My top prog albums. The list will be regularly updated.

1.Opeth - Ghost Reveries

2.Opeth - Blackwater Park

3.Dream Theater - Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From A Memory

4.An Abstract Illusion - Woe

5.Gojira - Magma

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This is my top albums (only with those where I gave 8 or more). I will update the list now and then

1.Slipknot - Iowa

2.Megadeth - Rust In Peace

3.Opeth - Ghost Reveries

4.Moonsorrow - Kivenkantaja

5.Slipknot - Slipknot

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1.Shylmagoghnar - Emergence

2.Galneryus - Angel Of Salvation

3.Blindead - Affliction XXIX II MXMVI

4.Batushka - Litourgiya

5.Leprous - Bilateral

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Some of the best metal albums ever released have been by bands that only had one full length release.
List is (and probably always will be) a constant work-in-progress.
If you know of a "one-and-done" metal band/album that isn't on my list, feel free to recommend

1.Weakling - Dead As Dreams

2.Caladan Brood - Echoes Of Battle

3.Lykathea Aflame - Elvenefris

4.Timeghoul - 1992-1994 Discography

5.Thorns - Thorns

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This list is meant to be an extensive, but by no means exhaustive, collection of the greatest (modern) metal albums and eps. Running the gamut from avant-garde to trve norweigan black metal. *As someone who is young in age, my tastes tend to revolve around the period of the 80s to the present.* Although certain metal albums from before will certainly be featured, the period of the 60s-70s will be under-represented. I refer you to this excellent list to gain a better appreciation for some of the best metal from that period: https://rateyourmusic.com/list/freis/martin_popoffs_the_top_500_heavy_metal_albums_of_all_time/

1.Jacobs Dream - Jacobs Dream

2.Jambinai - Onda

3.James LaBrie - Static Impulse

4.Jason Becker - Perpetual Burn

5.Jassa - Lights in the Howling Wilderness

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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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Back when I joined the site in 2011, I did a customary top 100 album list. Every year since then, when I've looked back at it it's become increasingly unrecognisable from my own tastes. Seeing bands I once listened to daily vanish from my playlists, new bands emerge as favourites, and bands even come and go in my reckonings during that time period (Iced Earth, Alcest, even Pain Of Salvation and more certainly peaked in my listening habits around 2011-12 to slowly vanish into obscurity). Now that it's just gone 5 years since I did that list, I thought I might do an updated list just to see how much my tastes have shifted. Whilst compiling the list, I pretty much worked on gut instinct, which was weird as I found myself almost disregarding albums I know I like whilst promoting albums I'm honestly undecided on - it almost seemed to veer away from album quality at times to embracing a subconscious effect the albums have had. Anyway, here it is, plus some honorable mentions that I was surprised missed out.

1.Dream Theater - Images And Words

2.Sylosis - Monolith

3.Sylosis - Edge Of The Earth

4.Agalloch - The Mantle

5.Protest The Hero - Kezia

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From A to Z.

1.Agalloch - Faustian Echoes

2.Alkerdeel - Dyodyo Asema [Collaboration]

3.Bongripper - The Great Barrier Reefer

4.Boris - Flood

5.Boris - Boris At Last - Feedbacker

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A list of bands who have released just one album. Feel free to recommend!

Edit: If the band released their debut album between 2014-present and they haven't split, they are not viable.

1.ABACABB - Survivalist

2.Abstrakt Algebra - Abstrakt Algebra

3.Abydos - The Little Boy's Heavy Mental Shadow Opera About The Inhabitants Of His Diary

4.Abyssmal Sorrow - Lament

5.Age Of Silence - Acceleration

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1.Dredg - El Cielo

2.In Flames - The Jester Race

3.AFI - Black Sails in the Sunset

4.Agalloch - Ashes Against The Grain

5.Deafheaven - Sunbather

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Alphabetically sorted list of concept albums I know and love them so much to feature them here. Just one album per band in case they have more.

1.Agalloch - Faustian Echoes

2.Aina - The Metal Opera - Days Of Rising Doom

3.Avantasia - The Metal Opera Part I

4.Ayreon - The Human Equation

5.Crystallion - Hundred Days

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A lot of bands have great debut albums. Obviously this list is just a fraction of all the great debut albums out there, but it's a start. I'll keep expanding this list continuously, so all suggestions are welcome (granted they are featured on MS). All the albums here are ranked according to genre and then alphabetically. If a certain album belongs to the (in your opinion) wrong genre, then definitely let me know.

1.

2.Aarni - Bathos

3.Arcturus - Aspera Hiems Symfonia

4.Diablo Swing Orchestra - The Butcher's Ballroom

5.Sadness - Ames De Marbre

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A mix of progressive, doom and the darker side of metal.

1.Ihsahn - Eremita

2.Jeff Loomis - Plains Of Oblivion

3.Virgin Black - Sombre Romantic

4.Virgin Black - Elegant...And Dying

5.Akercocke - Words That Go Unspoken, Deeds That Go Undone

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1.Opeth - Blackwater Park

2.Agalloch - Ashes Against The Grain

3.Green Carnation - Light Of Day, Day Of Darkness

4.Moonsorrow - Kivenkantaja

5.Porcupine Tree - Fear Of A Blank Planet

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Only a "20 best" list for this quite good year - or well, 'quite good year' for prog at least.

The first four are arranged in preference order, then th sixteen order are in alphabetical order.

Beware: this is a consolidated - but not definitive - version, it might see some changes in the newt few months.

1.Riverside - Anno Domini High Definition

2.Kalisia - Cybion

3.Ghost Brigade - Isolation Songs

4.Sólstafir - Köld

5.Amesoeurs - Amesoeurs

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