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Thumbs up: +7
I Too Listened To Some Metal In The 2010's

1.Esoteric - Paragon Of Dissonance
2.Aluk Todolo - Voix
3.Emptiness - Nothing But The Whole
4.Elysian Blaze - Blood Geometry
5.Darkspace - Dark Space III I

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Created by Zap on 05.01.2020



Thumbs up: +20
You Know It's Technically 2011-2020, Right?

To explain the title, there is no year 0, regardless of what Ghost may tell you. Thus, the first decade was years 1-10, instead of 0-9. So then it would be 11-20, and so on. But I know that would imply that Paranoid is a 60s album, which we cannot have.

So now that all the cool kids are doing it, here is my top 100 albums of the "decade", most of it might be a bit too mainsteam, most of it you'll find on others' lists, and so on. Restricted to one album per artist/band (including collabs), ordered alphabetically.

1.Abyssal - Antikatastaseis
2.Agalloch - The Serpent & The Sphere
3.Akhlys - The Dreaming I
4.Alcest - Écailles De Lune
5.Altar Of Plagues - Teethed Glory & Injury

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Created by RaduP on 31.12.2019



Thumbs up: +13
150 Albums To Become An Adult To: 2010-2019

I began this decade in my final year of high school, in the early phases of my metal journey (Mastodon, Machine Head, Dream Theater, Pantera and Avenged Sevenfold were still recent discoveries). One Masters degree and one PhD later, I'm now a tax-paying Londonian, and have ploughed through what must be comfortably over 2000 new releases during the previous ten years. To commemorate the end of a turbulent decade, I've put together a list of the albums that have stuck with me throughout this decade - I wouldn't consider this to be a 'best albums' list, as there have been some truly ingenious works released in more avant-garde territories, but ultimately these are the albums that have ended up dominating my listening habits, or otherwise making a sufficient impression to make this list.

1.Sylosis - Monolith
2.Sylosis - Edge Of The Earth
3.Amorphis - Under The Red Cloud
4.Be'lakor - Of Breath And Bone
5.Cult Of Luna - Vertikal

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Created by musclassia on 27.12.2019



Thumbs up: +13
2010-2019 Top 100

Top 100 albums of 2010-2019

1.40 Watt Sun - Wider Than The Sky
2.Bell Witch - Mirror Reaper
3.Esoteric - A Pyrrhic Existence
4.Elysian Blaze - Blood Geometry
5.Emptiness - Nothing But The Whole

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Created by Maco on 27.12.2019



My Top 10 Albums of 2012

1.Lunatic Gods - Vlnobytie
2.Enslaved - RIITIIR
3.Borknagar - Urd
4.In Mourning - The Weight Of Oceans
5.Gojira - L'Enfant Sauvage

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Created by Angaroth on 06.12.2019



Thumbs up: +1
Top 100 (+2) Of 2010-2014

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

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Created by Crys1s on 11.09.2019



Thumbs up: +21
Top 500 Albums of All Time

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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Created by nonZero on 06.10.2018



Thumbs up: +1
Top 50 Bands And Favourite Album

1.Agalloch - Ashes Against The Grain
2.Alcest - Écailles De Lune
3.Amorphis - Under The Red Cloud
4.As I Lay Dying - Shadows Are Security
5.Before The Dawn - Deadlight

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Created by tysly on 21.02.2018



Top Of 2012

1.Mors Principium Est - ...And Death Said Live
2.Destruction - Spiritual Genocide
3.Kamelot - Silverthorn
4.Hunter - Królestwo
5.Bloodbound - In The Name Of Metal

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Created by lemme on 17.03.2016



365 Albums

1.AC/DC - Back In Black
2.AC/DC - High Voltage
3.AC/DC - Highway To Hell
4.Accept - Blood Of The Nations
5.Allen/Lande - The Showdown

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Created by The Norseman on 30.01.2016



Best of 2012 / A portal of vanity and dead end kings

1.Diablo Swing Orchestra - Pandora's Piñata
2.Periphery - Periphery II: This Time It's Personal
3.Woods Of Ypres - Woods 5: Grey Skies & Electric Light
4.Ne Obliviscaris - Portal Of I
5.Converge - All We Love We Leave Behind

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Created by Hazelnut Nero on 05.04.2015



Thumbs up: +9
That Cold Black Magic, By Glenn Killer And His Thorchestra

As is the case with my other lists, this is for my own organizational purposes and is designed purely to help me keep track of all the many black metal bands and albums that I enjoy, since I can't keep all of this information in my head. It has no other benefit whatsoever and will likely result in tantrums should anyone else see it. I'm aware that I haven't listened to every black metal album that I should have. I only went down to the 6s on this list, so it's possible that I have listened to your favorite black metal album that you desperately need to suggest and I thought it was terrible. There are a lot of heinously incompetent black metal bands out there.

1.Sigh - Imaginary Sonicscape
2.Sigh - Graveward
3.Dissection - Storm Of The Light's Bane
4.Sigh - Heir To Despair
5.The Meads Of Asphodel - The Murder Of Jesus The Jew

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Created by ScreamingSteelUS on 31.03.2015



Thumbs up: +3
Enslaved: Another Opinion-Heavy Best To Worst

More like Best to less-best and one dud. My full reviews of each album are available under my same name at metal archives. Feel free to message me with what you think. My full reviews below:
Mardraum
Blodhemn
Isa
Frost
RUUN
Axioma
VV
In Times
RIITIIR
Monumension
Eld
BTL
Vertebrae

1.Enslaved - Mardraum - Beyond The Within
2.Enslaved - Blodhemn
3.Enslaved - Isa
4.Enslaved - Frost
5.Enslaved - Ruun

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Created by flightoficarus on 21.01.2015



Thumbs up: +7
2010-2014: Top 100 Albums (WIP)

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

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Created by musclassia on 08.01.2015



Top Albums In My Collection In Alphabetical Order

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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Created by baumer on 14.12.2014