Thrash may not be my favorite metal subgenre but it's one of them. There have always been thrash albums I always get back to with great pleasure and I am usually happy when thrash veterans get back with great music.
I say not a thrasher because I am stuck in the past, as it's easily to be seen in the list, new bands have not impressed me much, especially when they predictably wear their influences on their sleeves.

1.Kreator - Terrible Certainty

2.Metallica - Master Of Puppets

3.Slayer - South Of Heaven

4.Annihilator - Never, Neverland

5.Death Angel - Act III

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Erm... sorry Dave... >.>

1.Slayer - Reign In Blood

2.Metallica - Ride The Lightning

3.Kreator - Pleasure To Kill

4.Power Trip - Nightmare Logic

5.Sodom - M-16

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Updated 14.4.2024

My rather personal and improvised take on the subject matter. The list is pretty wage, I'll be updating it a lot and the order might vary a little depending on some things, but they're all great and awesome records no matter what. If there are some great records missing, that doesn't necessarily mean I consider them bad, maybe I just forgot about them or just haven't listened to them enough to consider them personal favourites.

Limited to metal and rock albums found on Metal Storm. Most of them (at least 90%) are anyway, so doesn't matter. The absent ones are mostly more pop and synth oriented stuff and some really obscure jazz and fusion albums.

1.Marillion - Marbles

2.Anathema - Weather Systems

3.Iron Maiden - Somewhere In Time

4.Moonsorrow - Voimasta Ja Kunniasta

5.Moonsorrow - Kivenkantaja

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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

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Comebacks are greeted with excitement and trepidation. Albums released after a band break-up can either send bands into the heavenly stratosphere or the basements of hell. I'm compiling the former. To qualify for the list a band has to have officially broken up, regrouped and released an album of new original material. Releases after a period of studio inactivity or a string of weaker albums don't count so no Death Magnetic, Worship Music, Formation of Damnation, Brave New World or Angel of Retribution. My list, my rules okay?

1.Faith No More - Sol Invictus

2.Septicflesh - Communion

3.Celtic Frost - Monotheist

4.Heaven And Hell - The Devil You Know

5.At The Gates - At War With Reality

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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

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1.Agent Steel - Unstoppable Force

2.Annihilator - Alice In Hell

3.Anthrax - Among The Living

4.Artillery - By Inheritance

5.Baphomet - The Dead Shall Inherit

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Just a list of classic thrash albums I really enjoy, since thrash has had such a good year this year. They are in no particular order.

1.Annihilator - Alice In Hell

2.Anthrax - Among The Living

3.Anthrax - Spreading The Disease

4.Artillery - By Inheritance

5.Assassin - The Upcoming Terror

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My personal rankings of the Exodus studio albums.

1.Exodus - Bonded By Blood

2.Exodus - Fabulous Disaster

3.Exodus - Blood In, Blood Out

4.Exodus - Tempo Of The Damned

5.Exodus - The Atrocity Exhibition: Exhibit A

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Like my other genre-based lists, this exists purely for my own organizational purposes and not to provide a definitive statement about or guidebook to the thrash genre. I've folded some speed metal and other occasional outliers into this list, maybe a few not-so-thrash albums by otherwise-thrash bands, since they're close enough and I wasn't going to make a separate list.

1.Slayer - Reign In Blood

2.Gama Bomb - Citizen Brain

3.Cross Examination - Menace II Sobriety

4.Slayer - Seasons In The Abyss

5.Metallica - Ride The Lightning

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1.Death - Symbolic

2.Slayer - Reign In Blood

3.Pantera - Vulgar Display Of Power

4.Carcass - Heartwork

5.Overkill - The Years Of Decay

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Mightiest = albums I can listen to almost anytime/anywhere - no matter how many times they never wear out - and always give me pleasure, power, euphoria, goosebumps, inspiration and many other nasty things.
One album per year obviously, with some years missing in case i have not yet found an album mighty enough from that year.
Recommendations appreciated.

1.Amorphis - Under The Red Cloud

2.Anaal Nathrakh - Desideratum

3.Battle Beast - Battle Beast

4.Be'lakor - Of Breath And Bone

5.Skeletonwitch - Forever Abomination

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Wanna know what I headbang to on the regular? The releases that have seen countless re-spins... Well, this is a very simple list and something you've probably seen a lot of other MS users do in the past. Basically, I'm just going to list what are essential metal albums for me, my all time gems & masterpieces (very subjective and some are also in there due to nostalgia and sentimental value).

There's no particular ''Genre'' that I'll be covering and I will also try to limit myself to two albums per band and a few of my favorite tracks or highlights per album. Of course everything in this list is just my opinion, meaning that I'm not saying these albums are all masterpieces or whatnot, it's just my personal favorites. I hope most of you will agree with me and those few who don't, well... it's okay to be wrong, the next step is acceptance

🇨🇦 = From Canada, My Country!

Last Updated: April 15th, 2024

1.Absu - The Third Storm Of Cythrául

2.AC/DC - High Voltage

3.Alestorm - Black Sails At Midnight

4.Alien Weaponry - Tū

5.Amon Amarth - Fate Of Norns

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My most listened to and favourite albums in my collection.

1.AC/DC - High Voltage

2.AC/DC - Highway To Hell

3.AC/DC - Let There Be Rock

4.Amon Amarth - Fate Of Norns

5.Amon Amarth - Once Sent From The Golden Hall

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This is the 40 best metal albums for me.

1.Iron Maiden - The Number Of The Beast

2.Dream Theater - Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence

3.Dream Theater - Images And Words

4.Iron Maiden - Powerslave

5.Riot - Narita

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