Albums of the Year 2018

I tend to do this list each year for what its worth. And yes I am one of the people buying albums and listening to them as an entity.
 
I will kick off by mentioning three live albums, they do not contain new material so I will keep them separate from the main list.
 
Big Big Train - Merchants of Light. A excellent record of the Cardogan Hall Shows of 2017.
Magenta - We are Seven : Live 2018. Affirmation of just how good Magenta are. I must get to see them some time.
I am The Morning - Ocean Sounds. This is beautiful, a live studio film shot on a remote area of the Norwegian coast complete with an audio album. The audio is also available to download on Bandcamp.
 
And now the 2018 albums
 
7 - Rikard Sjöblom’s Gungfly - Friendship, this one is growing on me and is probably more accessible than the previous album, particularly lyrically. A couple of tracks have yet to grow, but a couple more are becoming firm favorites.
6 - Hat's Off Gentlemen, its Adequate - Out of Mind. Its early days for me with this one but It looks like its going to become a favourite, quirky in places and very moving in others.
5 - Riversea - The Tide -  I love this, reminicent of the Gilmore era Pink Floyd while still retaining originality.
4 - Gleb Kolyadin – Gleb Kolyadin - fantastic solo album from the I am The Morning pianist aided and abetted by Steve Hogarth, Nick Beggs, Jordan Rudess, Gavin Harrison and others. It certainly has some of the best piano playing on a rock record for a long time.
3 - Tiger Moth Tales - The Depths of Winter - I am sneaking this in from the very end of 2017. Its an exceptional album and the track "exposure" inspired by WW1 poet Wilfred Owen is devastating.
 
I have had to make a tie for the top spot, I can't separate these two.
 
Luna Rossa - Atropa -  Some of Panic Room's Anne-Marie Helder and Jonathan Edwards' finest songs get channeled through this gentler, mostly acoustic project. Helder's voice is sublime, Edwards' piano the perfect accompaniment supplemented by Helder's guitar and flute and Sarah Dean's harp.
 
Talitha Rise - The Abandoned Orchid House - Like Atropa, its a album that difficult to classify in the "usual" list of genres. This was the discovery of the year for me. I was lucky enough to get to one of the two shows with the full band, the Abandoned Orchestra in the attic of a medieval barn in Totnes which seemed that a perfect location.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Call Me Lucky - Chris Smither
 
Tis all I got.

 

 
 
 
https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/batsbrew12
 
 

the skiffle players- skiff
the orb - no sounds are out of bounds
thomas fehlmann - los lagos
hookworms - microshift
youth & gaudi - astronaut alchemists
gospelbeach- another winter alive
ocs - live in san fransisco
a place to bury strangers - pinned
mouse on mars - dimensional people
soft hearted scientists - take time to wonder in a whirling world
lumerians -call of the void
essex green - hardly electronic
bong - thought and experience
black dog - post-truth
wooden shjips - v
gnod - chapel perilous
king gizzard and the lizard wizard - polygondwanaland
yo la tengo - there's a riot going on
cavern of anti-matter - hormone lemonade
charlie tipper conspiracy - 10
jonathan wilson - rare birds
suuns - felt
 

dmbaer
 
The latest Muse album is pretty epic.  Not sure if there are many other Muse fans here, but for me, when they're good they're *very* good.
 

I've only bought one album this year that was actually released this year and it's that one. I haven't listened to all of it yet because I keep hitting replay at track 3.....
 

pwalpwal
 
ocs - live in san fransisco

 
I'm guessing that's not Ocean Colour Scene?

dmbaer
Just listened to the new Muse album again ... and I must regretfully withdraw my "nomination".  First time through it struck me as a return to the Absolution/Black-Holes days, but on further review, not so much.
 
I have to agree with Mark McLeod: 2017 was so much better.
 

That's funny...I clicked "helpful" on your first post on Muse and was hopeful, then I went to check it out, got disappointed pretty quickly...then here you are withdrawing your support...and I couldn't agree more.  
 
 

Just adding in Mark Knopfler's 'Down The Road Wherever', a return to form after the patchy 'Tracker'.

White Album 50th Anniversary Edition.
 
The only other album I bought that came out this year was Metric's Art of Doubt.  There are a few good songs on it but sometimes the singer's voice comes across weird.  Every other album I would have listed came out in 2017.