Genesis - Selling England by the Pound - It took me days, literally days, to decide which of the sequence of three perfect Genesis albums from Foxtrot to The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway to take onto my desert island. I would have taken all three, but I decided that it was theoretically possible that at some point I'd wake up on the desert island and not want to listen to Gabriel-era Genesis. In the end I just gave up and chose the middle one.

Rush - 2112 - It may not be completely flawless, but never in the history of human endeavour has dystopian science fiction been so much fun… which is perhaps a flaw in itself. I could occupy my time pondering whether a gleeful hard rocking album is the right place to discuss the vices of collectivist society, but I'd be just as happy waving my arms around maniacally in a vain attempt to keep up with Neil Peart's fabulous drumming.

Kate Bush - House of Love - This album proves once and for all that pop needn't be soulless mass-produced nonsense, but can actually be brilliant - full of soaring melodies and dark contemplation, and I might well want to have that point proved to me whilst alone on my desert island.

Love - Forever Changes - It really is very good.

Mono - You Are There - The shimmering beauty of Mono's masterpiece, which builds layer upon layer of sound like ice-cold water in a darkened ocean, might well seem a bit inappropriate for a sweltering desert island. But I might well run out of ice, and this might help.

Opeth - Watershed - Picking an Opeth album is very difficult indeed, but I am going to take a punt and go with the latest one, which twists and turns brilliantly, adding a plethora of influences to mix in with the dramatic metal base that they do so very well. Very tasty indeed.

Pain of Salvation - BE - What better album to have on a desert island than one which explicitly discusses (amongst other things) the very nature of consciousness and the idea of being the last person alive on earth? It may well be incredibly over the top, but that doesn't take away from the sheer drama and musical power of the album.

Metallica - …And Justice For All - Being a Desert Island Discs purist, I couldn't bring myself to take more than the allotted 8 records, and one of those records had to be a good metal album. Not the most commonly picked Metallica album - the production is rubbish and some of the songs go on too long - but I love it. It pushes the band to their limits and has some brilliantly angry stuff, and I'd need something angry to relieve the daily furies of being on a desert island (things like having a stubbed toe and the like). I'd also be very angry at forgetting to include any Beatles in my selection of Desert Island Discs, or Pink Floyd, or Devin Townsend, or Camel, or Tool, or King Crimson…