Best albums of 2012, No 7: Alt-J – An Awesome Wave

Almost from the day it was nominated for the Mercury prize, Alt-J's An Awesome Wave was the favourite to win – no surprise, given the judges' history of plucking the quirkiest album from the bag. But what was unexpected, when it took the trophy, was the extent of public support for a record so full of glitchy twists and turns. It quickly sold an extra 30,000 copies and has just passed the 100,000 mark, proving the band were right when they claimed An Awesome Wave was "accessible".

And, for an album that fully deserves the appellation "art rock", it really is accessible. There are oblique angles and opaque and ridiculous lyrics in abundance ("Tra-la-la, in your snatch fits pleasure, broom-shaped pleasure/ Deep, greedy and Googling every corner," from the song Fitzpleasure, is typical of what you'll find here), but it also offers a warm welcome. Never mind the inventiveness, feel the tunes. So while there's something new at every turn, from the jarring a cappella intro of (Ripe and Ruin) to Tessellate's geometrically precise electronica, the melodic side hasn't been neglected. The record is loaded with innocent little choruses that soon become full-blown earworms – Tessellate and Breezeblocks, both released as singles, even made it on to Radio 1.

The friction between experimentalism and pop catchiness makes An Awesome Wave different from any other top 20 album of 2012. Some have predicted that Alt-J's success will open the door for "boffin-rock", as if there were a cavalcade of bookish nerds jostling behind them, ready to transform the charts into an oasis of literary references with wonky time signatures. But their music feels too singular to be the starting point of a new movement. Though it shares a certain priapic undertow with Wild Beasts' Smother, and the dreamy abstraction of James Blake's debut, it's basically out there on its own. Put it this way, it's unlikely that major labels are telling their A&R departments to find the next Alt-J.

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The four members met at Leeds University, and after graduation decamped to Cambridge, where they spent two years rehearsing. The fact that they're exceedingly well-connected – keyboard player Gus Unger-Hamilton's brother runs Polydor Records, and they were signed by industry veteran Korda Marshall – undoubtedly opened doors, but nepotism only gets a band so far. If anything, An Awesome Wave is so oddball (and the band themselves so avowedly nerdy) that even the wildest optimist would have predicted a few thousand sales – if they were lucky – and a bit of blog coverage, before a return to their day jobs. Most of the mainstream press, this newspaper included, didn't even review it.

It contains a plethora of shapes and genres, which aren't flung together, but interlocked as precisely as a jigsaw. The term "folkstep" was invented to describe it, but fails to convey the breadth of what's going on. Electronica, jazz, dubstep, metal and, yes, even folk have gone into the pot, and find themselves prodded into interesting new shapes by a band who are simply curious to see what happens. If Heston Blumenthal were ever set loose in a recording studio, he would likely come up with something like this.

Books and films are referenced throughout. The love song turned murder ballad Breezeblocks quotes Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are; Matilda is named after Natalie Portman's character in the film Leon; Fitzpleasure was inspired by the prostitute Tralala in Hubert Selby Jr's novel Last Exit to Brooklyn. The subjects are an awkward fit with the music; nothing rhymes or scans, and singer Joe Newman's vocals are creepy and insinuating. Taken on its own cerebral terms, though, An Awesome Wave is remarkable and rewarding.