1. Ladytron – Destroy Everything You Touch
A Low in the mix plodding beat, with moog effects begins a track that suddenly bursts into a full on Stomping Industrial affair. Electronica has never sounded so dramatic or emotive. The vocals are traditionally icy and detached. It left me winded for weeks and I still haven’t fully recovered.

2 Arcade Fire – Rebellion (Lies)
The track that soon became a live favourite, a casual understated introduction that gradually builds and builds with a beautiful melodic twist. A tune that set indie clubs alight with ever play.

3. The Organ – Memorize The City
Quite simply a perfect pop song. Jangely guitars full of heady Johnny Marr nostalgia with Mozzer lyrics to match. The Organ were one of the years most exciting new acts.

4. Interpol – C’mere
The most commercial offering from last years brilliant, ‘Antics’, complete with the achingly beautiful line ‘The trouble is, your in love with someone else…..It should be me. Best sung at around 2 in the morning into a half empty pint.

5. Editors – Munich
Jaggered guitars that race with manic urgency. Editors finest moment and the track that put them on the map. 3 minutes of pure angular indie joy. It’s more Joy Divison than Joy Division despite what singer Tom Smith’s been saying in the press recently, but I still love it.

6. British Sea Power – It Ended On An Oily Stage
Earning them their first top 20 hit. 2005 was British Sea Powers year. Complete with a devilishly catchy guitar riff and quirky but intelligent lyrics, it was just one of many highlights from their second album, Open Season.

7. Richard Hawley- Coles Corner
Now being a Sheffield born lad, Coles Corner means a great deal. Once a famous meeting point in Sheffield in the days before the mobile phone, Richards 50’s crooner vocals set to the backdrop of lavish orchestration tells the story of teenage love and the heartbreak of being stood up.

8. Stars – Ageless Beauty
Combining Scotland’s finest cardigan indie that is The Delgados, with America’s   Arcade Fire, Stars have make glowingly sensitive music, boasting dynamic melodies and Lush female Harmonies, Ageless Beauty, is the missing link between early 90’s ethereal shogazing and today’s stylised guitar bands.       

9. Antony And The Johnsons – Hope There’s Someone
A Heartbreaking vocalist, whose melancholic torch songs compliment his unusual but beautiful tones. Hope There’s Someone, speaks volumes about the taboo subject of ones final hours and the circumstances in which we go. Devastatingly moving. 

10. The Subways – With You
This year’s most exciting new live act. The Subways catch all the youthful exuberance of their live shows in this perfect slice of Alt rock. With a guitar riff to die for, supplied by their talented front man Billy Lunn, Wth You, rocks like no other.

James Heward