In this week's issue of NME, on sale January 7, we pick out the ten bands you need to hear in the coming year.

You can check out each of the artists we're tipping below, but obviously if you want to know more about them – including which artist spent her 16th birthday repeatedly jumping topless out of a tree, and which ultra-serious band harbour a secret passion for go-karting – you'll need to pick up the mag.

More importantly, we want to know which artists you think are worth hearing in 2009. Reveal your tips by leaving a comment below.

[Photo Gallery: the hottest new bands of 2009]

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And you thought MGMT were far out.

This lot – also from Brooklyn and also prone to the preposterous - take it to a whole new level. While they’re more like a North American Late Of The Pier, with any luck the current interest in everything east of the East river will finally drag Apes & Androids out of their weird shadows and anoint them with the rewards their several years of slog deserve.

Their trade: bombast, Bowie, falsetto, funk, the more extravagant leanings of Queen, bent guitars and quivering synths; essentially anything goes in their theatre of the absurd. They were due to come over last month but pulled the tour. When they do, though, expect luminescent skulls, cheerleaders, Korean drummers, a forest of phosphorescence and the weirdest looking individuals this side of a Bestival k-hole meander (if their past shows are anything to go by).

Watch your back Kevin Barnes. ‘Riverside’ is one of the highlights of their stupidly addictive debut‘Blood Moon’. A slow-building mash of bubbling synths, trumpets and even a short guitar solo feasibly nicked from laughable prog-rockers Camel – a perfectly ridiculous intro to this prodigious band.

Download Apes & Androids' Riverside

I went to Wrexham once. Without wanting to diss too badly its unlucky inhabitants, it was a pretty wretched place.

The brief: 24 bended hours on the road with the UK’s craziest party band (Does It Offend You, Yeah?). The reality: deserted high streets, mooching local urchins and a late drink in the local Travel Tavern before a quick pasty food fight and getting the hell out of there.

The town's silver lining has emerged: digital math-rockers Gallops!, who have inherited more than horsey wordplay from their successful precursors.

While they’ve harnessed the jerky propulsion of Foals, the riffs-as-rhythm of Pivot and the synthy tomfoolery so beloved of Battles, it's all built on a bedrock of post-rock and they’re not afraid to unleash guitars as heavy as, say, Russian Circles.

[Myspace].

Download Gallops! Lasers

I heart The New Sins. I heart it with all my heart.

She's (New Young Pony Club's Lou Hayter) just delivered a new reason to give a shit, with simply the coolest video I've seen in years. If only more people understood what pop music is for.

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In This week's NME (Page 19) New York's The Virgins get themselves a Radar.

We dragged them into the office after last night's Old Blue Last show in east London to big themselves up on camera and take a read of their feature...

Meanwhile here's the HOT video for their best track:

Between us, Alex and I saw about six hundred bands fuelled on a diet of SoCo cocktails and cheap tacos. These were the best:

Growing
Good things come to those who wait, and great things came to us when we waited hours to see Gang Gang Dance at the Social Registry party on Friday night. The word ‘growing’ grew mysteriously on a black curtain onstage, which parted to reveal two hairy Brooklyn dudes eek out the most sumptuous guitar soundscape drones this side of Fuck Buttons’ less abrasive moments. Not bad for two guys called Kevin and Joe. TC

http://www.myspace.com/growingsoundnyc

Heartsrevolution
I spent the weekend cruising with this wonderful band in their Heartschallenger ice cream truck pretending to be Willy Wonka and selling sweets to beautiful hipster girls. Their show at the iHeartComix showcase in Brooklyn was a revelation: a glimmering, soulful flash of melancholic beats and life-affirming sloganeering. God they’re inspiring. AM

www.myspace.com/heartsrevolution

Chairlift
You will shit the bed when these three come to town next month. We’ve chewed your eyes off enough already with words of praise for the Brooklyn pop subversives, but nothing prepared us for the banshee howls, razor-sharp dynamics and all-round trance-inducing brilliance of their live show. TC

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=64664341

The Muslims
I guess sooner or later we’re going to have to stop patting people on the back for playing garage rock, but how can we when it still seems like such a good idea? The Muslims are a favourite band in New York (benefiting no-doubt from their attention-grabbing name) and their show at the Fader party with Chairlift was pretty awesome. AM

www.myspace.com/themuslims

Rainbow Arabia
Shit – a CMJ highlight not from Brooklyn. OK so 7pm in the Cake Shop with a crowd of three and debilitating sobriety ravaging my remorseful brain wasn’t the best environment to see Echo Park-via-Egypt-via-lost-imagination world-punk, but somehow it remains one of the best memories. Maybe it was the little old TV on the bar you could watch them on despite the fact the venue was the size of a garage. TC

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=342492066


Passion Pit
Always nice to be present when the buzz band of the week does one of their biggest shows. Among the heaving masses on top of Annex’s balcony I watched the converted convulse to what looked like five hipsters running riot in a keyboard shop. They had all the confidence and poise (and fans onstage and camera crew) of a band with their course already set for the Big Time. On the other hand, though, it kind of reminded me (not musically) of CYHSY’s early shows. TC

http://www.myspace.com/passionpitjams

Apache Beat
Ok, so their bassist might be a bit of a douche, but Ili the singer is class, a shuddering monster in a dolly dress. Their set at the NME party was a bouncing pop-punk set which, even viewed through the haze of jetlag, rocked. AM

www.myspace.com/thisisapachebeat

Kuroma
Forget the lame geek bass player dropping to his knees twice a song. Put him out of your mind, and focus on the flame-haired wildman to his right. Like Ginger Baker in skinny blue jeans on guitar and keyboards, he’s an unlikely hero in the making (and ex-member of MGMT), and their dreamy bombast will stay in your heads long after the bass player’s last foolish flourish. TC

http://www.kuromamusic.com/
But this Kuroma’s pretty cool too:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=92291003

The Virgins
Ok, I went to this show expecting to hate them. The album is smothered in gloss-pop sheen and I had them down as one-hit-wonder (you gotta love ‘Rich Girls’) of New York trust-fund Dolls. But you know what, live it was completely different, a endless run of Manhattan punk that made singing about shagging girls on drugs sound exciting as revolutionary polemic. AM

www.myspace.com/thevirginsnyc

Crystal Antlers
Slightly shading Crystal Stilts on the crystalline battle ground, this psycho blue and bongo band are as confounding a prospect as the USA’s knocked together in ages. Well at least since The Death Set. Party music for brains in sneakers. AM

http://www.myspace.com/crystalantlers