Doom Metal is one of those genres that I'd never really taken much notice of until I started working my way through the MS top 200 albums. I'd listened to Black Sabbath when a teacher at my school gave me his copy of Paranoid to borrow around 2007/08, which I highly enjoyed! Since then, Over the last few years, I've discovered so many great doom metal bands such as Slumber, Doom:VS, October Tide and Swallow the Sun.

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 doom 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.Black Sabbath - Paranoid

2.Black Sabbath - Master Of Reality

3.Slumber - Fallout

4.Doom:VS - Dead Words Speak

5.October Tide - Rain Without End

      View entire list ››

My favorite metal albums sorted alphabetically by band name and chronological by release date.

1.Æther Realm - Tarot

2.Acid Witch - Witchtanic Hellucinations

3.Allegaeon - Proponent For Sentience

4.Amorphis - Tales From The Thousand Lakes

5.Amorphis - Silent Waters

      View entire list ››

To add fuel to the fire of the "they'll never top their first album" rhetoric, here are all my favorite full length debuts in alphabetical order. Full lengths, not EPs.

1.Acid Witch - Witchtanic Hellucinations

2.Aeternus - Beyond The Wandering Moon

3.Agruss - Morok

4.Ahab - The Call Of The Wretched Sea

5.Alcest - Souvenirs D'un Autre Monde

      View entire list ››

1.Moonsorrow - Kivenkantaja

2.Edge Of Sanity - Crimson II

3.The Mars Volta - De-Loused In The Comatorium

4.Windir - Likferd

5.Opeth - Damnation

      View entire list ››

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

      View entire list ››

1.Draconian - Arcane Rain Fell

2.Swallow The Sun - The Morning Never Came

3.Solitude Aeturnus - Alone

4.Helevorn - Forthcoming Displeasures

5.Candlemass - Candlemass

      View entire list ››

Yes, I decided to do another gothic metal list because it been rapidly changing since my last two lists. I love revisiting this kind of list because of how different my tastes have changed withing this genre of music I'm passionate about.

1.Anathema - Eternity

2.Draconian - Arcane Rain Fell

3.The Foreshadowing - Days Of Nothing

4.Monumentum - In Absentia Christi

5.Tiamat - Wildhoney

      View entire list ››

These are MY Top 250 Albums that are featured on Metal Storm in chronological order to celebrate 50 Years of Metal.

Some bands are featured on this list with more than one album, which means that they are perticulary amazing to me.

I listen to a wide spectrum of metal genres, which is why I tried to keep it diverse and not focus on one genre.

1.Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath

2.Deep Purple - In Rock

3.Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin IV

4.Uriah Heep - Demons And Wizards

5.Alice Cooper - Billion Dollar Babies

      View entire list ››

2005-2009 list: http://www.metalstorm.net/users/list.php?list_id=5838
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 2000 to 2004, with at least 1 vote, were included.
The average expected rating (C) was determined by averaging all the Metal Storm ratings from 2000-2004.
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 +5.

C for 2000-2004 = 7.599
m = 30

Number of albums from each year in the list:
2000 - 15
2001 - 27
2002 - 14
2003 - 20
2004 - 29

Ratings are accurate as of 30/10/2023

1.Opeth - Blackwater Park

2.Agalloch - The Mantle

3.Tool - Lateralus

4.Wintersun - Wintersun

5.Ensiferum - Ensiferum

      View entire list ››

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

      View entire list ››

Stuff that got me hooked in the course of the years, from my very first blurred memories as a toddler to the present day.
Lots of catchy tunes, some cheese, very few flowers.
Songs that had a big impact on me and influenced my taste in music.
Stuff to let it all hang out, songs for campfire sing-alongs and soundtracks to slit your wrists to.
Love at first sight listen.

This is part II of II, covering the years since 2001.

Despite of the list's personal character, suggestions are very welcome.
After all I'm old and I may just have forgotten lots of stuff that did make my day.



Great albums that didn't make it on the list as they can only be enjoyed in their entirety, rather than by picking individual songs:

Thirdmoon - Sworn Enemy: Heaven (Death, 2004)
Defleshed - Reclaim The Beat (Death/Thrash, 2005)
Tyranny - Tides Of Awakening (Funeral Doom, 2005)
Mourning Beloveth - A Murderous Circus (Doom/Death, 2005)
Rotting Christ - Kata Ton Daimona Eaytoy (Black, 2013)

1.Alastis - Unity

2.Diablerie - Seraphyde

3.Dimmu Borgir - Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia

4.Emperor - Prometheus: The Discipline Of Fire & Demise

5.Hollenthon - With Vilest Of Worms To Dwell

      View entire list ››

If you are into doom, then you are already rotten. It's like drugs-it destroys you yet you want more. You reek of hatred and death. Your life is fucked up and there is no escape for you.
Here are some albums to help you along the dive into the abyss.

1.Colosseum - Chapter 1: Delirium

2.Shape Of Despair - Monotony Fields

3.Comatose Vigil - Fuimus, Non Sumus...

4.Swallow The Sun - Songs From The North I, II & III

5.Shape Of Despair - Written In My Scars

      View entire list ››

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

      View entire list ››

1.Afgrund - Vid Helvetets Grindar

2.After Forever - After Forever

3.Agalloch - The Mantle

4.Agalloch - Ashes Against The Grain

5.Alcest - Souvenirs D'un Autre Monde

      View entire list ››

"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

      View entire list ››