There can only be one winner and IDLES' record is a worthy one at that. The Bristol band's second album (and second record to make a 6 Music Albums of the Year list), Joy As An Act Of Resistance takes all the rage, passion, joy and dark humour that often defines our modern times and sends it screaming back with 12 ferociously beautiful tracks.

It's a really powerful record, articulate but quite acerbic... with understanding and wit, fury and frustration Steve Lamacq

While IDLES' debut, 2017's Brutalism, centred around the death of singer Joe Talbot’s mother, Joy As An Act of Resistance finds the frontman confronting another heartbreaking trauma – the stillbirth of his daughter. At times, it certainly sounds like a catharsis. "When you're sharing, channels do get opened and this album is about keeping those channels open and getting a result out of it," guitarist Mark Bowen explains.

The result is a raw and visceral record that still manages to be witty and profound, somehow finding a way to shine a positive light on the whole gamut of life. "Joy as an Act of Resistance is a parade," Talbot wrote in a press release announcing the record. "It is the parade of being carried through the grim dark. It is a parade of laughing at yourself. It is love. It is loving yourself."

The album's highlight is Danny Nedelko, named after a Ukrainian friend of the band and showing solidarity with the country's immigrant population. The track manages to reference both Pavement and Yoda and, like the album as a whole, is a real masterpiece.

Steve Lamacq: "To me, the IDLES album is what I want to remember from 2018. Not the general sense of malaise, the backbiting and the uncertainty that's characterised part of the year; that general sense of gloom. I don't want that from 2018. I want to come away with this more optimistic sense of love and community... It's a really powerful record, articulate but quite acerbic... [with] understanding and wit, fury and frustration. It's got so many things in it, but it's almost like they've taken all the darkness, turned it upside down and come out with this record that touches on so many things... It says to people, 'look, if you love yourself then it's a lot easier to make sense of the world and to love other people'. As a manifesto, that suggests that in this case at least, resistance maybe isn't futile."

IDLES: "Being included in the list is obviously humbling but more so the recognition from an institution that represents a huge portion of what we love in music: hard work and vibrancy towards new ideas and creative thinking. Thank you to all at 6 Music for helping us build our careers and our faith in the music industry."