In 2018 Brexit trundled forwards/backwards, England did quite well in the football and Pete Shelley died. Meanwhile some excellent musicians released some excellent records which I've attempted to put into some sort of meaningful list below. Thanks to all the labels, bands and promoters who sent be things to review this year. See you in 2019!

2015: the year that the world imploded whilst independent music carried on regardless. 2015 was a year that threw up a whole host of angry or optimistic or absurdest releases, some of which will surely be regarded as bona fide classics in the future, providing that the earth has not been destroyed in some sort of nuclear shit storm. You should probably buy all 25 of these records before that happens. PS - Merry Christmas! You can see what else we liked in our Best Of The Rest 2015

A bit of a vintage year for albums was this here 2014. We gave more 9's than ever (six!). As usual, some of these records have grown on us since we originally reviewed them, bumping them up to Crackle chart glory. This year the list has been compiled by our regular writers Adam Millard, Adam Taylor, Carey Kramer, John Wilson, Alex Redpath and Emma Slack. It was tough to choose between our top two but Allo Darlin' just about pipped it after ample repeated listening. Biggest "grower" of the year has to go to Flamingods who's weirdness has burrowed its way into our hearts.

The best thing about the festive season is reading some lists of things. Here's our list of the year's best long players put together by some of our contributors: Adam Taylor, John Wilson, Matt Wingate, Adam Millard, Oli Heffernan and Carey Kramer. Top spot goes to Cloud, who's album Comfort Songs was such an unexpected treat which has only got better with repeated listenings. The other 19 aren't bad either.