1.Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love

2.Thou - Magus

3.The Body - I Have Fought Against It, But I Can't Any Longer

4.Panopticon - The Scars Of Man On The Once Nameless Wilderness

5.Zeal & Ardor - Stranger Fruit

      View entire list ››

1.

2.Mercyful Fate - Melissa

3.Anthrax - Spreading The Disease

4.Joe Satriani - Flying In A Blue Dream

5.King Diamond - The Eye

      View entire list ››

A little list series where I list my top 20 favorite metal albums every year starting from the year I was born in.

2018 was pretty good year, some solid releases in death and Melodic death metal, Symphonic metal had a pretty good record comparing to previous years, and Judas priest released there best album in almost thirty years.


My favorite non metal albums of 2018

1. Civilisation
By Southern Empire (Progressive rock, Symphonic rock)


2. Schmaltz
By Spanish Love Songs (Pop Punk, Emo)


3. Joy as an Act of Resistance
By Idles (Post-Hardcore, Art punk)


4. TA13OO
By Denzel Curry (Trap, Southern Hip Hop, Trap Metal)


5. OIL OF EVERY PEARL'S UN-INSIDES
By SOPHIE (Bubblegum Bass, Hyperpop, Experimental)



My favorite movie from 2018

1.Amorphis - Queen Of Time

2.Rivers Of Nihil - Where Owls Know My Name

3.Crescent - The Order Of Amenti

4.Judas Priest - Firepower

5.Shylmagoghnar - Transience

      View entire list ››

1.Slugdge - Esoteric Malacology

2.Antimatter - Black Market Enlightenment

3.Amorphis - Queen Of Time

4.Hamferð - Támsins Likam

5.Riverside - Wasteland

      View entire list ››

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

      View entire list ››

2018 was a great musical year for me as I finally had enough pocket money to satisfy my CD mania... It took me only three decades...

So here is my top 50 of 2018

Album count: 140
Average rating: 7.13

1.Ihsahn - Àmr

2.Skuggsjá - Hugsjá

3.Judas Priest - Firepower

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

5.Antimatter - Black Market Enlightenment

      View entire list ››

Favourite albums of 2018 (including only those which I would rate 7+)

1.Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love

2.Slugdge - Esoteric Malacology

3.Rolo Tomassi - Time Will Die And Love Will Bury It

4.Between The Buried And Me - Automata I

5.Berried Alive - Bearies Alive

      View entire list ››

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

      View entire list ››

1.Haken - Vector

2.Angra - ØMNI

3.TesseracT - Sonder

4.Arsafes - The Silk Road Experience Pt . 1

5.Night Verses - From The Gallery Of Sleep

      View entire list ››

1.Amorphis - Queen Of Time

2.Vermilia - Kätkyt

3.Sulphur Aeon - The Scythe Of Cosmic Chaos

4.Zeal & Ardor - Stranger Fruit

5.Tribulation - Down Below

      View entire list ››

1.Shylmagoghnar - Transience

2.Ostura - The Room

3.The Ocean - Phanerozoic I: Palaeozoic

4.Rivers Of Nihil - Where Owls Know My Name

5.Orphaned Land - Unsung Prophets & Dead Messiahs

      View entire list ››

1.Disembowelment - Transcendence Into The Peripheral

2.Weakling - Dead As Dreams

3.Greylotus - Dawnfall

4.John Petrucci - An Evening With John Petrucci & Jordan Rudess [Collaboration]

5.John Petrucci - Suspended Animation

      View entire list ››

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

1.Ulcerate - Stare Into Death And Be Still

2.Madder Mortem - Eight Ways

3.Blind Guardian - Imaginations From The Other Side

4.Ayreon - 01011001

5.Igric - Svet Svetlom Stvorený

      View entire list ››

1.Leprous - Bilateral

2.Textures - Phenotype

3.Jolly - The Audio Guide To Happiness (Part 1)

4.Pain Of Salvation - In The Passing Light Of Day

5.The Ocean - Phanerozoic I: Palaeozoic

      View entire list ››

1.Slugdge - Esoteric Malacology

2.The Ocean - Phanerozoic I: Palaeozoic

3.Ghost - Prequelle

4.Amorphis - Queen Of Time

5.Hamferð - Támsins Likam

      View entire list ››