The Most Shockingly Underrated Albums Of The Year

With a blockbuster 12 months of music to choose from, it’s inevitable that some fine music is going to be overlooked when it comes to the serious business of totting up the end-of-year lists.

We all know the feeling: scanning the rankings, feeling the rage rising inside us as we realise that a personal favourite has been roundly ignored. Well, this is a chance to set the record straight. Now’s the time to give 2012’s most underrated albums their time in the limelight, and here in the NME office nobody’s holding back.

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Cloud Nothings – ‘Attack On Memory’

News Editor Dan Stubbs, for example, is absolutely livid more people aren’t losing their shit over the Cloud Nothings record ‘Attack On Memory’: “It was the sound of a band who once sounded like way-too-late-to-the-party Libertines copiers coming back as a searing noise punk band engineered by Steve Albini,” he roared. “’Wasted Days’ is eight minutes of sustained, self-loathing ferocity. Brilliant.”

Young Magic – ‘Melt’

Meanwhile NME.com Deputy Editor Lucy Jones simply could not understand why we’re not all hip to the groove of Young Magic. “For some reason I seem to be the only person in the world bananas about this Brooklyn collective and their debut album ‘Melt’,” she yelled, while having to be forcibly restrained from super-gluing the CD into our stereo. “Take lead single ‘Slip Time’. It sounds like the soundtrack to an Aztec sacrificial rave: all blurry, experimental ambience, sinister, sensuous breaths and a breaking, epic chorus.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6iFY53SPFE

Two Inch Punch – ‘Slow Jams’ EP

At this point, Deputy Editor Eve Barlow declared martial law until we’d all listened to Two Inch Punch’s ‘Slow Jams’ EP: “2012 has been mega and I couldn’t have asked for more music wise… actually that’s bollocks. Why in all of hell has Two Inch Punch been overlooked? It DUMBFOUNDS me,” she shouted, barricading the office doors shut. “His Slow Jams EP this year was phenomenal. In fact, the song ‘Moonstruck’ – a gorgeous dubby ode dripping in sunburst guitar riffs and skittering beats – is one of my favourite and most listened to tracks of the year. You should get on board soon. As in RIGHT NOW.”

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The Very Best – ‘MTMTMK’

Wow. That was intense. I guess everyone gets pretty worked up about albums they love being neglected. I’m now trying to distract everyone with the joyous sound of The Very Best’s mighty ‘MTMTMK’. Check out ‘Kondaine’, featuring the awesome Seye, for the sort of African-flavoured party tune that Vampire Weekend would sell their preppy sneakers for.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDvwzgML6ZQ

So what have we still missed? Let us know in the comments below what the most overlooked records of the year are, and then bask in the smug warmth of knowing you were ahead of the game when we’re all finally raving about it in six months time.

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