Here at Sound Screen Towers, we had a discussion as to the best album of the year. After kicks and punches were exchanged and several incidents were processed by the local magistrates’ court, we finally decided to simply put forward our nominations instead of coming to one single conclusion. Below is the first three offerings to be put forward by our writers.

The Wildhearts - Chutzpah!

The Wildhearts – Chutzpah! (Backstage Alliance)

By Alasdair Morton

The Wildhearts – anarchic, explosive, confrontational, debauched and a tiddly bit delinquent – may have split up more times than they’ve had Jack Daniels and endured more line-up changes than Spinal Tap, but they have also produced some of the most delirium-inducing, infectious records of the last 20 years. Criminally ignored, except by the devoted and the faithful, mainstream success has eluded them yet class and quality never has. Chutzpah!, their sixth official long player, continued in the vein of their illustrious career; fan-pleasing yet radio-friendly, it did exactly what its cheeky little title claims, and then some.

Famed for their monster riffing and a ten-songs-in-one multi-directional approach, they earned their ‘unpredictable’ tag once more by ditching this style. Out went the 11-minute epics and in came straight-up, verse-chorus-verse three-minute pop songs (almost). But after years on the sidelines and moments that only just missed (their 1995 phonetically-challenging album PHUQ reached #6 in the charts), was this the band ditching their morals in favour of a shot at the title? As if! The trademark fretwork twinned with the skyscraper hooks and melodies that have you grinning for days had gone nowhere. The band’s past was ever-present but so was their future, and this was the record’s crowning achievement.

Blasting out the blocks with ‘The Jackson Whites’, it’s a furious rock riot that doesn’t relent for a moment as it dips its toes into everything from ‘whoah-oh-whah-oh’ sing-along choruses (‘You Are Proof That Not All Women Are Insane’) to industrial tinged metal (the Tim Smith of The Cardiacs-tributing ‘Tim Smith’, even finding room for a vocoder-led closing mini-epic in the title track. It packages the very best of the band into bite-sized chunks that leave you wanting more. The album was so good that the band played it in its entirety at the start of every gig on the supporting tour in October before moving on to the back catalogue.

Picking up this year’s Kerrang Spirit Of Independence Award signalled the band’s and this record’s worth. Simply speaking, it’s so damned good it makes you want to jump out of bed in the morning just so you can hear it again. It’ll put a smile on your face bigger than the joker and have you playing the best, most outrageous, pose-strutting air guitar ever, even if you’re nursing the worst hangover and a dose of tinnitus from the night before.

Best track on the album: ‘Plastic Jebus’
Boasting the sort of chorus that will have you simultaneously crying with delirium and leaping in the air, it’s a succinct précis of the album – short, sharp, punchy, heavy enough for the die-hards yet ready and primed for Radio 1. The sort of song to escape genre confinements and head for mainstream with its spirit and integrity intact.

Any improvements that could have been made
Only improvement would to be to have more. Ten songs are not enough, especially with Ginger being the prolific sort that he is.

The best of the rest
Sucioperro – Pain Agency

The Thermals – Now We Can See

Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs – It’s Blitz

Gotthard - Need to Believe

Gotthard – Need to Believe (Nuclear Blast)

By Richard Chamberlain

A rather obscure choice I know, but for me Swiss melodic rockers Gotthard have produced the finest long player of 2009. In fact, it’s not even a close run thing, because Need to Believe is an absolute monster of an album.

The band have consistently released solid rock anthems since forming in 1992 and have the accolades back home to prove it. With two million records sold and 11 studio number-one albums in a row in Switzerland, these boys would no doubt be huge if they had received the label push they deserved.

With Need to Believe they have once again shown why they are held in such high regard in their homeland. Guitarist Leo Leoni belts out chunky, roof-blowing riff after riff, while Steve Lee’s vocals would put most stadium rockers to shame.

Opener ‘Shangri La’ sets the tone for what’s to come with its bone-crunching riff and hip-shaking melodies, before ‘Unspoken Words’ breathes some pop sensibilities into the album’s unmistakable classic rock feel.

‘I Don’t Mind’ ramps the 80s vibe right back up to 11 – even sneaking in a little cowbell – but while Need to Believe is undoubtedly drenched in retro charm, it never for a second feels dated and remains fresh from start to finish.

Ballad ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ is a little on the sugary side of things and could well have come from the Bret Michaels school of songwriting, but it’s easily forgiven by the two footstompers that follow it – ‘Right From Wrong’ and ‘I Know You Know’ – with the latter combining a heartfelt, building verse and the singalong chorus of the decade.

In a world where Bon Jovi can fill stadiums with album after album of middle-of-the-road tripe, bands like Gotthard deserve all of the recognition they can get. If they carry on producing albums as good as Need to Believe they won’t have to worry about a lack of recognition for much longer.

Best track on the album: ‘I Know You Know’
It has just about everything. A slow, building intro with an intricate guitar lick, a hard rockin’ verse and a singalong chorus that instantly transforms a great rock song into an anthem. Jon Bon Jovi would kill to write a song like this; that is to say if he wasn’t too busy arsing around on X Factor.

Any improvements that could have been made
As mentioned above, ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ is a little sentimental for my tastes, which is a shame because Gotthard have come up with some fantastic ballads in their time. I can’t criticise for long though, as any band that can come up with an album as strong as this after the best part of 20 years deserves far more than to be swiped at for one questionable track out of 12.

The best of the rest
The Wildhearts – Chutzpah!
Ginger and co pogo their way back with possibly their finest-ever album.

Alice in Chains – Black Gives Way to Blue
A stunning return from the tragedy-ridden grungers as Jerry Cantrell proves that he can still write riffs capable of bludgeoning a cow to death from ten miles away.

Steel Panther – Feel the Steel
Spinal Tap + fluorescent spandex = a cracking album

The Flaming Lips - Embryonic

The Flaming Lips – Embryonic (Warner Bros)

By Tom Brown

I would have hated to have been in the playback room when the label execs first heard the finished version of the Flaming Lips’ first album since 2006. It’s not like the Lips were ever the label’s top-grossing band, but I’m sure they were hoping to at least break even on their new release. When that fractured, glassy, utterly unmarketable sound creeped out of the speakers, I doubt there was anyone smiling in Warner Bros towers. Gone were the lush, symphonic songs about death, humanised by Wayne Coyne’s cracked Neil Young howl. In their place were trebly, ultra-compressed guitars and distorted synthesisers. Running at over 70 minutes, containing several tracks that even the band would probably admit could have been left out, the album seemed almost wilfully contrarian. The sense of career suicide was compounded by the wall-to-wall frontal nudity in the promo video for ‘Watching the Planets’ (sample lyric: ‘Yes yes yes! Killing the ego tonight’), and bagging an A-list guest vocalist, Karen O, to contribute nothing but animal noises to ‘I Could Be a Frog’.

I’m aware that I’m not really selling it so far, but the fact is that this sprawling, indulgent, unpleasant-sounding album just happens to be absolutely brilliant. 2009 has been a pretty great year for music, but this is the only album I heard where I was absolutely blown away without totally understanding it. Listening to it, I wouldn’t know where one song ended and the next began, but hidden in the morass is some of the most exciting music I’ve heard all year. I’d walk around, headphones in being continually amazed by it. When the album finished, I’d want to go back to the start, because the idea of listening to anything else after seemed really unfulfilling.

Even in a year where art rock seemed to cross over – Animal Collective storming the US top twenty, the Dirty Projectors getting covered by Beyonce’s sister Solange – it seemed unusually daring and messy, perfectly willing to f*** up at times.

It also totally widens the possibilities for The Flaming Lips at a time when they seemed in danger of ending up in a rut. A gleeful, technicolour rut of robot Santa costumes, confetti and blood, but a rut nonetheless. Now, they seem more exciting and vital than they have since the early aughts, and it’s going to be a pleasure finding out what they do next.

This is the sort of record which usually recoups in kudos what it loses in revenues, but it’s been noticeably absent from most of the end of year album lists, so consider this a token attempt to redress the balance a little.

Best track on the album: ‘Silver Trembling Hands’
After over an hour of murky, fascinating listening, ‘Silver Trembling Hands’ is a light at the end of the tunnel. Opening with pounding drums, Wayne Coyne howling through a whole rack of effects pedals and what sounds like a harp, it launches into a lovely, spacey AOR pop song, replete with hip hop synths. Like a Flaming Lips single being played underwater.

Don’t worry though, the next track is four minutes of ambience with mathematician Thorsten Wörmann narrating over the top, saying “you think the forces have control, well, there are no forces and they have no control, it’s just you and me, and we fear anything that looks like the sun, and we, by our own design, are helpless, this is the beginning”. So it’s not like they sold out or whatever.

Any improvements that could have been made
Oh, god, so many improvements. The psych-rock wankery of ‘Scorpio Sword’? The stoned motivational slogans of ‘Sagittarius Silver Announcement’? For a man who claims not to do drugs, Wayne Coyne does a really good impression of someone who does a lot of drugs. But I wouldn’t change a thing. Embryonic is best listened to as a single piece of music, and the mistakes and the jams are part of that. It’s always kind of cool to see a band willing to experiment and screw up in public, and even the off-notes could grow into something awesome next time.

The best of the rest
Sunset Rubdown – Dragonslayer
Sunset Rubdown go pop. Or rock. Either way, the guitars are more muscular, the drums more in your face, but it’s still the same skewed, addictive song-writing. I checked Sunset Rubdown out because they were playing at All Tomorrow’s Parties one year, and since then SR vocalist Spencer Krug’s become one of my favourite song-writers. Sunset Rubdown, Wolf Parade, Swan Lake… the guy can do no wrong.

Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion
I know, I know, this is in the top five of every single end of year list in the world. There are undiscovered Amazonian tribes who have blogged about how bringing in P Diddy’s producer gave Animal Collective a whole new dimension to their sound. But it’s absolutely incredible, warm and lush and incredibly human. Brother Sports is one of the most uplifting things I have ever heard.