You’ve had the chance to tell us your favourite local albums of the year in our fourth annual Readers Poll. Now, it’s our critics’ turn to strike back. Here’s the first installment (50-11) of our selections for Album of the Year ’09. Tomorrow, it’s the Top 10.

50. Eleventh He Reaches London
Hollow Be My Name (Good Cop Bad Cop/Inertia)

49. Wolf & Cub
Science & Sorcery (Dot Dash)

48. Tucker B’s
Nightmares in the Key of (((((WOW))))) (Low Transit Industries)

47. Ghosts of Television
Forsaken Empire (Magnetic Recording Council)

46. Paul Dempsey
Everything Is True (EMI)

45. The Mess Hall
For The Birds (Ivy League)

44. SubAudible Hum
Tall Stories (Low Transit Industries)

43. An Horse
Rearrange Beds (Valve Records/MGM)

42. Talons
Talons (Rice Is Nice)

41. royalchord
The Good Fight (Mistletone/Inertia)

40. Psuche
Psuche (Two Bright Lakes)

39. Parallel Lions
Holding Patterns (Bird Music)

38. Oh Mercy
Privileged Woes (Casadeldisco)

37. Leader Cheetah
The Sunspot Letters (Spunk!)

36. Kitchens Floor
Loneliness is a Dirty Mattress (R.I.P Society)

35. HTRK
Marry Me Tonight (Blastfirstpetite)

34. Holy Soul
Damn You, Ra (Illustrious Artists)

33. Grand Salvo
Soil Creatures (Preservation)

32. Decoder Ring
They Blind the Stars, and the Wild Team (Inertia)

31. David McCormack
Little Murders (Das Kong)

30. Dave Graney
Knock Yourself Out (Cockaigne/Fuse)

29. Darren Sylvester
Darren Sylvester (Unstable Ape)

28. Curse ov Dialect
Crisis Tales (Mistletone)

27. Cleptoclectics
Open Tuned Occidentals (hellosQuare Recordings)

26. The Bats
The Guilty Office (Mistletone)

25. Bachelorette
My Electric Family (Mistletone)

24. The Nation Blue
Rising Waters (Casadeldisco)

23. The Dead Sea
The Dead Sea (Independent)

22. Wagons
The Rise and Fall of Goodtown (Spunk)

21. Native Cats
Always On (Consumer Productions)

20. Kill Devil Hills
Man, You Should Explode (Torn & Frayed)

What we said: “There are … moments on Man, You Should Explode when the band appears to have reached a new level of intensity. Dare I say it, they seem like they might explode.” Full review here.

19. I Heart Hiroshima
The Rip (Valve)

What we said: “Thankfully, what I Heart Hiroshima do retain on their second album is a penchant for oblique lyrical content, often stories of love – or lack thereof – veiled in enigmatic metaphors.” Full review here.

18. The Dacios
Monkeys Blood (Solar/Sonar)

What we said: “Fidelity is sacrificed for feel, precision for raw emotion. This is the sound of people making a racket in a room, shouting over each other to make themselves heard above ear-piercing amplifier squalls.” Full review here.

17. Black Cab
Call Signs (Laughing Outlaw/Inertia)

What we said: “Pitched between M83’s gasping synth soundscapes and Mogwai’s inky instrumental workouts, these songs mine shoegaze, psych and post-rock earmarks while maintaining, at times, the drive of a pop single. There are also a few interludes acting as segues or change-ups between the album’s varying gears.” Full review here

16. Alps
Alps of New South Whales (Beat Is Murder Records)

What we said: “Despite the rather twee album theme, this is sad music. Hearn’s old organ melodies – strung together by threadbare preset percussion – resonate like inverted 8-bit theme tunes, with all the pastels and primaries turned monochrome.” Full review here.

15. The Stabs
Dead Wood (Spooky Records)

What we said: “[It’s] an album with two distinct halves – the one with the hits, which summarises where the band has been, and the one that points the way to their future.” Full review here.

14. Heirs
Alchera (Exo Records)

What we said: “While the basic formula remains the same here – almost without exception, the songs on Alchera start quiet and end deafeningly loud – Heirs create variation through their innovative use of texture and rhythm.” Full review here.

13. Bridezilla
The First Dance (Inertia Recordings)

What we said: “Conceived in a barn alongside the Colo River in rural NSW, The First Dance is an album defined by its insularity. It cares little for real-world trends, moving along to its own fractured beat with scant regard for who’s actually listening in.” Full review here.

12. Ned Collette and Wirewalker
Over The Stones, Under The Stars (Dot Dash)

What we said: “In a time when white collegiate obscurantism dominates rock music, Over the Stones comes as an enlivening slap in the face: rock music as a grandiloquent cautionary tale.” Full review here.

11. Sarah Blasko
As Day Follows Night

What we said: “Though it feels at times like a risky album, there’s nothing tentative about it. Blasko has really pushed herself here, and the results speak for themselves. It might be her least instantly accessible record, but it possesses a timeless quality that makes specific reference points difficult to come by.” Full review here.

TOMORROW ON M+N: We reveal the Top 10 albums of the year.

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Compiled from the votes of: Dom Alessio, Trevor Block, Danny Bos, A.H Cayley, Patrick Emery, Lawson Fletcher, Babette Gladney, Dave Graney, J.P Hammond, Lucy Hearn, Kate Hennessy, Darren Levin, Jody MacGregor, Craig Mathieson, Andrew McMillen, Adam D Mills, Shaun Prescott, Andrew Ramadge, Ian Rogers, René Schaefer, Tim Scott, Doug Wallen.

*Critics could not vote for records they were associated with.