10. Dirty Pretty Things – Waterloo to Anywhere (Mercury)

For someone who hated The Libertines, this may be an odd choice; in fact I could possibly be the only person in the country to find any merit in this album.
With Pete Doherty living up to the reputation of freakshow junky and supermodel love interest given him by the tabloid press, Carl Barat did the right thing, dusted himself down and got a band together. What with Gary Powell (drums) and Anthony Rossomando (guitar) already being in the Libertines at some point, this is Barat continuing what they started syringe free.

Within this long player are good old dumb punk thrashers, the more stupid the better. It’s fast, most of the tracks sound the same and sometimes Barats vocal stylings would make Shane Mcgowan sound like a finalist on X-Factor.

‘Wondering’ and ‘You fucking love it’ embody the spirit of Joe Strummer perfectly, ‘If you love a woman’ is sleazy rock n roll, ‘Gentry Cove’ is a scratchy dub led track reminiscent of early Police. By far the best tracks however is the furious ‘Gin and milk’ with its refrain of “No one gives a fuck about the values I would die for, not the faceless civil servant, a rudimentary crack whore”…no, I don’t know what it means either and ‘Doctors and Dealers’, the jauntiest and most Libertine like track here. A surprising treat, the next album will suck though.

Bext Track - Gin and Milk

9. Calla – Collisions (Beggars Banquet) / The Morning After Girls – Shadows Evolve (Best Before Records)

Two albums which could almost be the first and second by the same band. Calla’s being the more mature ‘second’ album of the two; both are two overlooked albums of UK influenced shoegazersque ethereal guitar based pop by bands from faraway places. The Australian Morning After Girls in particular evoke the early days of The Verve and Ride especially on tracks like ‘Always mine’. New York three piece Calla are the flipside of the coin, similarly ethereal but with a spikier pop edge sometimes reminiscent of The Dandy Warhols. ‘Collisons’, their fourth album is their most coherent, tracks like ‘Initiate’ and ‘Pulverised’ are missed out anthems which make you hate Snow Patrol and their unwarranted success even more.

Best Track -
Morning After Girls – Hidden Spaces
Calla – Swagger

8. Midlake - The Trials of Van Occupanther (Bella Union)

2006 saw the uncalled for come back of MOR and AOR under the guise of being guilty pleasures. For some reason it became acceptable to enjoy the back catalogue of ELO and Meatloaf and people actually got listening pleasure out of the dire turd-like offering by this years Toploader, The Feeling.

If you must pretend to be into all that then this Texas five pieces second album would be a much more satisfying place to start…AND STOP
Reminiscent of the summer sad/happy sounds of Carole King or Fleetwood Mac, this folky collection of songs are what Sunday afternoon are made for. If Thom Yorke hadn’t made a paranoid electro album it may have sounded like this.

Best Track - Roscoe

7. The Gossip – Standing in the way of Control (Back Yard Records)

Forget nonsense ‘cool’ lists, Beth Ditto and her cohorts The Gossip are made of far more substantial stuff. Their third album is a primeval mix of Patti Smith, Janice Joplin, Polly Harvey, torch songs and lesbian polemic all mixed up with some of the dirtiest punk disco basslines played by guitar not bass.

Hideously minimalist, this collection of tracks adheres to the less is more ethos and is brilliant for it. The next track to be taken from it; ‘Jealous girls’ is moody disenfranchised punk, ‘Listen up’ is funk straight from 1982, ‘Yr mangled heart’ is modern day R n B sung from the toilet of the CBGBs which culminates in a mess of live techno beats and as for the title track…well, that was surely biggest club tracks of the year.

Best Track – Listen up

6. Graham Coxon – Love Travels at illegal speeds (Transcopic)

With any of his many other solo releases, it looked unlikely that this 90s guitar hero could ever step out of the massive shadow cast by his ex Blur band mate Damon Albarn. The first step was taken with 2004s ‘Happiness in magazines’, this, Coxons 6th solo release positively leaps from it with joyous results. His love of Pavement, Pixies and Sonic Youth riffs are splashed over this album with his new found vocal confidence excelling on the slower tracks. A brilliant spunky British unashamed pop record

Best Track – Don’t believe anything I say

5. The Futureheads – News and Tributes (679 Recordings)

With no real ‘indie’ labels in existence anymore it must be difficult to experiment with your music on major label conglomerates. So when The Futureheads presented their second album to Warners, there must have been a collective gulp, loosening of tie and whisper of “Oh shit”.

When I first heard this I thought it was horrendous. It sounded too slow, in the wrong pitch and key and well…boring. After sticking with it for a while it continued to improve with each listen and with the long hot summer we had, its hazy summer sound accompanied it perfectly.

Fans of their old sound will find ear pleasers in the opener ‘Yes/No’ or the thrashings on ‘Cope’ but it’s the slower, more introspective tracks which impress the most. ‘Fallout’ and ‘Thursday’ are smattered with lush mid 70s style Beach Boys backing vocals and in highlights ‘Burnt’ and ‘Favours for favours’, the albums XTC’s influence is at its most prevalent and they are two of the sweetest tracks of the year.

Of course, as predicted, the ennui shown by their label meant they have just been unceremoniously dropped. Nothing to do with Warners quietly slipping out their singles like silent but deadly farts. They obviously need to concentrate on Paris Hilton…dickheads.

Best Track - Favours for Favours

4. The Raconteurs – Broken Boy Soldiers (XL)

Although totally ‘hey, look at us with our guitars and genuine musicality’, Jack White and Brendan Bensons side project, the other twos day job is an album which has aged well through the year and live is outstanding. Originally a kitchen studio project with the main two pretending to be Led Zeppelin, they are now more than just an ego boost.

Particularly impressive is how the Brendan Benson tracks now outshine Jack Whites, the countryish ‘Together’ sounds like a early 70s Mike Love led Beach Boys and ‘Hands’ becomes more psychedelic with each listen. Even the generic tracks work fantastically; ‘Blue Veins’ should have seen them sued by Pink Floyd, even the title track which must be a joke in its Zeppelin-ness is now a gargantuan throwback to mid 70s rock music (ignore what I’ve said in the past on this site, I lied).

Best Track – Store bought bones

3. Arctic Monkeys – Whatever people say I am, that’s what I’m not

Soon to be victims of their own success, The Artic Monkeys hyperbole continues at a swift rate. With one of the biggest selling albums of year and with perfectly good reason, The Monkeys are synonymous with the music scene in 2006 and with an album crammed with great tracks (and now bona fide anthems), with good reason.

Headlining the Leeds and Reading festival this year should have been their crowning glory, instead, they looked hideously out of their depth with a performance more rude than arrogantly confident but even their surly attitude failed to make ‘Mardy Bum’ ‘Modern Romance’ and ‘When the Sun goes down’ sound like three of the greatest tracks of the year, which coincidentally, they are.

Best Track – ‘From the ritz to the rubble’

2. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Show your bones

This New York three piece pulled out all the stops on this their second long player. For those who thought they had no tunes, jaws dropped… those who for some reason found enjoyment in their debut, 2003s ‘Fever to tell’ were vindicated with aplomb.
Dominated by the howling banshee yelp of Karen O but in guitarist Nick Zinner, they have a guitarist trying to make as many different noises with his instrument as possible, there seems to be a secret Johnny Greenwood in waiting and we all know what HE can do.

Taking a bit of Joy Division on the swirling ‘Fancy’, stop/start funk on ‘Phenomenon’ acoustic angst on ‘Way Out’, ‘Turn into’ and the naïve and astounding ‘Dudley’ and straight forward punk pop with a highlight; ‘Cheated hearts’, each track comes and knocks you back over again, all sadly too rare with albums these days.

Best Track – Gold Lion

1. The Flaming Lips – At War with the mystics (Warners)

I’ve bored everyone to tears on this site about this album (see album reviews section) so I’ll keep it brief….fucking awesome, shot everyone to shit, by far the best album of this and a couple of other recent and probably a few of the future years too, untouchable.

Best Track – Vein of Stars

Also rans –
Sleepy Jackson – Personality
Rogue Wave – Descended by Vultures
The Rapture – Pieces of people we love
Duels - The Bright Lights and What I Should Have Learned
The Zutons – Tired of hanging around
The Young Knives - Voices of Animals and Men
Muse – Black holes and revelations
MSTRKRFT – The Looks
Kasabian – Empire
Infadels – We are not the infadels
Grandaddy – Just like the fambly cat