20 Exceptional Albums from the UK & Ireland

Introducing the The Neptune Album Prize 2024 shortlist

With the sensational Leeds-based artrockers English Teacher announced as the winners of this year’s Mercury Prize, it’s time for Drowned in Sound’s annual alternative album prize.

This began as a response to the established music prize but has become a great way to survey the state of music on these shores and surface album recommendations from our passionate and incredibly knowledgeable community to a wider audience.

The process of picking this list involves a very long list of suggestions from the DiS community that goes through my editorial filter to create a shortlist of 20 albums from UK and Irish artists, released between July 15th 2023 and July 12th 2024, that I feel truly embrace the album as an art form.

Going through all of the suggestions is one of the highlights of my year. In the past the prize has introduced me to some really special albums and has celebrated records by Self Esteem, FKA Twigs, Four Tet, Chvrches, Late of the Pier, The Big Moon, Sault, Daniel Avery, Daughter and many more.

This year's shortlist is another bumper crop. Some feel pioneering. Others have an eternal quality to them, as if they have taken something ancient and shone a new light on it. A few were challenging listens at first whilst others were instantly a joy. Some were self-released and a few are on major labels whilst the majority came out via some of our favourite independent labels.

Explore the list and you’ll find records that will haunt you, soothe you, exhume you, energise you, batter you or make you dance at sunrise.

Without further ado, here's the list of extraordinary albums...

The Neptune Album Prize 2024 Shortlist

ANOTHER SKY - Beach Day
ART SCHOOL GIRLFRIEND - Soft Landing
BRUK ROGERS - Loopholes
CLEO SOL - Heaven
DRAHLA - angeltape
ELKKA - Prism of Pleasure
FOREST SWORDS - Bolted
GAZELLE TWIN - Black Dog
HILARY WOODS - Acts of Light
IBIBIO SOUND MACHINE - Pull the Rope
ISLET - Soft Fascination
KEELEY FORSYTH - The Hollow
MINING - Chimet
NEWDAD - Madra
PETER GABRIEL - i/o
PINKPANTHERESS - Heaven Knows
SPRINTS - Letter to Self
THERE WILL BE FIREWORKS - Summer Moon
YUSSEF DAYES - Black Classical Music
µ-ZIQ - Grush

Have your say, give the albums a listen, then vote for your favourite three from the list in the poll over on our forums.

The whole point of these awards is to get people listening to music they might not have heard before. You’ll find a Spotify playlist to flick through the albums here. Or head to our voting page for YouTube and Bandcamp links.

How Was The Long List Chosen? There’s no entry fee. Artists and labels didn't even need to submit their release. The DiS community helped to create this amazing longlist. I also went through all of the 'X woz robbed' in the Mercury Prize thread and also our album of the month threads.

💭 How many of these releases have you heard?