A very fine album from the New Yorkers, quite unlike anything else released this year, it boasts a handful of hypnotic tracks (Atlas, Tonto in particular). Instrumental math-rock that sounds like it was beamed in from another planet is unlikely to trouble the radio-programmers, however. BEST ALBUM COVER White Chalk — PJ Harvey Menomena’s Friend And Foe is an arresting cover for sure, but the stark simplicity of PJ Harvey’s White Chalk is hard to beat.

Harvey, dressed in the sort of smock one might have seen in a Dickensian mental asylum, stares creepily at the lens. It’s an image very much in keeping with the Gothic material on the record. BEST SONG Someone Great — LCD Soundsystem Modest Mouse’s Dashboard, Battles’ Atlas, Taken By Trees’ Lost And Found and Arctic Monkeys’ Fluorescent Adolescent were all special, but this achingly poignant song about grief beats the lot.

It’s music for the head and the feet and is the cornerstone of James Murphy’s second LCD Soundsystem album. REISSUE OF THE YEAR The Joshua Tree — U2 Twenty years ago, U2 reached the stratosphere thanks to this album. Remastered, and reissued in four different versions, it’s been beautifully packaged with a fine CD of bonus tracks and a DVD that shows the latent ambition of Bono and friends in 1987. Oh, and the actual album itself isn’t bad either.

BEST GIG The Wrens — Whelan’s, Dublin Gigs from The National, Kurt Wagner and Editors left a mark, but this show — early in the year — left an indelible memory for anyone present. The New Jersey also-rans dug deep inside themselves to produce a performance of stunning intensity. This truly was a band who looked like their lives depended on the show. Marvellous.