A great number of debut records see a band chuck a crazy number of disparate ideas at the recording desk, but far fewer see such an approach cohere into something complete, exciting and unique. But this is exactly what Alt-J have achieved: a stunning playground of music positively alive with ideas, simultaneously carving an uncannily well formed identity over the course of thirteen tracks. If you've been following the tantalising drip feed of songs from this band over the last year or so, you'll be pleased to hear that An Awesome Wave more than delivers on that early promise, while continuing to expand the already impressive breadth of ambition displayed within cuts like 'Breezeblocks', 'Matilda' and 'Fitzpleasure'.

Alt-J's An Awesome Wave sounds almost nothing like one of my 2011 favourites whokill by Tune Yards, but there's a stark similarity in their approaches to creation as well as my reasons for falling for them both so hard – both being acts whose coherence is paradoxically born of the most scattershot application of buzzing musical ideas imaginable, sourced from as disparate a range as influences as possible. The knock-you-sideways drop of 'Fitzpleasure' recalls the bass work of James Blake; the soft harmonies and acoustic guitar provide a fifteen second homage to Fleet Foxes halfway through 'MS'; 'Taro' chucks some Eastern guitar influences and, what the hell, a children's choir into the mix as time begins to run out on the album. The result – especially combined with the hyper-rehearsed technicality of the vocal arrangements and nuanced musicianship – is an album which shares whokill's identity as a record which plays like a catalogue of “fuck yeah” moments (or perhaps more accurately, “what's next?” moments); an album which invigorates, surprises and delights at almost every turn.

There's a tiny case to be made that the album is slightly front-loaded, but that's only because the opening clutch of tracks unfurl with an exceptionally natural grace. Opening with the statement of intent/demonstration of ability 'Intro' – a track collecting the band's capacity for left-field noises and left-turn surprises – before seguing perfectly into the a capella '(Interlude 1)'. And as these two effortlessly interlaced voices draw to a close, the walloping chime of 'Tesselate's opening piano chord fires out of the silence as a glorious hijack, as well as sounding wholly inevitable – setting into motion the skittering beats of one of many intensely colourful album highlights. I focus on this opening trilogy to further illustrate the point of how coherent and well plotted An Awesome Wave is, despite its constant aural lily-pad hopping on a track-by-track, bar-by-bar basis. It doesn't sound intuitive to put not one but two throat-clearing, muscle-stretching tracks at the top of your album before dropping its first jam (its first masterpiece) proper, but Alt-J lay out their cards very precisely, knowing exactly how the album should best reveal itself over its running time.

If you weren't told, you'd probably never guess that this is a debut album, such is its masterly execution of such an ambitious and singular sound. To draw a second comparison with another record which An Awesome Wave sounds almost nothing like, it shares a startlingly fully formed nature with the equally gushed-over debut from The XX a few years back. But whilst the XX arrested the listener by pitching their brilliant songs within fairly narrow sonic parameters, Alt-J perform an arguably doubly impressive feat by managing to sound so self-assured whilst subscribing to such a wide-reaching approach to the creation of their sound; their identity being born just as much of their breadth as their focus. It's an unsurprisingly rare position for a first album to find itself in, and means that Alt-J haven't just offered up a debut of the year frontrunner, but an unarguable contender for album of the year full stop.