Starting today, ANBAD takes a look back at – hyperbole aside – a thrilling year of music.

As we go through the count-down over the next few days, there’ll be some explanations of how ANBAD’s Top Ten Bands Of 2010 were calculated, as well as a few fleeting  thoughts on the bands. Today, the first bunch of runners-up are revealed…

There are plenty of ways to recap on the past year. Most music blogs will publish a ‘Best Of’ list, and in that respect, ANBAD is no different. Most of the bands on this list won’t appear on anyone else’s though. Depending on your point of view, this may or may not be a good thing.

But before we tuck into the meat of the matter, here’s the gristle and skin: the first group of runners-up. These bands that didn’t quite make the Top Five, and yet still jabbed their greasy musical fingers through the tissue paper of my consciousness. They’re all excellent bands, worthy of your time, and/or another listen:

• Scary Mansion: “…as exhilarating as an unexpected, drunken kiss with a stranger in the centre of a nightclub.”

Scary Mansion // No Law

• Bern And The Brights “have a singer with a voice of scuffed antique silk, and musicians who can keep it simple and, most importantly, keep it affecting.”

• Evan Voytas: “the delicious sound of a young man who has time, talent and no external monetary influences.”

Evan Voytas // I Run With You, Spirit Animal

• Pompey: “the kind of songs which connect so directly, it feels like cheating to write about him in such glowing terms.”

• Tristram: “exactly the self-contained beauty that most songs strive for, but never attain. Lovely, in every way.”

• Bermuda Bonnie: “cute, longing, lusty and, in a way, as deeply sad as they are intensely happy.”

Bermuda Bonnie // Houseboat

The second bunch of extremely worthy runners-up will be published tomorrow. The Top Five Bands Of 2010 will appear next week. Keep ’em peeled…