10. Lizzo – Cuz I Love You (Nice Life / Atlantic)

An album of heartbreak and female empowerment, Lizzo’s well-overdue breakout Cuz I Love You travels effortlessly from ballad to bop to absolute banger with each track making us feel better in some way. Like in her previous works, Lizzo opens herself up to us in this record, baring her vulnerabilities and repurposing them as a resource for bettering ourselves. Cuz I Love You leaves you feeling ‘good as hell’. (RC) (LISTEN)

09. Fontaines D.C. – Dogrel (Partisan)

With their 2019 Mercury Prize nominated debut release Dogrel, Fontaines D.C. proved that they are a powerful yet mature young band worth listening to. The five-piece post-punk outfit from Dublin met while still studying in college, and with a common love for poetry, they quickly bonded and formed the band. Fontaines D.C. take their music and image very seriously and seek to put the music before everything else, also understanding the often overlooked truth that romance and beauty have a place in punk.

Dogrel was a quite the statement as a debut album. The title derives from the old Irish word “Doggerel”, meaning ‘poor man’s poetry’. Lyricist Grian Chatten makes for a great frontman, already being compared to the likes of Ian Curtis as well as Mark E. Smith in terms of presence and content. His lyrics dive into various topics such as ambition and aspiration in the track ‘Big’, as well as their home city in the track ‘Dublin City Sky’ that takes a prod at national stereotypes. The way the band’s taut, ferocious music welds itself to Chatten’s drawled, semi-spoken-word vocals multiplies the impact of Fontaines D.C.’s aesthetic. (AC) (LISTEN)

08. Billie Eilish – When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? (Darkroom / Interscope)

The division caused by the very nature of Billie Eilish’s runaway success in 2019 – an international number one album, a record-breaking Grammy nomination haul and nearly a billion streams by the age of 17 – has shown how threatened some feel by an assertive teenage girl in control of her own image. But the quality within that album was unquestionable, and really ought to have put all those ridiculous rumours of industry plants to bed.

When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? was full of the kind of angst, drama, insecurity and insight that has always proven to be massively popular with Eilish’s desired fanbase. The difference here was that it was welded to nimble melodic snippets, insanely catchy hooks and a curious turn of phrase that has made her so distinct. The more Billie Eilishes and fewer Ed Sheerans in chart music, the better. (EB) (LISTEN)

07. Little Simz – GREY Area (Age 101)

Bringing a new sense of maturity and reverence to the table, GREY Area saw Simbiatu Ajikawo touch on a myriad of social and personal issues against a mutated array of organic and challenging sound structures. Portraying the North London MC at her most artistically refined with rampant flows and assertive statements, this clipped and economical collection gave us insight into the double-edged sword that governs Little Simz’ life, and was a refreshing and novel presence in an increasingly crowded British hip-hop scene. Nominated for the Mercury Prize, it also represented a long-overdue commercial breakthrough for Simz. (DA) (LISTEN)

06. The Twilight Sad – It Won/t Be Like This All The Time (Rock Action)

Although they remained in the spotlight during their absence, not least because of Robert Smith’s public patronage, The Twilight Sad’s fifth record was their first in well over four years and, off the back of a couple of personal changes plus the tragedy of the suicide of their close friend, Frightened Rabbit’s Scott Hutchison. They delivered an album which stood out from what they’ve done before, in terms of both quality and style. At last, on It Won/t Be Like This All The Time they had found a way to accurately translate the vulnerability, virtue and raging catharsis of their lauded live performances onto a studio release. (DAl) (LISTEN)

05. Weyes Blood – Titanic Rising (Sub Pop)

A sense of comfortably drowning runs through Weyes Blood’s fourth album Titanic Rising. Eerily apocalyptic whilst remaining hopeful, it’s a singular piece of work in Natalie Mering’s discography, a brave stride forward mixing ‘60s-‘70s pop influences and compositional attributes whilst managing to sound fresh and authentic. Led by her masterfully controlled, very classical voice and timbre, we are submerged in this underwater world of today, where quick Tinder love and coral reefs dying provide anything but a sense of comfort or safety.

There are the ponderings about eternity and the galaxy on ‘Andromeda’ by a woman consumed by the celestial, asking for something that never was and never will be, and the wonderful ‘Everyday’, putting complicated matters of wanting affection in simple terms – “I need a love everyday”. So sinks Weyes Blood in her aquatic world of hope found and lost, managing to sound uplifting whilst undeniably melancholic just asking for ‘Something To Believe’ in, “something bigger and louder than the voices in me”. Titanic Rising is a modern plea for meaning, shrouded in eternity and done by an artist whose work begs for attention in its sheer beauty, and we’re lucky to be its spectators. (AS) (LISTEN)

04. Slowthai – Nothing Great About Britain (Method Records)

With so many boundary-pushing releases, 2019 was another stellar year for British rap. But with its punky demeanour, sardonic wit and diverse production, Slowthai’s Nothing Great About Britain was perhaps the pick of the bunch. Whether he was targeting the far-right or looking back at the hardships he’d suffered throughout his childhood, it was all delivered with uncompromising honesty and – almost like when he held up that effigy of Boris Johnson’s decapitated head during his Mercury Prize performance – stark, confrontational imagery.

Nothing Great About Britain was a gripping showcase for Slowthai’s garish personality and his outlook on a fundamentally broken nation, hopping between grime, punk and UK garage. The title track rips into the EDL and the Royal Family (complete with Slowthai dropping a c-bomb on Her Majesty), while ‘Peace Of Mind’ is a close-to-the-bone account of the dire effects of poverty. ‘Northampton’s Child’ offers a moment of tenderness, but mostly, Nothing Great About Britain was a no-holds-barred document on the ugliness of contemporary British life, and one that more than justified the hype surrounding its creator. (Matty Watkin) (LISTEN)

03. Tyler, The Creator – IGOR (A Boy Is A Gun / Columbia)

An album that saw Tyler, The Creator flourish yet again as one of the more important artists of the decade, IGOR elevated the alt-rapper into the upper echelon of artists in operation throughout pop. Filled to the brim with lush maximalist production, striking harmonies and quaint oddities – including (but not limited to) the massive hit ‘Earfquake’ – IGOR brought us into a vivid spectrum of love and sorrow, giving us one of the best compositional heartbreak albums of the year. Furthermore, despite the large number of big-hitting guest spots on the record, ranging from British newcomer Slowthai to veterans like Kanye West and Solange, Tyler never sounded like he was in anything other than complete control over his highly distinctive artistic vision. (DA) (LISTEN)

02. Black Midi – Schlagenheim (Rough Trade)

They may have graduated from the same BRIT School that’s accounted for so much of the boringly predictable music that’s sold such colossal amounts around the world over the last ten years, but Black Midi’s music certainly suggests otherwise. In Schlagenheim, they turned out one of the most confounding yet enjoyable rock albums of the year, a mountain of frenzied riffs, effortlessly tight grooves and off-kilter, free-form structures that refused to bow down to convention.

Even if its sudden twists and turns were too much to stomach for some, it’s hard to deny how well-crafted Schlagenheim was, from Morgan Simpson’s multi-faceted drumming to Geordie Greep’s oddball, flamboyant vocals. It was an album that switched between genres with laser-guided precision. ‘953’ is a blistering slice of unadulterated noise rock, with Simpson’s drums towering among a relentless riff. They recall XTC’s brand of itchy post-punk on ‘Of Schlagenheim’, and they even settle into some dancier ground on occasions, most noticeably on the frenetic, propulsive ‘Ducter’. Although it was often criticised for its lack of emotion, Schlagenheim was a window into rock music’s boundless possibilities, and established Black Midi as of the most captivating guitar bands around. (MW) (LISTEN)

01. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Ghosteen (Bad Seed Ltd.)

Several elements went into the making of the curiously structured double-album Ghosteen – the “fever dreams” triggered by a bout of flu that Cave suffered last autumn; the Red Hand Files project over the last few years that brought down the barriers between fans and performer in a way that a mere social media presence simply couldn’t have done; and, of course, the horrifying death in 2015 of Cave’s teenage son Arthur. Announced abruptly and released within just a couple of weeks, it consisted of eight shorter tracks in the first half and two much longer ones, connected by a short spoken-word section, making up the second.

All of this made for an immensely intricate album to unpack, one which required several deep dives to fully understand, but even a cursory first inspection revealed Ghosteen to be a warmer, more detailed and considered study of grief than the raw, numbed desolation of Skeleton Tree three years ago. It’s also a personal quest for meaning, about what it means to make an emotional and sincere connection in a world that sees individuals more atomised and alienated than at any point in human history.

While it was centred primarily around Cave’s lyrics, the musical backdrop in which they’re contextualised was equally central to Ghosteen’s feeling of solace and understanding. Warren Ellis’ gauzy analogue synthesisers provide a fantastical backdrop for Cave’s streams of dream logic and repeated themes of love, loss and uneasy resolution. Expressed with an exquisite and profound humanity, of the kind that pop music is usually extremely ill-suited to communicate, Ghosteen was a quite staggering artistic achievement, and the most beautiful music that Nick Cave has ever made. (EB) (LISTEN)