even then it is a sublime slice of 21st century guitar music.


Me

Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson - Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson (Saddle Creek)

Track: Woodfriend


This one will hit you like a freight train. With a powerful, bruised, troubled but ultimately uplifting album, Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson announced his frightening potential on his self-titled debut back in March. The themes befit a former drug addict who spent one too many mornings waking up on park benches in Coney Island, but the theme is of redemption and hope of a brighter future - hard to believe, I know, when the opening track is set at his own funeral. The raw power of the guitar and the urgency of his singing give this the feel of an album MBAR was compelled to make, an album that quite possibly saved him from relapsing into his old life and hurtling towards a terrible fate. Essential stuff all the way.