There was no Best Of February. At the time, we put it down to bad time management and lack of organisation. Whether you believe this, or feel more comfortable theorising on a more salacious excuse, possibly featuring incarceration for lewd public acts, is up to you.

But February duly came and went, and then march arrived, full of springy good nature, and a trolley-load of superb bands.

So here’s the best of them – and amongst the rag-tag bunch are the excellent beat-freak Gold Panda, the skew-whiff and wonderful Alan MX and the guess-what-they’re-huge-now Micachu and the Shapes…

The New Year brought optimism, crashing hangovers and another exciting 12 months of new bands. It also brought forth yet another huge, grandstanding boast - “possibly the best Top Five yet,” indeed.

Well, once again, it was no idle bragging, but a reflection of a bumper month of sweet-as-candy new bands: The brilliant Ribbon, the sibling-a-go-go Joe Gideon and The Shark and the crazed, loopy and gorgeous Here We Go Magic.

So cast your mind back to wintry times and read all about it here!

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Our Christmas-Time listing frenzy wasn’t all Gigs ‘n’ Grumbling, you know (see Part 1). There was a positive element to the end-of-year review, and today we have the creme de la creme: The Best Albums, and the big ‘un – the Best New Bands Of 2008!

So moisten your lips and click here for the best albums – a list with a Pixie, a synth-happy Frenchman and a West Country rapper, though not all on the same album (but what an album that would be).

Then swallow hard and click here for the big one – The …

Wow, last November was cold. Re-reading posts from back then is more of a task whereby filtering out seething resentment at the weather is the priority, rather than reading about, you know, new bands.

Still, you too can now enjoy that festering anger, as well as discovering which great new bands floated our collective boat in November 2008!

As always, there is a generically-good Scandiwegian pop-rock band, a mentalist noise band and one super-smashing-great band in the lovely, er, Ex-Lovers.

So load up on blankets and warm socks and hunker down with the best bands from last November!

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October 2008 brought forth this bold claim: “This month has been the most varied, exciting and downright unusual on A New Band A Day – EVER!” Not much to live up to, then. Yet expectations were high, and duly met, as there were five first-class brand new bands for your delight and wonderment.

They included the truly superb Mirror Mirror, who are now going places fast, classic C60 indie in Internet Forever, and a band (who, for the sake of excitement shall remain anonymous) who had the MOST PUN-TABULOUS NAME… EVER!

So, to find out who they were and to …

It’s funny – you can form opinions on something based on the best decisions, intentions and intellect, and then the the fullness of time will slap you in the face with your real feelings.

Today we’re zipping back to August last year – and one of this Top 5 made possibly the catchiest song that’s ever popped up on ANBAD. The song was The Little Patton by The Seedy Seeds, will stick in your head for ever – and we didn’t even make them band of the month. Durr.

So come back to August ’08, chuckle at our ineptitude …

Our intrepid trip through space and time – actually, just time – continues with a revisiting of the best bands from July 2008 – a month with, it turned out, some of the best bands we’ve ever had, including the now-monster Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, the beautiful Candythief and a band called AIDS Wolf, for Christ’s sake.

So get your talons into a fabulous month of tunes right here, right now. Or is that ‘right then’?

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Whirring into action again, the ANBAD Time Machine has stopped today in June 2008, and now we’re going to hop out and mess up the future by drugging and beating up with our past selves, a bit like in the brilliant Primer.

Before all those butterfly-effect shenanigans take place, enjoy these great bands, some of which were discovered on a Roadtrip-style gimmick.

FACT: One of the bands, Paul Hawkins and Thee Awkward Silences has written of the best songs we’ve ever heard, ever ever. So what are you waiting for? Get stuck into the best bands from June 08!

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Lurking today in the ANBAD Time Machine is a frenzy of dinosaur-themed bands, some cracking Welsh-language hip-hop and some music so deranged your mind will melt – all from back in May 2008.

Two of these superb bands have since become bone-fide indie darlings: Dinosaur Pile-Up and Picture Books in Winter, which just goes to show that, despite the obsession with puns, clunky metaphors and the occasional ‘WTF?’ band, ANBAD is tip-top when it comes to unearthing bright young things. So come on in – the water’s lovely. And full of dinosaurs, apparently.

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Living the life of Riley/a wandering star/the tented semi-homeless somewhere in Europe has given me plenty of time for reflection. One of the nice, yet nasty, facets of A New Band A Day is, well, just that – every day brings a new, mewling and puking bunch of songs from another ace new band.

This, of course, is the point, but it does also mean that some great bands are hidden away in the past, buried too far beneath all the other hundred of bands that have flirted with you each day to be dug out and appreciated.

Thus: Here’s …