2011 contenders, or, the story so far. . .

...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead - Tao Of The Dead
A Storm Of Light - As The Valley Of Death Becomes Us, Our Silver Memories Fade
A Storm of Light - Untitled (Latitudes)
Across Tundras - Sage
John Luther Adams - Four Thousand Holes
Álfheimr - What Allows Us To Endure
Batillus - Furnace
Bohren & Der Club of Gore - Beileid
Book Of Black Earth - The Cold Testament
Cave In - White Silence
Elbow - Build A Rocket Boys!
Enslaved - The Sleeping Gods
Esmerine - La Lechuza
Foo Fighters - Wasting Light
From Exile - Just Like You Imagined
Glorie - Glorie
Graveyard - Hisingen Blues
Ben Harper - Give Till It's Gone
The Human Abstract - Digital Veil
Idol and the Whip - Heavy Sleeper
Incubus - If Not Now, When?
Indian - Guiltless
Iron & Wine - Kiss Each Other Clean
Johann Johannsson - The Miners' Hymns
Julia Kent - Green and Grey
The Killamanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble - From the Stairwell
Lamb - 5
Lo-Pan - Salvador
Low - C'mon
The Matador - Descent Into The Maelstrom
Meek is Murder - Algorithms
Men Eater - Gold
Mogwai - Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will
Bo Molasses - You've Put Your Voodoo On Me
M. Ostermeier - The Rules of Another Small World
Red Fang - Murder the Mountains
Red Snapper - Key
Saul Williams - Volcanic Sunlight
Septicflesh - The Great Mass
Shining - VII Fodd Forlorare
Thomas Giles - Pulse
Trap Them - Darker Handcraft
TV on the Radio - Nine Types of Light
The Twilight Singers - Dynamite Steps

Jury's still out:
Arms & Sleepers - The Organ Hearts
Between the Buried and Me - The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues
British Sea Power - Valhalla Dancehall
Bon Iver - Bon Iver
Colloseum - Chapter III: Parasomnia
The Dear Hunter - The Color Spectrum
The Decemberists - The King Is Dead
The Devin Townsend Project - Deconstruction / Ghost
Dredg - Chuckles And Mr. Squeezy
Ryan Francis - Works For Piano
Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
Fucked Up - David Comes To Life
Glassjaw - Coloring Book / Our Color Green
Grayceon - All We Destroy
The Kills - Blood Pressures
Lazarus AD - Black Rivers Flow
Light Bearer - Lapsus
Man Man - Life Fantastic
Scott Matthew - Gallantry's Favorite Son
The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation - Anthropomorphic
New Keepers Of The Water Towers - The Calydonian Hunt
Obscura - Omnivium
O'Death - Outside
Okkervil River - I Am Very Far
Owen Hart - Earth Control
Primate - Draw Back A Stump
Radiohead - The King of Limbs
Rotten Sound - Cursed
Six Organs Of Admittance - Asleep on the Floodplain / Maria Kapel
Spiders - Spiders
Tephra - Tempel
Tombs - Path of Totality
TV Ghost - Mass Dreams
U.S. Christmas - The Valley Path
VYGR - Hypersleep
Xerath - II
Young Widows - In and Out of Youth and Lightness