I didn't buy too many albums this year, but I really liked this one:

The Dead Weather - Horehound

edit: Muse - The Resistance was also pretty good

had to make a top7 for a musicsite i do stuff for:

1. Ghinzu - Mirror Mirror
2. Reigning Sound - Love and Curses
3. Jonsi & Alex - Riceboy Sleeps
4. Bob Log III - My Shit Is Perfect
5. Olafur Arnalds - Found Songs
6. Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport
7. A Place to Bury Strangers - Exploding Head

to make it a top10:

8. Mumford & Sons - Sigh No More
9. Blitzen Trapper - Black River Killer
10. Mono - Hymn to the Immortal Wind

As a mellow album I liked The Antlers

A bit late, but here are some for 2009 (with the best 1st):

1) Mastodon - Crack the Skye
2) Malefice - Dawn of Reprisal
3) Between the Buried and Me - The Great Misdirect
4) Architects - Hollow Crown
5) Disarmonia Mundi - The Isolation Game
6) It Prevails - Capture & Embrace
7) August Burns Red - Constellations
Lamb of God - Wrath
9) War from a Harlot's Mouth - In Shoals
10) Born of Osiris - A Higher Place