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Thumbs up: +13
Song Puzzles: One Song In Several Parts On Different Albums

Some stories, themes or concepts are presented not just in one single song but are split in separate tracks that (often) share the same title but are distinguished by a number of the corresponding part of the song series.

However, sometimes these parts are not found together on one album, but are included on different releases of the artist.
They can be found on two (or more) conceptually linked albums (where they function as part of an ensemble together with the other songs), or they can be included on independent releases (where only they alone continue their story).

Therefore, the main purpose of this list is to give an overview that enables the reader to find the missing song pieces - or even to inform that these pieces exist at all.

Please feel free to find and suggest more examples of these "song jigsaw puzzles": one song(concept) in separate parts on different albums.



1.After Forever - Prison Of Desire
2.Agathodaimon - Higher Art Of Rebellion
3.Agathodaimon - Phoenix
4.Alestorm - Sunset On The Golden Age
5.Alestorm - Curse Of The Crystal Coconut

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Created by Plattner on 28.05.2023



Thumbs up: +2
Top Metal Albums Each Year I Have Been Alive, 2007

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

2007 was a really good one, possibly my favorite of the 2000's until now, a lot of great release in Progressive metal, Black metal and Doom metal had a really strong comeback that year, overall a really great year for metal

1.Devin Townsend - Ziltoid The Omniscient
2.Epica - The Divine Conspiracy
3.Ensiferum - Victory Songs
4.Symphony X - Paradise Lost
5.Moonsorrow - V: Hävitetty

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Created by Handala on 21.10.2022



Thumbs up: +3
Favorite Metal Albums Of All Time

1 album per band per subgenre
work in progress, updating as I go through the song-by-song ratings on RateYourMusic.com
I will typically update my black metal faves - https://metalstorm.net/users/list.php?list_id=6924
and my death metal faves - https://metalstorm.net/users/list.php?list_id=6298
prior to updating this one

1.Queensrÿche - Operation: Mindcrime
2.King Diamond - Abigail
3.Voivod - Dimension Hatröss
4.Mastodon - Crack The Skye
5.Lykathea Aflame - Elvenefris

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Created by sgtrobo on 14.07.2022



Thumbs up: +2
My Symphonic/Atmospheric Metal Albums List

Here's my list of symphonic metal albums from the bands that I know of, this list is defined by the terms of "atmospheric/bombastic sounding". This is my first time of making list on this site, so some of this might not make any sense as I'm still a bit confused myself as well, and I don't really prefer to see these in particular orders.

1.Nightwish - Dark Passion Play
2.Within Temptation - The Silent Force
3.Epica - The Divine Conspiracy
4.Xandria - Neverworld's End
5.Nightwish - Once

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Created by InfinityZ780 on 03.07.2022



Thumbs up: +1
Qualeen's Albums-to-Listen-to Checklist

Fairly self-explanatory. I don't think I will approach these in any particular order, I'll treat it whimsically. I'm not sure what I'll do once I have familiarized myself with these sufficiently. I might go and leave a comment on the album's page.

Last updated on 4 May 2023.

EDIT: Actually, I'll just go from top to bottom, although sometimes I add albums somewhere near the top of the list.

1.Sakis Tolis - Among The Fires Of Hell
2.Dio - The Last In Line
3.Swallow The Sun - Hope
4.Ne Obliviscaris - Portal Of I
5.Extol - Undeceived

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Created by Qualeen on 30.04.2022



Ranking Power Metal Albums As I Listen To Them

just rating albums as I listen to them, work in progress

1.Blind Guardian - Imaginations From The Other Side
2.Helloween - Keeper Of The Seven Keys Part II
3.Wintersun - Wintersun
4.Symphony X - The Divine Wings Of Tragedy
5.Angra - Temple Of Shadows

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Created by EFDoug on 25.03.2022



Thumbs up: +4
Metal Albums Ranked From WORSHIP To DISLIKE

Ratings go from:

WORSHIP ❤️❤️❤️: Absolute greatness, a mindblowing album.
LOVE ❤️❤️🖤: Amazing release with very few flaws.
LIKE ❤️🖤🖤: Enjoyable but far from perfect.
DISLIKE 💔: Not very good or maybe not fitting my tastes.

I've decided to stop rating albums with a numerical value as I tend to feel uncomfortable with that. This list has a minimalistic, subjective and visceral approach, based purely on sensations and personal tastes. Mainly for personal use and doesn't pretend to be a serious ranking, but emerges from the need to remember which bands and albums I enjoyed and the ones I disliked. I constantly revisit new releases so first impressions may change over time. It usually takes 8-10 spins for me to get completely sure of a rating.

1.Æther Realm - Tarot
2.Abhoria - Abhoria
3.Acid Bath - When The Kite String Pops
4.Agrypnie - Metamorphosis
5.Allegaeon - Fragments Of Form And Function

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Created by Rinbel on 14.03.2022



Top 30 Symphonic Metal Albums

1.Therion - Theli
2.Therion - Vovin
3.Therion - Lemuria
4.Therion - Sirius B
5.Cradle Of Filth - Midian

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Created by Mrtvozornik on 05.10.2021



Epica Studio Albums Ranked

1.Epica - The Quantum Enigma
2.Epica - Design Your Universe
3.Epica - Consign To Oblivion
4.Epica - The Divine Conspiracy
5.Epica - The Phantom Agony

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Created by TheJester on 29.04.2020



Thumbs up: +1
Top 100 (+8) Of 2005-2009

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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Created by Crys1s on 19.09.2019



Epica's Title Tracks Ranked Best To Worst

Some of the worst and best songs in here.

If I were ranking every long song of Epica:
Kingdom of Heaven would land between 3. and 4.
Serenade Of Self-Destruction would land above KoH, also between 3. and 4.

Have a great day

1.Epica - Consign To Oblivion
2.Epica - The Holographic Principle
3.Epica - Design Your Universe
4.Epica - The Phantom Agony
5.Epica - The Quantum Enigma

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Created by Furiator on 30.08.2019



The Best Metal Songs With Spoken Parts In Them

Suggestions are always welcome

1.Paradise Lost - Draconian Times
2.Theatre Of Tragedy - Velvet Darkness They Fear
3.Draconian - Arcane Rain Fell
4.The Sins Of Thy Beloved - Lake Of Sorrow
5.Tristania - Widow's Weeds

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Created by mynameisnando on 27.07.2019



Epica (Best To Worst)

I've chosen the order of the albums by personal taste and how each one of them is important for me.

1.Epica - The Quantum Enigma
2.Epica - The Phantom Agony
3.Epica - The Divine Conspiracy
4.Epica - Consign To Oblivion
5.Epica - Design Your Universe

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Created by mynameisnando on 20.06.2019



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
My Favourite Albums Of 2000s

1.Afgrund - Vid Helvetets Grindar
2.After Forever - After Forever
3.Agalloch - The Mantle
4.Agalloch - Ashes Against The Grain
5.Alcest - Souvenirs D'un Autre Monde

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Created by In Bone Factory on 01.09.2018