10. Chromatics – Kill For Love
They said: “With Kill for Love, for every song that was recorded potentially for the album there’s anywhere from six to ten different versions, edits or mixes where we focus on the drums or the piano to figure out what works best.” – Johnny Jewel
Key track: Lady
9. Fiona Apple – The Idler Wheel…
We said: “Full of heavy handed piano clunking, drums that sit somewhere between a smokey jazz bar and Tom Waits’ toolshed.”
Key track: Every Single Night
8. Bitch Prefect – Big Time
7. Kendrick Lamar – good kid m.A.A.d city
We said: “All killers, no fillers, Lamar is a lyrical force to be reckoned with.”
Key track: The Art Of Peer Pressure
6. King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard – 12 Bar Bruise
We said: “Delightfully idiotic and chock full of dickhead brilliance, 12 Bar Bruise melts the mind in the best way possible.”
Key Track: Bloody Ripper
5. Lower Plenty – Hard Rubbish
Hitting the mark with a maturation of Melbourne’s garage revival, Lower Plenty rise above the pack with a desolate, heartbreaking showcase of modern Australiana folk.
Key track: Nullabor
4. Boomgates – Double Natural
They said: “We made it in a big pink old church in the middle of North Melbourne and it was stinking hot, which I reckon makes for good moods.” – Steph Hughes
Key track: Flood Plains
3. Grimes – Visions
We said: ” It’s 2012 and ‘loading up a self-made houseboat with live chickens and a fuckload of potatoes to sail down the Mississipi’ is the new ‘recording a break-up album in a cabin in the woods’, and we’re all the better for it.”
Key Track: Genesis
2. Frank Ocean – channel ORANGE
We said: “Grappling masculinity, alienation, privilege and sensuality, Ocean has crafted a record which belies his youth. There’s little on channel ORANGE for the club. There’s everything for the heart.”
Key Track: Pyramids
1. Tame Impala – Lonerism
We said: “Lonerism is like a cinematic take on the pop music. As it develops, heady musical displays and depictions of self-exclusion and the limits of will-power unfurl, however the album is also an exercise in imagistic movement.”
Key Track: Keep On Lying
