1.Rivers Of Nihil - Where Owls Know My Name

2.Ihsahn - Àmr

3.The Ocean - Phanerozoic I: Palaeozoic

4.At The Gates - To Drink From The Night Itself

5.A Forest Of Stars - Grave Mounds And Grave Mistakes

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1.Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love

2.Dimmu Borgir - Eonian

3.Coheed And Cambria - The Unheavenly Creatures

4.Khemmis - Desolation

5.The Ocean - Phanerozoic I: Palaeozoic

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1.Hamferð - Támsins Likam

2.At The Gates - To Drink From The Night Itself

3.Silent Stream Of Godless Elegy - Smutnice

4.A Forest Of Stars - Grave Mounds And Grave Mistakes

5.Alice In Chains - Rainier Fog

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All the 2018 albums I listened to this year. Just like last year I always added the specific genre/subgenre so you can get an idea what might be of interest to you.

1.Sunnata - Outlands

2.Crescent - The Order Of Amenti

3.IAH - ll

4.Rivers Of Nihil - Where Owls Know My Name

5.Riverside - Wasteland

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The impossible task of choosing top 25 albums for this year... so many of them are not even on MS. But here they are, top 10 are kinda in order, the remaining 15 are not sorted by importance.

1.Amorphis - Queen Of Time

2.Primordial - Exile Amongst The Ruins

3.Behemoth - I Loved You At Your Darkest

4.Judas Priest - Firepower

5.Alice In Chains - Rainier Fog

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1.The Ocean - Phanerozoic I: Palaeozoic

2.Ihsahn - Àmr

3.Riverside - Wasteland

4.Bloodbath - The Arrow Of Satan Is Drawn

5.Haken - Vector

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2018 albums repos

1.Tribulation - Down Below

2.Anna Von Hausswolff - Dead Magic

3.Orphaned Land - Unsung Prophets & Dead Messiahs

4.Therion - Beloved Antichrist

5.The Atlas Moth - Coma Noir

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Listened and liked in 2018

1.Einherjer - Norrøne Spor

2.Psycroptic - As The Kingdom Drowns

3.The Ocean - Phanerozoic I: Palaeozoic

4.Haken - Vector

5.Bloodbath - The Arrow Of Satan Is Drawn

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Since this is technically not a ranking, I've made this list alphabetical. These albums are all ones I am considering for Top 50 of the year and are worth your time.

1.Aboleth - Benthos

2.Aborted - TerrorVision

3.Æpoch - Awakening Inception

4.Agrimonia - Awaken

5.Alghazanth - Eight Coffin Nails

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1.Angra - ØMNI

2.Barren Earth - A Complex Of Cages

3.Between The Buried And Me - Automata I

4.Borealis - The Offering

5.In Vain - Currents

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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.Rivers Of Nihil - Where Owls Know My Name

2.Obscura - Diluvium

3.Behemoth - I Loved You At Your Darkest

4.Summoning - With Doom We Come

5.Riverside - Wasteland

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2018 sucks so far, and there hasn't been that much great music I've listened to. Let's see what I liked.
Listed in order of liking (1. is best, the lower on the list the least I like it compared to the other good releases on the list)

I don't give number ratings because I think they are fundamentally useless and more distracting than useful.

1.The Ocean - Phanerozoic I: Palaeozoic

2.

3.Nadja - Sonnborner

4.

5.Elysian Blaze - The Virtue Of Suffering

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I'll be spending 2 months in the US so probably won't manage to beat the 130-odd albums I heard in the first half of the year, but I'll do my best.

1.Dirge - Lost Empyrean

2.Ingrina - Etter Lys

3.Between The Buried And Me - Automata

4.King Buffalo - Longing To Be The Mountain

5.A Forest Of Stars - Grave Mounds And Grave Mistakes

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A personal collection of all things excellent from 2018. I want to share with you.

1.Møl - Jord

2.Vola - Applause Of A Distant Crowd

3.Dirge - Lost Empyrean

4.Erdve - Vaitojimas

5.The Ocean - Phanerozoic I: Palaeozoic

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