**Trigger warning**

Albums and EPs rated 8.6+ from 100+ votes which I've given an 8 or lower to.

I've listened to and rated every album on MS that meets this criteria (at time of most recent update) - some of them multiple times - so I feel I can give my honest opinion.

The purpose of this is to list and order the albums that I simply don't "get" and to try re-listening to them in the hope of understanding why they've received so many 9 and 10 votes.

Ordered by my rating then MS rating then number of votes.

Updated: 03-Jan-24

My other lists:
Top 500 Albums (ordered & rated)
Top 25 EPs (also ordered & rated)
Top 200 Overlooked Albums (with genres)
So I Heard You Like Wintersun... (Time II find new bands)

1.Anathema - Judgement

2.Paradise Lost - Draconian Times

3.Anathema - Alternative 4

4.Motörhead - Ace Of Spades

5.Motörhead - Overkill

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1.Nile - Annihilation Of The Wicked

2.Morbid Angel - Altars Of Madness

3.Behemoth - The Satanist

4.Obituary - Cause Of Death

5.Death - Leprosy

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No particular order

1.Graveworm - As The Angels Reach The Beauty

2.Graveworm - Scourge Of Malice

3.Dimmu Borgir - For All Tid

4.Dimmu Borgir - Stormblåst

5.Dimmu Borgir - Enthrone Darkness Triumphant

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My favorite albums from various genres

1.Slipknot - Iowa

2.Nirvana - Nevermind

3.Summoning - Stronghold

4.Septicflesh - Communion

5.Anathema - Judgement

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In no order, just the my favorite of that decade.

1.Swallow The Sun - The Morning Never Came

2.Equilibrium - Sagas

3.The Defaced - Karma In Black

4.Susperia - Vindication

5.Masterplan - Aeronautics

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I've been a fan of metal music for a little over five years now. For most of that, I've just not liked death metal. It simply failed to hook me, and I simply preferred black, doom, etc?

Over time, though, I heard a few albums that slowly made me grow more interested in the genre, and ultimately led to me growing a curiosity, then an appreciation, for the style. Anyways, this is the sequence of albums that got me hooked on exploring death metal, and what I would play for anyone I was trying to introduce the style to.

1.Amon Amarth - With Oden On Our Side

2.Hypocrisy - Abducted

3.Opeth - Still Life

4.Novembers Doom - The Pale Haunt Departure

5.Septicflesh - Communion

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1.Opeth - Watershed

2.In Mourning - Shrouded Divine

3.Amon Amarth - Twilight Of The Thunder God

4.Bilocate - Sudden Death Syndrome

5.Septicflesh - Communion

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As we go into 2011, I decided to look back on the last decade, and try and put together a list of what I believe are the highest quality, and favorite releases of the previous decade.

I believe "best" is something of a misnomer, since people's opinions of quality are biased to their tastes. So a more proper title would be "Best Releases that I Enjoyed from 2001-2010".

1.Deströyer 666 - Cold Steel... For An Iron Age

2.Deathspell Omega - Fas - Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternum

3.Celtic Frost - Monotheist

4.Cobalt - Gin

5.Behemoth - Demigod

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The best albums of the best metalheads there are and there were on earth.

1.Death - Symbolic

2.Opeth - Orchid

3.Katatonia - Brave Murder Day

4.Opeth - Blackwater Park

5.Agalloch - The Mantle

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This list, like the others, is only in alphabetical order. If I had to pick a favorite then it would be Darkspace's 'III' hands down.

1.Ásmegin - Arv

2.A Forest Of Stars - The Corpse Of Rebirth

3.Amon Amarth - Twilight Of The Thunder God

4.Averse Sefira - Advent Parallax

5.Black Lotus - Harvest Of Seasons

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Like my own 2009 top list, it's been extremely hard to narrow down to a final twenty because of so many releases in recent years. But twenty it is and of course, I cheated again with my other two lists of overlooked albums and influential albums. These lists are by no means a definition, but a musical statement and hopefully you reading this list can find out something you haven't heard of before and enjoy it as much as I do. Yes, some big names are missing, some are too obscure while some are too mainstream, but I listen to what I like. Just be sure to give them a go with youtube and internet downloads readily at your disposal ^ ^ Some that didn't quite make it into the list but would want to mention them anyway as they are awesome nonetheless: Bison B.C., E-Force, Hail Of Bullets, Keldian, Draconian, Deadlock, Shadowkeep, Battlelore etc

1.Oceans Of Sadness - The Arrogance Of Ignorance

2.Textures - Silhouettes

3.UnSun - The End Of Life

4.Septicflesh - Communion

5.Poisonblack - A Dead Heavy Day

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1.Agalloch - Pale Folklore

2.Agalloch - The Mantle

3.Agalloch - Ashes Against The Grain

4.Ahab - The Call Of The Wretched Sea

5.Amon Amarth - Twilight Of The Thunder God

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

2008 was a really strong one for metal, Progressive metal had a very strong one, power metal at it's peak, strong output of Doom metal and 2000s Alternative going strong, 08 was one of the best.

1.Ayreon - 01011001

2.Septicflesh - Communion

3.Seventh Wonder - Mercy Falls

4.Equilibrium - Sagas

5.Opeth - Watershed

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1.System Of A Down - Mezmerize

2.Nevermore - This Godless Endeavor

3.Firewind - Allegiance

4.Nightwish - Dark Passion Play

5.Paradise Lost - In Requiem

      View entire list ››

2000-2004 list: http://www.metalstorm.net/users/list.php?list_id=5844
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 2005 to 2009, with at least 1 vote, were included.
The average expected rating (C) was determined by averaging all the Metal Storm ratings from 2005-2009.
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 +8.

C for 2005-2009 = 7.593
m = 20

Number of albums from each year in the list:
2005 - 26
2006 - 20
2007 - 23
2008 - 17
2009 - 23

Ratings are accurate as of 30/10/2023

1.Agalloch - Ashes Against The Grain

2.Opeth - Ghost Reveries

3.Be'lakor - Stone's Reach

4.Gojira - From Mars To Sirius

5.Saturnus - Veronika Decides To Die

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