And my album of the year, as one of two people have already correctly guessed, is Marillion’s majestic F. E. A, R. Or to give its full title, “F*** Everyone And Run”. It’s an album that sums up the despair of 2016

Don’t just take my word for it. Here’s what The Guardian had to say

F. E. A. R. continues a late-career renaissance that began with 2004’s Marbles. It’s a totally uncompromising record; 68 minutes made up of just five lengthy songs with no obvious radio-friendly singles. Politically charged lyrics alternate between sadness and anger, and rich, layered instrumentation references common Marillion touchstones such as Pink Floyd and late-period Talk Talk, with the occasional hints of Van der Graaf Generator at their most grandiose and menacing. Keyboardist Mark Kelly is all over this record, going from electric piano runs to doom-laden organ, while Steve Rothery is also on top form with his evocative and lyrical guitar, exemplified by a wonderful solo on El Dorado. Things come to a climax with the The New Kings, which has singer Steve Hogarth railing at the state of the world and its corrupt, self-serving elites, all set to dark, intense music that’s as good as anything they have done. Quite possibly their best album in two decades.

Although in this case The Guardian’s reviewer was actually me.

The comments against the review make interesting reading. The vast majority are overwhelmingly positive, although you’ve got to laugh at the numpty who declared that five-star reviews “should be reserved for all time classic albums, not bands that slipped into musical irrelevance over 20 years ago” along with “And it’s not even a proper Guardian reviewer anyway” before compounding his idiocy by insisting that he didn’t need to listen to an album to know it can’t possibly be worth five stars. Sadly this is the sort of closed-minded prejudice bands like Marillion have fighting for decades.

Meanwhile I’m now getting blamed for their Royal Albert Hall gig selling out in minutes.

The Heather Findlay Band – I Am Snow

The former Mostly Autumn lead singer’s second album of 2016 celebrates the semi-acoustic folk-rock side of her music, combining new songs with reworkings of older numbers, with arrangements emphasising flute and harp. There’s a beautiful cover of Sandy Denny’s “Winter Winds”, and the two new songs, especially the seasonal title track, are gorgeous.

King Crimson – Live in Toronto

A live snapshot of the latest incarnation of the legendary progressive rock band from their 2015 tour with a setlist combining brand new material alongside classics from the 60s, 70s and beyond. The seven-piece band including Tony Levin, saxophonist Mel Collins and no fewer than three drummers creatively re-imagine the older material while remaining faithful to the spirit, and the largely instrumental new numbers are impressive too. A great document from a tour that was memorable for all the right reasons.

Riverside – Eye of the Soundscape

Poland’s finest band released this ambient and largely electronic album to commemorate guitarist Piotr GrudziÅ„ski, who died suddenly and unexpectedly early in the year. It’s a compilation of remixes and previously-released bonus material complemented by four completely new tracks, At times the shimmering electronic arpeggios and electronic pulsings are to Tangerine Dream what Riverside’s more guitar-based music was to Porcupine Tree, but as always they’ve far more than copyists.

Touchstone – Lights in the Sky

This four track EP is first release by the new-look Touchstone with Aggie on vocals and Liam Holmes on keys. It’s a move away from the pared-back approach of “Oceans of Time”, with big guitars and soaring vocal lines, but the sound is still clearly identifiable as Touchstone, and they’re sounding like a coherent band in what is clearly a new beginning for the band.

5: Crippled Black Phoenix – Bronze

After some rather turbulent times within the band, Crippled Black Phoenix bounce back very strongly with a powerful follow-up to 2014′s “White Light Generator”. Beginning with a track called “Dead Imperial Bastard”, Bronze is a dark, angry and very intense record that in places sounds like Swans jamming with Pink Floyd, filled with dense, boiling guitars and ominous electronic soundscapes. It’s the sort of record that leaves you exhausted by the time you reach the end.

4: The Pineapple Thief – Your Wilderness

The Pineapple Thief have always represented the streamlined modern face of progressive rock, and this album is a distillation of the best elements of their sound. There are moments of fragile beauty, times when they rock out, and the whole thing flows seamlessly. The band have always drawn comparisons with Radiohead. But while “A Moon Shaped Pool” is a good album, “Your Wilderness” is a better one. But you have to wonder how many mainstream critics who put Radiohead high in their end-of-year lists have even heard “Your Wilderness”.

3: Opeth – Sorceress

Mikael Ã…kerfeldt and his band continue to draw deep from the well of 70s underground rock and reinvents the sounds for the 21st century with his legendary mastery of rock dynamics. The result is a record that invokes the spirit of that decade while sounding like something that could only have been made today. It goes from thunderous heaviness to the sort of sinister and cinematic atmospherics that recalls his Storm Corrosion collaboration with Steven Wilson. This is their best album since “Watershed” and despite the lack of death-metal growls, their heaviest since “Ghost Reveries”.

2: Iamthemorning – Lighthouse

The third studio album from the Russian duo comprising singer Marjana Semkina and classical pianist Gleb Kolyadin is one of those records that’s near-impossible to classify. Sometimes accompanied by a small chamber orchestra, sometimes with a rock rhythm section including Porcupine Tree’s Gavin Harrison and Colin Edwin, the result is a kaleidoscopic record of ever changing moods taking in rock, classical and even instrumental jazz. Comparisons between Marjana Semkina vocals and those of Kate Bush are entirely appropriate. This is a record that takes a few listens to fully appreciate since there’s so much to take in; you can keep hearing new things even after many listens.

10: Rebecca Downes – Believe

Deserved winner of Best Female Vocalist and Best Breakthrough Artist at the British Blues Awards, Rebecca Downes has a great voice, with range and power as well as emotional depth, equally at home with soulful ballads as belting out hard rockers. When combined with her talented backing band result is a hugely varied record, combining blues with hard rock, funk and soul.

9: Tilt – Hinterland

The band including Fish alumni Steve Vantis, Robin Boult and Dave Stewart deliver a hard-rocking album. The layered sound and powerful bass grooves recall Porcupine Tree and Steve Vantsis’ work with Fish.

But Paul Dourley is a very different sort of singer; his soulful vocals have the occasional hints of Peter Gabriel and Lou Gramm, and if anything it’s his performance that lifts this record from a good one to a great one.

8: Ihsahn – Arktis

The fiendishly inventive Norwegian black metallers reign in the avant-garde experimentalism of 2013′s Das Seelenbrechen in favour of an album of more straightforward metal songs. But “straightforward” is a relative thing for a band like Ihsahn; there’s a lot of varied creativity on display here, balancing face-melting guitars with occasional moments of atmospheric beauty,

7: Mantra Vega – The Illusion’s Reckoning

The collaboration between former Mostly Autumn singer Heather Findlay and Sound of Contact’s Dave Kerzner results in a record with a strong 70s vibe.

There are nods to Stevie Nicks era Fleetwood Mac and the rootsier side of Led Zeppelin, as well as the folky feel of Heather Findlay’s work with Odin Dragonfly and early Mostly Autumn. It’s an impressive work that’s as good as anything either of them have done.

6: Big Big Train – Folklore

Big Big Train continue to be better than anyone else at invoking the spirit of 1970s English pastoral progressive rock. Again the lyrics are steeped in English landscapes and socio-economic history.

The songs cover subjects from London’s lost rivers to World War 2 RAF pigeons, with music that sometimes evokes the mood of albums like Genesis’ “Trespass”, and at other times is closer to the electric folk-rock of bands like Steeleye Span.

We’ll start with 25 to 11. Except that they’re not ranked in any order, because that would be next to impossible.

Update Because I missed out one record by mistake, this year’s list now goes up to 26. You will have to guess which one it was yourselves.

An Endless Sporadic – Magic Machine

Like the late, great Frank Zappa at his most inventive this instrumental album mixes disparate genres with gleeful abandon. You can sense the musicians enjoying themselves whilst making this record. The result resembles a soundtrack for an imaginary space opera adventure, and the ever-changing music certainly takes you on an exhilarating journey through many musical moods and styles.

David Bowie – Blackstar

There is pretty much nothing I can say about this enigmatic and sometimes bonkers record that hasn’t already been said by plenty of others. Let’s just say that David Bowie was part of something that held the fabric of the universe together, and his passing is the reason 2016 has gone increasingly pear-shaped.

Cairo – Say

The new project by former Touchstone mainman Rob Cottingham featuring the now-departed vocalist Rachel Hill combines melodic rock and metal with touches of electronica. While there are obvious parallels with Touchstone, the feel is closer to a heavier version of Rob Cottingham’s 2014 solo project “Captain Blue”.

Duski – s/t

Aiden Thorne’s Cardiff based quintet blend contemporary jazz with elements of progressive rock and ambient soundscapes, sometimes very mellow, sometimes times rocking out. Most of the music is still recognisably jazz, especially when the saxophone is dominant, but there’s also much in the melodies and textures for a more adventurous rock fan to appreciate.

Dave Foster – Dreamless

The second solo album by the guitarist of Mr So and So, Panic Room and The Steve Rothery band is a more song-focussed affair than his first, with Dinet Poorman on vocals for most of the album. With the same rhythm section it has a similar vibe to The Steve Rothery Band with Rothery’s guitar swapped for female vocals. A couple of songs also feature his Panic Room colleague Anne-Marie Helder.

Ghost Community – Cycle of Life

The début album by the supergroup made up from past and present members of The Reasoning, Also Eden and Crimson Sky is an ambitious blend of prog-metal and melodic rock. There are definite echoes of The Reasoning in the melodies and song construction, though it has an overall coherence the last couple of Reasoning albums lacked.

Haken – Affinity

A record that’s clearly identifiable as progressive rock, but reinvented for the twenty-first century rather than a reverential pastiche of the music from a generation ago. It’s the sort of thing that should appeal as much to those bought up on Muse or Elbow as to old-school fans of Pink Floyd or King Crimson. This is state of the art modern progressive rock at its best.

Josh and Co – Transylvania Part 1: The Count Commands It

Essentially a solo album by Bryan Josh of Mostly Autumn with guest appearances from Olivia Sparnenn and Anna Phoebe amongst others,it’s a very different record from the earlier “Through These Eyes”. It’s a somewhat tongue-in-cheek saga about vampires, complete with an end-of-level monster, set to music with more than a touch of Scandinavian folk-metal about it.

Knifeworld – Bottled Out Of Eden

Kavus Torabi’s completely bonkers eight-piece psychedelic rockers take things to the next level with their third full-length album. This time they bring the horn section centre-stage and make them the focus of the record, with nstrumental passages that recall Frank Zappa’s early 70s big band work. There is nobody else quite like Knifeworld.

Maschine – Naturalis

The second album from the project led by guitar virtuoso Luke Machin is a step up from their first. One part progressive rock, one part jazz and one part metal, there’s a far greater maturity of composition on display here; the undoubted technical skills of the musicians serve the songs rather than the other way, with great use of dynamics and atmospherics.

Metallica – Hardwired to Self-Destruct

The thrash-metal veterans bounce back with their strongest record for many years, long after many had written them off as has-beens living off past glories. It’s a return to the killer riffs approach of their early years, with a production than mercifully isn’t compressed into oblivion this time around. It could have done with a little editing, but they haven’t sounded this good since The Black Album.

New Model Army – Winter

The veteran folk-punks still have something to say, burning with the energy of punk and the musical substance of hard rock. “Winter” is a dark, angry record that sums up the state of the world in 2016. “Burn the castle down”, sings Justin Sullivan, railing at the elites who do not care about the ordinary people except as a resource to exploit.

Paradigm Shift – Becoming Aware

The british four-piece create a blend of progressive metal and jazz-fusion driven by propulsive but melodic basslines and enveloping piano textures that never descends into self-indulgent noodling. The result is a hugely melodic record that represents a modern and forward-looking approach to progressive rock rather than a homage to decades past.

Radiohead – A Moon-Shaped Pool

Despite swapping guitars for string arrangements much of the time, this is Radiohead’s most accessible album for a while, with a greater emphasis on songs and tunes than on avante-garde experimentalism, and some of the cinematic string arrangements are gorgeous. It almost makes you wonder if they’ve been listening to The Pineapple Thief or Halo Blind.

Suede – Night Thoughts

A dark concept album about death nnd water that bears more than a passing resemblance both in theme and in mood to Marillion’s “Brave” as well as their own career-defining “Dog Man Star”. Even though it’s not quite in the same league as either of those records it’s still the best things they’ve done for years.

Voodoo Vegas – Freak Show Candy Floss

An album of no-nonsense twin-guitar hard rock that does what it says on the tin. When working within a fairly traditional form, you have to be very good at what you do to avoid sounding like a derivative pastiche of other, better bands that came before. Voodoo Vegas pass that test with ease. To put it simply, they rock.