Erm... some of these are not necessarily albums that came out this year but ones I got and subsequently played a lot this year if thou seest...
In no particular order of splenditude -
Julian Cope - Black Sheep (some of you might have this too)
Blood Ceremony - S/T. Jethro Sabbath meets Black Tull and it's great.
Benga - Diary of An Afro Warrior. Really got into this recently purchased dubstep epic album. Heavy beats and bowel troubling bass mix with acid minimalism.
Serpent Cult - The Weight of Light. Female fronted heavy-as-fuck doom. Nice!
Whitesnake - Good to be Bad. Amazingly, David Coverdale and crew made a fantastic rock album in 2008. Blimey!
Robyn - Robyn. Just the most brilliantly sassy, 'tude heavy pop album ever.
Wayne Shorter - JuJu. Exemplary back-in-the-day jazzment!
Opeth - Watershed. Much loved in the Catpod death/prog/metal titans always deliver.
Ansur - The Warring Factions. Norweigian prog-metallers take a quantum leap with album 2.
Pop Levi - Never Never Love. Levi channels glam, Prince, rock and electro influences into great pop album.
Holy Fuck - Holy Fuck. Holy Fuck!!
Goldfrapp - 7th Tree. Pastoral Kate Bushular tunes abound.
Martriden - The Unsettling Dark. Excellent US black/prog metal album.
Herbie Hancock - Inventions & Dimensions. Percussive early album from the uberdude.
KISS - Alive 35. Excellent thru-the-soundesk document of Keith's fave band on their 2008 Euro Tour. You can feel the heat of the flashbombs go off.
That's all I can remember of the top off me noggin. Heard some great stuff this year and lond may it continue.