TWO landmark albums from Yorkshire artists top my best albums of the year list.

Rotherham-born Rebecca Lucy Taylor — AKA Self Esteem — hit the big time with A Complicated Woman (Polydor), full of arena-sized pop anthems taking on the patriarchy, her relationship with alcohol, sexual positions and toxic relationships.

Her live show — at Glastonbury and headlining the End Of The Road festival — was a big hit too, with Taylor and her backing dancer-singers performing in Handmaid’s Tale-inspired costumes, before Taylor changed into a Sheffield Wednesday tracksuit for the second half.

The astonishing Wasteland (Basin Rock) from Sheffield’s Jim Ghedi was similarly huge, and deeply political.

Building on his superb 2021 album In The Furrows Of Common Place, it’s a brooding set of (often electrified) folk music. The colossal title track, for example, sounds like it may have maxed out the recording equipment.

With takes on Harry Cox’s What Will Become Of England and Ewan MacColl’s anti-imperialist The Trafford Road Ballad (“What Kind of future can there be…/ With flying high and dropping bombs/ On other people’s sons”), there is a seething anger running through the songs, giving contemporary voice to the long history of working-class resistance in this country.

There were also standout releases from artists further south. Brixton rapper Dave — AKA David Omoregie — dropped his latest State Of The Nation address with The Boy Who Played The Harp (Neighbourhood). Dense and self-reflective, it covers a huge amount of ground, from violence against women (the extraordinary Fairchild) to biblical ruminations, Palestine, Patrice Lumumba and a conversation with Kano.

Shaped by the death of his mother and childhood memories growing up in London’s edgelands, Essex Honey (RCA) by Blood Orange, the current musical vehicle of Dev Hynes, was a revelation. Self-produced, the elegiac soundscapes and hushed singing provided the perfect soundtrack to that liminal time at the end of the summer. Is it electronica? Neo-soul? Indie? Pop? Who cares when the music is this good.

Two older UK acts released some of their best work in years. Suede’s Antidepressants (BMG) is one of the most kinetic and exciting albums I’ve heard for some time. The opening salvo of Disintegrate, Dancing With The Europeans, the title track and Sweet Kid still knocks me out after I don’t know how many listens.

Remembering Now (Virgin) heralded Van Morrison’s best work for decades, following years of mediocre music and embarrassingly wrongheaded lyrics about the pandemic. Full of romantic recollections of the Belfast of his youth, the second side is sublime (excepting the trite Colourblind). “It’s about transcending the mundane,” the now 80-year-old Van The Man told Mojo magazine.

Across the Atlantic, the freewheelin’ New Threats From The Soul (Tough Love/Sophomore Lounge) from Louisville, Kentucky’s Ryan Davis & the Roundhouse Band felt like it was singlehandedly performing CPR on altcountry as a living, breathing musical genre. A shout out too for The Beaches, an all-woman indie guitar band from Toronto. Chockful of poppy bangers about one-night stands, self-pleasure and being the last girl at the party (“I’m not gonna slow down/I’ll never look as hot as I do now”), No Hard Feelings (AWAL), their third album, is so infectious it should come with a health warning.

Finally, on a more sombre note, the instrumental After The Last Sky (ECM) is one of the best of Tunisian oud master Anouar Brahem’s career (quite a statement when you consider his back catalogue). Apparently “the tragedy of Gaza” was very much on his mind during the making of the album, with Remembering Hind a tribute to five-year old Hind Rajab killed by Israeli forces in January 2024.