Another year has passed by. And what a year it has been in the world of music! With this I present my deeply subjective list of the best full-length album releases of 2011 - this year in english! If your personal favourite doesn't appear on the list it doesn't necessarily mean that your taste in music sucks ... it could come down to the fact that an act or two went under my radar. What album did you like best in 2011? (The list is also available as a playlist on my Spotify profile)

1. Destroyer / Kaputt

Canadian singer and songwriter Dan Bejar is the man behind the name of Destroyer. With his 9th full-length album Kaputt which was released in January he managed to create a work that today almost a year later stands out as a true piece of art. In what could have ended as a big confusion of genres and sources of inspiration Destroyer is able to hold all of the music, the rythms, the words and the sounds flying at the same time. It's beautiful, enigmatic and truely original.  

2. The Weeknd / House of Balloons

Canada also occupies the second spot. 21 year old Abel Tesfaye aka. The Weeknd surprised us all with the album House of Balloon available for free download on the artist's website. The debut was soon followed by the last two albums of the mixtape-trilogy Thursday and Echoes of Silence. The prolific youngster managed like his compatriot on the top of this list to build his very own unique sound which in all of its addictive and evocative peculiarity can be described as a dark urban kind of R'n'B filled with sex, drugs, pain and shattered illusions.   

3. Bon Iver / Bon Iver

Being the darling of the international music critics Bon Iver had a lot to live up to this year after his highly praised 2008 album For Emma, Forever Ago. And so he did. New sounds and new instruments was introduced but the characteristic falsetto of the mastermind behind the band Justin Vernon still quivers marvellously in the center of Bon Iver's "soundscapes". This is music and lyrics that provide food for thought with its isolated and melancholic beauty emphasizing Vernon's status as one of the heaviest artists on the present music scene - very much because of the aesthetic lightness of his music.

4. The Antlers / Burst Apart

5. Jonathan Johansson / Klagomuren

6. Real Estate / Days

7. PJ Harvey / Let England Shake

8. Mikael Simpson / Noget laant, noget blaat

9. Holy Ghost! / Holy Ghost!

10. Malk de Koijn / Toback to the Fromtime

5 more albums that could (or should) have been on the list:

The Strokes / Angles
Cut Copy / Zonoscope
Beirut / The Rip Tide
Toro Y Moi / Underneath the Pine
James Blake / James Blake