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Albums By Vocal Groups Where The Title Track Is An Instrumental

Instrumental tracks on albums of vocal groups are often seen as filler material or as a possibility to show musical skills.
In contrast, the title track is often considered to be the central and defining part of an album, suggesting that the corresponding lyrics may contain important key information to the understanding of the album. Therefore, it may seem surprising that several albums of vocal groups exhibit an instrumental as title track.

This alphabetical list presents albums by vocal groups where the title track is an instrumental. This concerns purely instrumental songs but may also include songs where melody lines without lyrics are vocalised.

Please feel free to suggest more examples of unusual title tracks by regular vocal groups that are purely instrumental or where the lead singer does not sing lyrics.



1.Absu - Tara
2.Afflicted - Prodigal Sun
3.Afterbirth - Four Dimensional Flesh
4.Amorphis - Tales From The Thousand Lakes
5.Angel Dust - Into The Dark Past

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Created by Plattner on 08.02.2024



M0rkeleb's Overall Favorites - 7s

I feel like my overall favorites list is getting too long. I'm splitting it up by rating.

1.Amon Amarth - Jomsviking
2.Qrixkuor - Poison Palinopsia
3.Skepticism - Ordeal
4.Funeral Mist - Devilry
5.Zeal & Ardor - Zeal And Ardor

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Created by M0rkeleb on 31.12.2023



Top 50 Of 2015-2020

1.Avantasia - Ghostlights
2.Iced Earth - Incorruptible
3.Kamelot - The Shadow Theory
4.Soilwork - The Ride Majestic
5.Jorn Lande & Trond Holter - Dracula: Swing Of Death

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Created by Alex Avagianos on 21.07.2022



Thumbs up: +1
Fates Warning Best To Worst

1.Fates Warning - Parallels
2.Fates Warning - A Pleasant Shade Of Gray
3.Fates Warning - Disconnected
4.Fates Warning - Perfect Symmetry
5.Fates Warning - FWX

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Created by Alex Avagianos on 15.12.2021



Top 20 Of 2016

1.Avantasia - Ghostlights
2.Myrath - Legacy
3.Volbeat - Seal The Deal & Let's Boogie
4.Dynazty - Titanic Mass
5.Dark Tranquillity - Atoma

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Created by Alex Avagianos on 02.08.2021



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Top 25 Progressive Metal Albums Of The 10's

1.Leprous - Bilateral
2.Ne Obliviscaris - Portal Of I
3.Persefone - Spiritual Migration
4.Threshold - March Of Progress
5.Witherscape - The Northern Sanctuary

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Created by Mrtvozornik on 17.07.2021



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Top 100 (+2) Of 2015-2019

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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Created by Crys1s on 24.06.2021



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Fates Warning Albums Ranked

All Fates Warning albums ranked from best to worst, also include the three releases done by Arch and Matheos (basically Fates Warning). Phenomenal band that has held the prog metal flag high and released some of the best records in the genre.

1.Fates Warning - Awaken The Guardian
2.Arch/Matheos - Winter Ethereal
3.Fates Warning - Disconnected
4.Fates Warning - Perfect Symmetry
5.Arch/Matheos - Sympathetic Resonance

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Created by majormalfunction on 12.12.2020



Thumbs up: +6
Old Nick's Top-101 Of The '10s

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

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Created by nikarg on 09.01.2020



Fruits Of 2016

1.Textures - Phenotype
2.Twelve Foot Ninja - Outlier
3.Ihsahn - Arktis.
4.Panic! at the Disco - Death of a Bachelor
5.Madder Mortem - Red In Tooth And Claw

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Created by embracing on 10.11.2019



Thumbs up: +6
Empowering Albums For Powerless Losers

This is a list of all the power metal albums I have listened to that are worth remembering. Like my other genre lists, this is not meant to be a definitive guide to power metal or a binding judgment on what power metal is or is not. The list exists purely for my own organizational purposes and may contain bands or albums that are not strictly True Knights of the Eternal Thundersword.

The first cluster includes my favorite albums in the genre (and a significant number of my all-time favorites); beyond that, they are listed by rating from 9/10 down to 6/10 and alphabetically within each bracket.

Last updated November 27, 2021.

1.Blind Guardian - Nightfall In Middle-Earth
2.Blind Guardian - Imaginations From The Other Side
3.Blind Guardian - Somewhere Far Beyond
4.Jag Panzer - Thane To The Throne
5.X Japan - Art Of Life

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Created by ScreamingSteelUS on 19.09.2019



Thumbs up: +1
The Illusions Of Paradox: Top 10 Metal Albums Of 2016

The choice was though, not only because there were some very good albums out there, but also because as you get older, life fucks you up, and you never have enough time to listen to all the albums you want, for as much as you want. Or as much as they deserve. I must add that the list could be different if I made it on any other day, depending on the mood. I would like to note some honorable mentions too, such as Witherscape - The Northern Sanctuary, Rotting Christ - Rituals, Avantasia - Ghostlights, Skuggsja - A Piece For Mind and Mirror, Ihsahn - Arktis, Moonsorrow, Jumalten Aika, Be'lakor - Vessels, Thy Catafalque Meta, and most of all Katatonia - The Fall of Hearts and Fates Warning - Theories of Flight.

1.Borknagar - Winter Thrice
2.Dark Tranquillity - Atoma
3.Insomnium - Winter's Gate
4.Trees Of Eternity - Hour Of The Nightingale
5.Delain - Moonbathers

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Created by RhaegarTargaryen on 20.02.2017



Best Albums Of 2016

1.Cult Of Luna - Mariner [Collaboration]
2.Oranssi Pazuzu - Värähtelijä
3.Mistur - In Memoriam
4.Thy Catafalque - Meta
5.In The Woods... - Pure

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Created by Klauwier on 19.12.2016



Wanted 2016

Most wanted albums to get right here and now. Ranked from Most to More liked +++.

1.Thy Catafalque - Meta
2.Cult Of Luna - Mariner [Collaboration]
3.Moonsorrow - Jumalten Aika
4.Oranssi Pazuzu - Värähtelijä
5.Crippled Black Phoenix - Bronze

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Created by Aker on 01.11.2016



BEST ALBUMS RELEASED IN JULY 2016

1.Fates Warning - Theories Of Flight
2.
3.
4.Oracles - Miserycorde
5.

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Created by rivendel on 01.09.2016