Featuring tributes to curry and fantasy battles involving… rats?! here are all the records our critics loved this year

Mike Patton and the Avett Brothers join forces to create a work of immense beauty.

Black And Blue UMC/POLYDOR

Rat City Rockers TEE PEE

London’s post-punk seismographers pick up more weird vibrations on their third album. By Victoria Segal. Illustration by Cold War Steve.

From The Bottom Of An Old Grandfather Clock (reissue, 2004) DEAD OCEANS