I've been listened to Black Metal since the late 2000s starting with Emperor and Dimmu Borgir. Since then, I've discover dozens of amazing bands thanks to MS and it has become one of my favourite genres, especially the more melodic/symphonic/epic bands.

So here are my favourites of the genre with my rating, its sub-genre and release year:

(Score is an average of each album's song ratings, full list located here)

If you discovered any new albums or like the same sort of black metal, be sure to give this list a thumbs-up and leave a comment so more people can find these amazing bands!

My other lists:
Top 500 Albums (ordered & rated)
Top 25 EPs (also ordered & rated)
Top 200 Overlooked Albums (with genres)
Top 200 Overrated Albums (trigger warning)
So I Heard You Like Wintersun... (Time II find new bands)

1.Agalloch - The Mantle

2.Caladan Brood - Echoes Of Battle

3.Dissection - Storm Of The Light's Bane

4.Emperor - Anthems To The Welkin At Dusk

5.Windir - 1184

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The MS top 200 is supposed to represent the absolute peak of metal music, the timeless classics. I have been listening to metal for about 6 years now and would consider myself fairly knowledgeable about the genre. Yet, I have barely heard half of what the top 200 has to offer. I am now on a quest to listen to it all and give an honest opinion on what I thought of it.
This list will show every album of the top 200 and if I've listened to it whether it's an all-time favourite of mine (+++), I really like it (++), I like it (+), it’s good (*), it’s not great (-), I really dislike it (--) or I hate it from the bottom of my heart (---). The same symbols will be used to characterize what I think my opinion of the albums I haven't heard yet will be, based on my knowledge of the bands and of the genre they play. (?) signifies that I have no idea of whether I'll enjoy it or not and (/) means that my opinion of the album is probably obsolete, and I need to listen to it again. A ★ means the album is in my own top 200.
Edit: The bottom of the top 200 has been changing a lot, with some stuff formerly in the list now closer to 240th, so this is now a top 250. I’m not sure I want to expand the list further down, but I’ll see whenever it’s completed if I feel like going for a top 300 or something like that.
Best discoveries so far: Wildhoney, Nightfall, Out Of Myself, Portal Of I, Autumn Aurora, Nemesis Divina, Abigail, V: Hävitetty, Sounds Of Pain.

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3.W.A.S.P. - The Crimson Idol

4.Saturnus - Veronika Decides To Die

5.Ensiferum - Ensiferum

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These are albums that I'm currently enjoying. They may be classics that I'm revisiting or new gems I've recently discovered. (Ordered alphabetically)

- A star (⭐️) denotes a new discovery that I find exceptionally special!
- A flame (🔥) denotes an album that I've heard before, enjoyed, and am revisiting this month!

1.Allfather - A Violent Truth

2.Amorphis - Under The Red Cloud

3.Anvil - Metal On Metal

4.Artrosis - Hidden Dimension

5.Azaghal - Immortalized In Luciferian Blood

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Welcome to what I consider the "1001 Metal Albums You Must Hear Before You Die" or in other words, a list of records of various genres in the arrays of Metal and Hard Rock that I deem essential or at least very recommended to listeners of hard and heavy music. This may be a very overwhelming list but I essentially try to collect all albums in the History of Metal that strike me as worthwhile. May this be a guideline for people that seek for an entrance to a particular genre or certain bands. In no means I am saying, that this list is indisputable by any means. I consider these my personal picks for albums that should be listened to by die-hard metal fans at least once. Hopefully you can discover some new music or relate with my picks. If I missed something that you would include in such a list, please tell me in the form of a comment. Enjoy! \,,/

1.High Tide - Sea Shanties

2.Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath

3.Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin

4.Sir Lord Baltimore - Kingdom Come

5.Josefus - Dead Man

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1.Katatonia - The Great Cold Distance

2.Saturnus - Veronika Decides To Die

3.Insomnium - Above The Weeping World

4.Agalloch - Ashes Against The Grain

5.The Mars Volta - Amputechture

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All my favourite songs ranked in order best down.

1.Rush - 2112

2.Deep Purple - In Rock

3.Jethro Tull - Aqualung

4.Rainbow - Rising

5.Black Sabbath - Paranoid

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My favourite black metal albums listed and ranked, all varieties within the black metal genre.

1.Summoning - Oath Bound

2.Immortal - At The Heart Of Winter

3.Primordial - To The Nameless Dead

4.Mayhem - De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas

5.Mgła - Exercises In Futility

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2000-2004 list: http://www.metalstorm.net/users/list.php?list_id=5844
2010-2014 list: http://www.metalstorm.net/users/list.php?list_id=5828
2015-2019 list: http://www.metalstorm.net/users/list.php?list_id=6722

I sure do love this site and it's rating system, it makes finding great music so easy and, even more importantly, when an album is overlooked for a while but starts getting a buzz a few months later, boom, there it appears in the top 20.

All that being said, I still wish there was some way to get a weighted ranking that not only takes the rating of the album into account, but also the number of votes that were cast. For example, an album with a rating of 8.8 and 1000 votes would rank higher than an album with a rating of 8.9 and 20 votes. So, I scraped all the albums on the site with at least 1 vote into a database. Then, taking a leaf out of IMDb's book, I used Bayesian estimation (like the IMDb's Top 250) to calculate a weighted rating for each album based on its Metal Storm rating and the number of votes it had received.

The formula for calculating the Top 100 Albums gives a true Bayesian estimate:
Bayes rating (BR) = ( C × m + R × N ) ÷ ( m + N ) where:
C = average expected rating given...
m = minimum number of votes
R = average rating for the album = (Metal Storm rating)
N = number of votes for the album = (votes)

The way the Bayesian estimator works is that all albums in the database are given and additional m fake votes with an average rating of C, irrespective of how many true votes it already has. Then a new weighted rating is calculated...
If the album has no true votes ( N = 0 ), then BR = ( C × m + R × 0 ) ÷ ( m + 0) = C × m ÷ m = C (the average expected rating).
If the album has a number of true votes equal to the minimum ( N = m ), then BR = ( C × m + R × m ) ÷ ( m + m ) = ( C + R ) × m ÷ 2m = ( C + R ) ÷ 2 (halfway between the two ratings).
If the album has a very large number of true votes ( N >> m ), then BR = ( C × m + R × N ) ÷ ( m + N ) ≈ R × N ÷ N = R (the Metal Storm rating).
This means that the Bayes rating will never equal the Metal Storm rating but will approach it as the true votes grow arbitrarily large.

Now that the maths bit is out of the way, here was my methodology:
Only Studio and EP album types, from the years 2005 to 2009, with at least 1 vote, were included.
The average expected rating (C) was determined by averaging all the Metal Storm ratings from 2005-2009.
The minimum number of votes (m) was determined by calculating the 75th percentile of the votes, rounded to the nearest 10.
I also decided that if an album's Bayes rating was within 0.005 of #100, it would be included too; hence the +8.

C for 2005-2009 = 7.593
m = 20

Number of albums from each year in the list:
2005 - 26
2006 - 20
2007 - 23
2008 - 17
2009 - 23

Ratings are accurate as of 30/10/2023

1.Agalloch - Ashes Against The Grain

2.Opeth - Ghost Reveries

3.Be'lakor - Stone's Reach

4.Gojira - From Mars To Sirius

5.Saturnus - Veronika Decides To Die

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No particular order

1.Graveworm - As The Angels Reach The Beauty

2.Graveworm - Scourge Of Malice

3.Dimmu Borgir - For All Tid

4.Dimmu Borgir - Stormblåst

5.Dimmu Borgir - Enthrone Darkness Triumphant

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I've been listening to Metal since 2005 and it has become my biggest passion in life.

Rarely a day goes by where I don't listen to it in one form or another. The bands I listened to in my teens inspired me to pick up the guitar (and later drums) and start making music of my own.

So here are the albums that have stood out and made the largest impact on me. To be as transparent as possible, I've labelled albums as 'nostalgia bias' where my memories of the album give it an advantage over others.

(Score is an average of each album's song ratings, full list located here. There are a ton of albums that I've rated 9/10 in the 'TBR' tab that may never make it to this list, be sure to check those out.)

If you discovered any new albums or like the same sort of metal, be sure to give this list a thumbs-up and leave a comment so more people can find these amazing bands!

My other lists:
Top 25 EPs (ordered & rated)
Top 200 Overlooked Albums (with genres)
Top 200 Overrated Albums (trigger warning)
So I Heard You Like Wintersun... (Time II find new bands)

Genre-Specific:
Top 50 Black Metal Albums
Top 50 Melodic Death Metal Albums
Top 45 Thrash Metal Albums
Top 40 Power Metal Albums
Top 30 Doom Metal Albums
Top 30 Heavy Metal Albums

1.Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral

2.Opeth - Blackwater Park

3.Metallica - Master Of Puppets

4.Edge Of Sanity - Crimson

5.Opeth - Still Life

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Just a list of my favorite albums, mostly Black or Death Metal !

There are some albums/bands I would love to put in this list, but they are not on MS.

1.1349 - Liberation

2.Agalloch - The Mantle

3.Amon Amarth - Versus The World

4.Amon Amarth - Twilight Of The Thunder God

5.Amon Amarth - Surtur Rising

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1.Agalloch - Pale Folklore

2.Agalloch - The Mantle

3.Agalloch - Ashes Against The Grain

4.Ahab - The Call Of The Wretched Sea

5.Ahab - The Boats Of The Glen Carrig

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"I'll listen to this after I come back home"
I'm so sick of doing this.There are many,many albums that I KNOW will enjoy if I finally make time to listen too. This is more of a personal list,so I can keep track of what I need to hear.

1.Leaves' Eyes - Njord

2.Exodus - Pleasures Of The Flesh

3.Darkthrone - Circle The Wagons

4.Kreator - Coma Of Souls

5.Kreator - Violent Revolution

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My top list by far......
last update : 23/01/2019

1.Be'lakor - Of Breath And Bone

2.Gojira - From Mars To Sirius

3.Amon Amarth - Twilight Of The Thunder God

4.Amorphis - Silent Waters

5.Death - Symbolic

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Maximum three Albums per Year, starting in 1991

1.Bathory - Twilight Of The Gods

2.Master's Hammer - Ritual

3.Samael - Worship Him

4.Darkthrone - A Blaze In The Northern Sky

5.Immortal - Diabolical Fullmoon Mysticism

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