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

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1.Kauan - Sorni Nai

2.Wilderun - Sleep At The Edge Of The Earth

3.Steven Wilson - Hand. Cannot. Erase.

4.Amorphis - Under The Red Cloud

5.Dødheimsgard - A Umbra Omega

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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
2010-2014 list: http://www.metalstorm.net/users/list.php?list_id=5828

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 grows 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 2015 to 2019, with at least 1 vote, were included.
The average expected rating (C) was determined by averaging all the Metal Storm ratings from 2015-2019.
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 2015-2019 = 7.422
m = 20

Number of albums from each year in the list:
2015 - 31
2016 - 24
2017 - 18
2018 - 12
2019 - 17

Ratings are accurate as of 30/10/2023

1.Mgła - Exercises In Futility

2.Insomnium - Winter's Gate

3.Amorphis - Under The Red Cloud

4.Vektor - Terminal Redux

5.Trees Of Eternity - Hour Of The Nightingale

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1.Leprous - The Congregation

2.TesseracT - Polaris

3.Heart Of A Coward - Deliverance

4.Arcane - Known / Learned

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

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overall it was a great yer , i heard so many good albums this year so here i put the list of my favorites

1.Chelsea Wolfe - Abyss

2.Dave Gahan & Soulsavers - Angels And Ghosts

3.Puscifer - Money Shot

4.Steven Wilson - Hand. Cannot. Erase.

5.Paul Minesweeper - Northreach

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My personal favorite studio albums of 2015

1.Kauan - Sorni Nai

2.Amorphis - Under The Red Cloud

3.Act Of Defiance - Birth And The Burial

4.Ghost - Meliora

5.Draconian - Sovran

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My favourite albums of 2015. (In order of preference, and only including albums I would rate 7+).

1.Periphery - Juggernaut: Alpha & Omega

2.Deafheaven - New Bermuda

3.Fear Factory - Genexus

4.So Hideous - Laurestine

5.I, Valiance - The Reject of Humanity

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1.Steven Wilson - Hand. Cannot. Erase.

2.Senegal Grindcore Mafia - Hay Daño En Casa

3.Leviathan - Scar Sighted

4.Ahab - The Boats Of The Glen Carrig

5.A Forest Of Stars - Beware The Sword You Cannot See

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I haven't listened to a lot of new music this year, but here are some of the highpoints for me. This year, my selections will be posted in no particular order aside from "The Best" and "The Rest". By "The Rest", I'm certainly not insinuating that these selections are bad- in fact, they are very good albums, in my opinion! I have decided not to include awful albums on this list. This list won't be as exhaustive as previous lists I've made. I'm very open for recommendations, so please send me some if you see anything that might appeal to me!

1.

2.Voices From The Fuselage - Odyssey: The Destroyer of Worlds

3.Earthside - A Dream In Static

4.Marriages - Salome

5.Third Ion - 13/8 Bit

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I will update soon.

1.Steven Wilson - Hand. Cannot. Erase.

2.Subterranean Masquerade - The Great Bazaar

3.Deafheaven - New Bermuda

4.Leprous - The Congregation

5.Native Construct - Quiet World

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1.Waken Eyes - Exodus

2.Riverside - Love, Fear And The Time Machine

3.Antimatter - The Judas Table

4.Subsignal - The Beacons Of Somewhere Sometime

5.Threshold - European Journey (Live)

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Been a bit slow checking releases around the halfway point of the year, but should get back into it soon and hopefully flesh out this list.

1.Amorphis - Under The Red Cloud

2.Horrendous - Anareta

3.Slugdge - Dim & Slimeridden Kingdoms

4.Teramaze - Her Halo

5.Regarde Les Hommes Tomber - Exile

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1.Leprous - The Congregation

2.Enslaved - In Times

3.Steven Wilson - Hand. Cannot. Erase.

4.Chelsea Wolfe - Abyss

5.Mgła - Exercises In Futility

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1.Amorphis - Under The Red Cloud

2.Avatarium - The Girl With The Raven Mask

3.Ghost - Meliora

4.Nightwish - Endless Forms Most Beautiful

5.Jess And The Ancient Ones - Second Psychedelic Coming: The Aquarius Tapes

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Every album to catch my ear during 2015, rated, with plenty of non-metal for those of you who like to branch out and see what the whole world of music has to offer. Variety'll always be a virtue.

Numerous focused listens needed before rating.
Updates will (hopefully) be constant.

New Update: In order to promote exploration into albums you may not know, I've decided to include "Standout Track" segments for any album which has a track I feel you all MUST listen to. Hopefully these can help hook people with albums they're not familiar with, because chances are they instantaneously hooked me.

1.Death Grips - The Powers That B

2.Leprous - The Congregation

3.Clarence Clarity - No Now

4.Björk - Vulnicura

5.Envy - Atheist's Cornea

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