Album of 2008/2009

I have always known that music is a very subjective medium but I still find myself surprised by our fascination with American bands and our belief that they are the only ones capable of producing really great rock music, they arrive on these shores and we appear to treat them with a god like reverence, of course most of them are immensely talented and deserve our respect but I fear we are in danger of missing out on our own great home grown talent.All over the UK there are great bands striving to get their music in the forefront of the UK Nations minds more often than not battling against disinterested record companies, and the countries obsession with talent show produced artists who appear to get by on sometimes mediocre vocal skills which they use to blast out other peoples material.These bands expend blood sweat and tears to fight an industry that seems set to destroy what faith they have in themselves, it takes great fortitude to fight the system and that is not really a bad thing as success that comes to easily does not give the satisfaction of knowing you have finally beaten the odds, but you cannot blame these bands for saying enough is enough can we now have that break we have worked so hard for and deserve, at times it must feel like they have been put on a treadmill that some kind person decided to put in reverse.We all know the success stories of the bands who have beaten these odds but for those few there are scores of really talented people out there who deserve our support, whether it be travel those few miles to a gig or buy that hard produced first album, we need to get behind these artists and wherever you are you must know of them, they truly are all over the country, I know of several but in this instance it is just one band who have inspired me to write the above, yes I am not impartial but music is not about impartiality it is about being impassioned , enpowered,and totally addicted, and until you feel this way you do not understand music.
The moment I put this bands Album on I was actually really shocked, I had known I was going to enjoy it as these guys were no strangers to me, but a lot of the material I had not heard before and to be honest had expected it to be a bit of a "grower" as are lots of albums however there was not one track that did not instantly grab me and not once did I have that itchy little fast forward skip a track finger, you know the one where you think I'll listen to that track later, these were all to be heard without exception.
So I suppose I should enlighten you, that's the ones who have not guessed already,
10 Reasons to Live and their appropriately named new album 10 Reasons to Live which would never have seen the light of day but for their absolute detirmination to succeed,
their unswerving self belief and the help of family and friends who never gave up on them, so guys stand up take a bow , pat yourself on the back and be proud its a stunning album and the rest of the UK buy it and begin the journey to proving that the UK does rock.