For those of you who’ve read Tracksuite’s Best Albums of the Year blog before, you’ll know that there is no countdown rating and no definitive number of albums included. The albums here appear as stellar stand out complete works worthy of recognition. This year there are ten. In no particular order, here is that list (along with some words).

Further to this list is a further list of some more albums worthy of your ears

The Beths – Future Me Hates Me

The debut from Auckland indie pop rockers The Beths was released in August on Carpark Records.

All jangle guitar riff and catchy vocal hooks. No secret recipe here, just a perfect example of the genre. Tracksuite Best of 2018 playlist (keep scrolling down the blog after this) picks out the track ‘Happy Unhappy’, which Rolling Stone magazine titled in an article as the song of the summer, 2018. They went on to label it as a ‘blissy, pissy break up jam’ and ‘Courtney Barnett gone bubblegum, or the shy-sugar lift-off of Belle & Sebastian with some Replacements stank in the cute, careening guitars. It almost could’ve been any of the songs though really. ‘You Wouldn’t Like Me’ was released in conjunction with the first video and the high school themed explosion of colour and playfulness illustrates the bands angsty teenage themes while bringing a huge smile to your face.

‘This is taut, Blondie-cool guitar-pop with a finger on the self-destruct tab’ – Mojo

‘The album plays like a greatest-hits collection, and since it doesn't seem to cater to a musical or emotional middle ground, it makes for a guilt-free pleasure’ – AllMusic

‘Future Me Hates Me is more than proof that she and her bandmates made the right choice on refocusing their musical concerns--and it’s an absolute thrill to think about where this young band will take their talent next’ - Pitchfork

Sons of Kemet – Your Queen is a Reptile

Released in March on Impulse under the Verve Records banner, the 3rd album from the London jazz frontiersmen.

A super-group of sorts led by clarinetist, saxophonist and composer Shabaka Hutchings (a man whose star has continued in ascendence over the last few years as part of various outfits such as Melt Yourself Down Shabaka and The Ancestors Sons of Kemet The Comet is Coming and more…) with Oren Marshall on tuba and both Tom Skinner and Seb Rochford on drums.

The Mercury Music Prize was stolen from them earlier this year, an absolute travesty of justice proven by their topping The Wire magazine's annual critics' poll.

The album title is a no holds barred message challenging listeners to contemplate the ongoing lack of racial equality in the country and the world in 2018. It invites us to consider great black activist figures of the past, going direct for the jugular with a direct hit to reference Johnny Rotten by attacking the supposed figurehead. Tracksuite pick ‘My Queen is Harriet Tubman’ references the infamous former slave turned freedom fighter, soldier then activist for black rights and woman’s suffrage, a woman who has become an icon of courage and freedom. Spin magazine says: ‘“My Queen Is Harriet Tubman” opens with a flurry of percussion that does not abate for the next five minutes, a dazzling indicator of Sons of Kemet’s musical loyalties, which lie with rhythm above all else. The white-knuckled drumming contains traces of Trinidadian soca, Jamaican dancehall, London grime, New Orleans second line bands—channeling a multi-continental and -generational legacy that has survived in the face of oppression across the globe.’

‘An immaculately conceived record, the latest from Sons of Kemet is proof that British jazz is alive and well and, even beyond that, may be one of the best cultural tools we have in fighting the oppressive and deeply troubling political landscape that appears to be forming in the west, of late’ – Under The Radar

‘The richness of the source material and the deftness of interplay of each member of the band ensures that Your Queen is a Reptile leaves you with a sense of having been a part of something truly special’ – The Line of Best Fit.

‘Your Queen Is A Reptile, is 55 minutes of ecstatic insurgency’ – Exclaim

Charley Crockett – Lonesome as a Shadow

Released in April on Thirty Tigers.

By proclaiming himself a descendent of the legendary Davy, Charley Crockett paints the ideal picture of himself as a timeless preserver of classic American roots music (making it very difficult to say he isn’t). Wide Open Country magazine said "The old soul has made a name for himself as not only a master interpreter of traditional songs, but also one of the finest torch-carriers of classic-minded country, blues and Cajun music for the modern world.”

As Folk Radio said, ‘the first thing that strikes you about this album is Crocketts voice.’ All the influences from Old Timey, Creole, blues and southern soul combine to an enduring crooner baritone as rooted to the earth as the endless miles this man has travelled with music and message. Couple that with his incredibly catchy authentic songwriting and you have the appeal in a nutshell. He says of his writing ‘I write songs as a resolution to conflict. That’s what I think the blues is,”

Songs like ‘Ain’t Gotta Worry Child’ have the genuine soul blues tint of Bill Withers and Dr John, there’s pure bar room blues in there and the title track ‘Lonesome as a Shadow’ is pure honky tonk pleasure that charmed its way into the Best of the year list.

Zeal & Ardor – Stranger Fruit

Released in June on MKVA records. First full band album release by the avant garde metal project Zeal & Ardor led by swiss American musician Manuel Gagneux. Said to have come to fruition with Gagneux asking fans to name two separate music styles that he could combine and they gave him Black Metal and Black Spiritual (or negro Spiritual). With Gagneux’s interest pricked, he asked: What if during the height of slavery, instead of following Christianity, the slaves found sanctuary in Satanism? The album title referencing the Billie Holiday song Strange Fruit from 1939, a song about racism and the lynching of African Americans.

It comes in like the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack and while simultaneously committing to that, doubles up with mind melting metal riffs and gutteral vocals that have managed to re-engage an age old Metallica loving metalhead in a way that no like genre album has done in a long time. Stepping on from the breakthrough Zeal & Ardor project Devil is Fine, which revealed glimpses of this projects potential - Stranger Fruit is a fully accomplished, complete work of vein ripping intensity.

Metal Insider said ‘Zeal & Ardor’s sound is undoubtedly different from any other musical project. This status as a sonic breath of fresh air and a puzzling level of inconsistency surrounding album composition set their next album up to be a highly anticipated potential disappointment. Stranger Fruit shattered these expectations. Zeal & Ardor has created 13 songs that flawlessly integrate the band’s doleful disposition and phonic soul with instrumental ferocity.’

Stick in the Wheel – Follow Them True

Released in January on their own From Here Records.

East London folk outfit Stick In The Wheel have been making a concerted attempt to subvert the traditional folk genre while simultaneously preserving its roots, since their debut album From Here in 2015. No small mission but one with which they are undoubtedly achieving considerable success. While much of the work evokes a pre industrial 19th century world, as used mostly by the genre, there are subtle elements deftly introduced here to give it a very contemporary feel. The title track ‘Follow Them True’ is a stripped back vocal piece of incredible power and beauty. With a couple of instruments swapped out and a production tweak, both that song and ‘100,000 years’ are dark enough to almost have a death metal edge that could settle well in the previous album discussed, Stranger Fruit. The closing track ‘As I Roved Out’ with its deconstructed rhythms and samples is more reminiscent of popular downbeat electronic work than any Folk Radio staple.

‘The heavier tracks are the album's most interesting moments, allowing for singer Nicola Kearey to stomp out her vocals with extreme force’.– The Skinny

‘Urgent, uncompromising, intelligent--Stick In The Wheel are the bristles on the clean broom the UK folk scene badly needs.’ – Record Collector

‘They've grown and blossomed without sacrificing an ounce of what made them exciting in the first place.’ - Mojo

Rosalía – El Mal Querer

El Mal Querer is the second studio album by Spanish singer Rosalía, released in November through Sony Music

Writing for The Guardian head critic Alexis Petridis highly commended the album, giving it the highest rating and describing it as "the calling card of a unique new talent." He praised Rosalía's vocals for giving the album "a head-turning freshness", noting that her singing style "is audibly rooted in a different musical tradition to the usual styles in which pop vocalists perform.

Easily the closest Tracksuite has ever gotten to including an album with inarguably pop sensibilities in a Best Albums list but suffice to say that this work has far more happening within. It’s a Spanish album by an already established star, so inevitably there are strong Flamenco elements but when you flavour this with tastes from further east and no lack of experimental production touches, it becomes a very special listen indeed. Comparisons with Bjork seem easy when you consider that she has been working with Venezuelan producer Arca and the album was co-produced with Pablo Díaz-Reixa, both of who have worked extensively with the Icelandic superstar. As Petridis continues, he says ’This is music potent and adventurous enough to grip you without you understanding a word of what she’s actually singing.’

‘A bastion of control and quaking vulnerability that strikes a match against its sombre surrounds’ – Q Magazine

‘It is one of the most exciting and passionately composed albums to appear not only in the global bass tradition but in the pop and experimental spheres this year’ – Pitchfork

Swamp Dogg – Love, Loss and Auto-Tune

Love, Loss, and Auto-Tune is the twenty-second full-length studio album by American R&B recording artist Swamp Dogg, released in September on Joyful Noise Recordings.

Jon Pareles of The New York Times said, "On this album, the naturalism of Swamp Dogg’s lifelong soul and funk all but disappears. But in its way, Love, Loss, and Auto-Tune is completely true to everyday 21st-century experience: ubiquitous and intrusive technology, splintered attention spans, mediated presences and onslaughts of random information. And yet, somewhere within all the digital commotion, there’s still a human being in search of love”

Now if you didn’t know anything of the original D-O-G-G’s, 60 year spanning career and you saw the following;

“Swamp Dogg is a national treasure.” - Swamp Dogg

I think it’s safe to say you might be intrigued to look a little closer. Known through the 50’s and 60’s as Jerry Williams and Little Jerry Williams, this consistently exciting musical outsider rebranded his sound and image in 1970 under the moniker we now know. He has continued to shock and astound ever since and has re-emerged this year with a little help from Poliça’s Ryan Olson and Justin Vernon, aka Bon Iver to produce this incredible piece of work. Funky soul blues meets doo wop, downbeat and clash of electronica in a heady mix of unforgivably catchy tracks. ‘$$$ Huntin’ was picked out for the Best 50 Playlist but with polar opposite songs like ‘Lonely’ and ‘Sex With Your Ex’ in the mix of diverse funky genius, your kept laughing all the way to the dancefloor.

‘The textures are deliberately synthesised, but the songs themselves couldn't be realer’ - Uncut

Mojo staff stated that ‘Overall, Love, Loss, And Auto-Tuned is a deviant masterpiece’

Idles – Joy as an Act of Resistance

Joy as an Act of Resistance is the second album by Bristol band Idles, released in August 2018.

Jordan Bassett, reviewing the album for NME, awarded the album five stars, calling it "an instant classic"

"Britain’s most necessary band" – The Guardian

‘everything anyone could have wanted or expected it to be: Idles have released the most relevant and at times gut wrenching album of the year.’ – Drowned In Sound

"a heart-breaking but jubilant exploration of joy, honesty, fragility and expression as our most powerful means of human resistance” – Classic Rock mag

"an album that manages to combine grief, self-loathing and a realisation that life’s better played honest, with a fine-tuned, brutal sound: something like bent sheet metal being hammered straight” – Record Collector

Singer Joseph Talbot stated "This album is an attempt to be vulnerable to our audience and to encourage vulnerability; a brave naked smile in this shitty new world."

Snarling, angry, abrasive punk noise but with no lack of humour, includes a cover version of Solomon Burkes ‘Cry To me’ and certainly not designed for the low brow. There’s wit and wisdom in spades, aiming directly at targets like backward political sensibilities, toxic masculinity and racism. Tracksuite picked out ‘Danny Nedelko’ for the playlist but despite some critics calling the album too samey, its jammed with typical Idles brilliance; the anti brexit anthem ‘Great’, the raw edged ‘Colossus’ and the hilarious ‘Never Fight a Man with a Perm’.

‘Across its 40-odd minutes, Joy As An Act of Resistance makes you want to laugh and cry and roar into the wind and cradle your nearest and dearest. It is a beautiful slice of humanity delivered by a group of men whose vulnerability and heart has become a guiding light in the fog for an increasing community of fans who don’t just want, but need this.’ – DIY

Gwenifer Raymond – You Never Were Much of a Dancer

Released in June on Tompkins Square.

Welsh born Gwenifer Raymond has been playing guitar since she was eight years old, coinciding with an introduction by her mother to Nirvana with the Nevermind album. Through time she traced the heritage of the music right back to American primitive where she has entrenched herself in the last few years, culminating at the moment, in this incredible collection of pieces. As debuts go, its assuringly cultivated and considering the distance between her own roots and the music she plays, makes this an all the more astonishing work. All technical and mastery critique aside though, this is an instrumental pure listening pleasure throughout. Standouts are ‘Off to See the Hangman, Pt. II’ and ‘Sack 'em Up, Pt. I / Sack 'em Up, Pt. II’ but ‘Sometimes There’s Blood’ made the Best of list.

‘This is a gorgeous album, and Gwenifer Raymond is a profound talent.’ – The Guardian

‘For all her professed preference for slower, gothically-inclined blues, it's old-time rippers like Sometimes There's Blood or land speed banjo record attempt, Oh, Command Me Lord!, where she really excels--and, critically, excites’ – Mojo

Car Seat Headrest – Twin Fantasy

Twin Fantasy (Face to Face) is the eleventh studio album by American indie band Car Seat Headrest, released in February, a complete re-recording and reworking of the band's sixth studio album, Twin Fantasy released in 2011.

An epic album that ebbs and flows, smashes, jolts, staggers, falls, gets up and explodes continually and repeatedly in a constant wall of sound full of faulty workmanship and holes. Singer/creator Will Toledo’s voice comes seeping through the gaps in the wall as he pours out his heart wrenching angst and tenderness with utter sincerity. ‘Cute Thing’ made the playlist – much like the other songs, its a raucous ramping up of the original with a refined howl in his vocals. ‘Nervous Young Inhumans’ and ‘Bodys’ are also standouts.

‘Twin Fantasy marks another leap in ambition’ – Uncut

‘Twin Fantasy leaves no doubt that Toledo is a strikingly gifted and thoughtful songwriter who also has a firm grasp of how to make his material work in the studio, and isn't afraid to think on a grand scale.’ – AllMusic

Indulgent? Possibly, but it works, because this record – even the longest tracks--is punchy, witty and razor sharp.’ – The Skinny