Hey Folks! It’s me… Again!

I’m coming back once more to explore the depths of a genre that arguably did not begin where you all thought it did! Yeah yeah… Alright, maybe Left Hand Path, Necroticism: Descanting The Insalubrious, Like An Ever Flowing Stream & The Red In The Sky Is Ours aren’t exactly the sound you would expect, but they were certainly a sign of something incredible that was about to happen. The birth of Melodic Death Metal!

Most of you, them, us… Would agree that Melodic Death metal really appeared in the form of Carcass’s 1993 album Heartwork. Even though some shades of what would become staples of the genre were heard before, this one would truly be the first album to be called as such. Mixing OSDM with more classic heavy metal styled riffs & melodies, our beloved genre (along with Thrash) would become for a lot of our teenage selves, a gateway into the more extreme bowels of metal’s subgenres. I would argue that it’s an almost obligatory step in the grand metalhead’s journey. Ah, how amazing it was to first taste the somewhat delicate sound of melodeath before rattling our ears with the obscenities & nonsensical wankery of grindcore, brutal tech-death, dissonant death and post metal… Rrrrright.

As you have become accustomed to by now, I will attempt to honour the genre by listing the absolute best Melodic Death metal albums to be ever released throughout the years. And I will do so starting with a few albums that are arguably not Melodic Death metal… Because I can and I did, hah! F*ck you! Along the way, you might stumble upon some strange & unorthodox choices mixing a plethora of other genres as well and that’s ok. Truly. Take it easy, don’t hyperventilate over it and just go with the flow. The main goal here is to help people who don’t know much about melodeath discover it and where it came from. I also want to push forward some less known jewels amongst highly praised landmarks of the style and sprinkle a bit of my personality along the way because that’s always fun. The albums will be ordered in years of release and there will be no other restriction or specific rules.

I hope you have a blast going through my list and that it brings you joy and a slight tingle on your nostalgia strings. Though, if it pisses you off, if I forgot your absolute favourite album of all goddamn time or if you think I’m an idiot, well… Just remember that I’m right, always and forever, thank you. Regardless It will be a pleasure for me to hear your recommendations or discuss anything related to melodeath below. Cheers & have fun!

-Guib-

Note: Albums with a 🇨🇦 are from my country (Canada) and albums with a ★ are my personal favourites.

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Last Updated: April 19th, 2024

1.Entombed - Left Hand Path

2.Carcass - Necroticism: Descanting The Insalubrious

3.Dismember - Like An Ever Flowing Stream

4.At The Gates - The Red In The Sky Is Ours

5.Carcass - Heartwork

      View entire list ››

My Top 50, albums rated 8 & above. Only LPs

RIP: Ronnie James Dio

Album count: 206
Average rating: 6.84

1.Alcest - Écailles De Lune

2.Enslaved - Axioma Ethica Odini

3.Ihsahn - After

4.Killing Joke - Absolute Dissent

5.Mar De Grises - Streams Inwards

      View entire list ››

1.Enslaved - Axioma Ethica Odini

2.Ihsahn - After

3.Agalloch - Marrow Of The Spirit

4.Alcest - Écailles De Lune

5.Pain Of Salvation - Road Salt One

      View entire list ››

1.Devin Townsend - Ziltoid The Omniscient

2.In Mourning - Shrouded Divine

3.Circus Maximus - The 1st Chapter

4.Threshold - Dead Reckoning

5.Seventh Wonder - Mercy Falls

      View entire list ››

One band, one album in alphabetical order. No EPs, demos, etc.
Favourite album: Mgła - With Hearts Toward None
Favourite song: Schammasch - "Above The Stars Of God"

1.1914 - The Blind Leading The Blind

2.Abbath - Abbath

3.Accept - Blood Of The Nations

4.Aenaon - Hypnosophy

5.Agalloch - Marrow Of The Spirit

      View entire list ››

2000-2004 list: http://www.metalstorm.net/users/list.php?list_id=5844
2005-2009 list: http://www.metalstorm.net/users/list.php?list_id=5838
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 2010 to 2014, with at least 1 vote, were included.
The average expected rating (C) was determined by averaging all the Metal Storm ratings from 2010-2014.
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 +2.

C for 2010-2014 = 7.478
m = 20

Number of albums from each year in the list:
2010 - 24
2011 - 28
2012 - 16
2013 - 22
2014 - 12

Ratings are accurate as of 30/10/2023

1.Gallowbraid - Ashen Eidolon

2.Enslaved - Axioma Ethica Odini

3.Aquilus - Griseus

4.Ne Obliviscaris - Portal Of I

5.Be'lakor - Of Breath And Bone

      View entire list ››

1.Avenged Sevenfold - Nightmare

2.Overkill - Ironbound

3.Death Angel - Relentless Retribution

4.Drowning Pool - Drowning Pool

5.Helloween - 7 Sinners

      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 ››

This serves as a memory note, pretty much.

1.Insomnium - Above The Weeping World

2.Amorphis - Under The Red Cloud

3.Ghost Brigade - IV - One With The Storm

4.Be'lakor - Of Breath And Bone

5.Metallica - Ride The Lightning

      View entire list ››

1.Anthriel - The Pathway

2.Oddland - The Treachery Of Senses

3.Amendfoil - Skyline Escape

4.Amorphis - Elegy

5.Pressure Points - False Lights

      View entire list ››

My other lists:
Tasty Stuff Not Currently Featured On MS
Most Talented Vocalists In Metal

"Which bands sound like Opeth?" It seems that perennial question has plagued fans and non-fans of the band alike since their inception. I have created this list in an effort to guide those hapless souls to the answer. Feast your eyes the exhaustive list of bands who take the word influence too literally (barring the obvious) for the better or...for you to decide. Enjoy and don't hesitate to recommend any bands fitting this description.

Links to all bands not currently featured on Metal Storm are provided below:
Adeia
Orion (IN)

1.Adeia - Serenity

2.Alley - Amphibious

3.Altesia - Paragon Circus

4.Aquilus - Griseus

5.Barren Earth - Curse Of The Red River

      View entire list ››

2008 might've been my first proper taste of metal, with the acquisition of albums from the likes of Metallica, Megadeth, Black Sabbath and that most grandiose of gateway bands, DragonForce. 2009 might've seen me expanding my palette, with Iron Maiden, Alice In Chains, Avenged Sevenfold, and more entering my world, and Guns N' Roses triumphantly re-entering it. But 2010 was when I delved into more 'intense' stuff with Machine Head, In Flames, and most notably of all, Sylosis, and saw my relationship with metal shift from ever-increasing interest into full-blown love affair. To commemorate this 5-year anniversary, and because I love making lists, I decided to do a retrospective of the best albums and songs that have been released during this time period, and give brief tributes to them. Yay music!

1.Sylosis - Edge Of The Earth

2.Sylosis - Monolith

3.Protest The Hero - Volition

4.Orphaned Land - The Never Ending Way Of ORwarriOR

5.Be'lakor - Of Breath And Bone

      View entire list ››

1.Ihsahn - After

2.The Ocean - Anthropocentric

3.Ghost - Opus Eponymous

4.In Mourning - Monolith

5.Blindead - Affliction XXIX II MXMVI

      View entire list ››

in no particular order

1.At The Gates - At War With Reality

2.Eluveitie - Origins

3.Opeth - Pale Communion

4.Alestorm - Sunset On The Golden Age

5.Equilibrium - Erdentempel

      View entire list ››

My top 100 Albums, sorted in descending order of favorites. Pretty rough list, I may update if I become un-lazy sometime. One album per band only. Some explanation and description provided for those who aspire to waste as much time on this site as I do.

1.Lykathea Aflame - Elvenefris

2.Moonsorrow - Kivenkantaja

3.Nevermore - This Godless Endeavor

4.Opeth - Still Life

5.!T.O.O.H.! - Order And Punishment (Řád A Trest)

      View entire list ››