This list is meant to be an extensive, but by no means exhaustive, collection of the greatest (modern) metal albums and eps. Running the gamut from avant-garde to trve norweigan black metal. *As someone who is young in age, my tastes tend to revolve around the period of the 80s to the present.* Although certain metal albums from before will certainly be featured, the period of the 60s-70s will be under-represented. I refer you to this excellent list to gain a better appreciation for some of the best metal from that period: https://rateyourmusic.com/list/freis/martin_popoffs_the_top_500_heavy_metal_albums_of_all_time/

1.Jacobs Dream - Jacobs Dream

2.Jambinai - Onda

3.James LaBrie - Static Impulse

4.Jason Becker - Perpetual Burn

5.Jassa - Lights in the Howling Wilderness

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1.Kalisia - Cybion

2.Thy Catafalque - Róka Hasa Rádió

3.Karnivool - Sound Awake

4.Finsterforst - ...Zum Tode Hin

5.While Heaven Wept - Vast Oceans Lachrymose

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These are my top ten albums of all time. I realize that A Diamond for Disease is an EP, but I don't care, it's going on the list.

1.Kalisia - Cybion

2.Edge Of Sanity - Crimson

3.Arsis - A Diamond For Disease

4.Opeth - Blackwater Park

5.Carcass - Heartwork

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1.Shylmagoghnar - Emergence

2.Galneryus - Angel Of Salvation

3.Blindead - Affliction XXIX II MXMVI

4.Batushka - Litourgiya

5.Leprous - Bilateral

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Only a "20 best" list for this quite good year - or well, 'quite good year' for prog at least.

The first four are arranged in preference order, then th sixteen order are in alphabetical order.

Beware: this is a consolidated - but not definitive - version, it might see some changes in the newt few months.

1.Riverside - Anno Domini High Definition

2.Kalisia - Cybion

3.Ghost Brigade - Isolation Songs

4.Sólstafir - Köld

5.Amesoeurs - Amesoeurs

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My favorite and most enjoyed album's of the decade 2000-2009. Roughly in order, but not exactly.

You can kinda tell from this list that I joined Metalstorm in 2009. I started discovering far more music thanks to this site, hence the number of '09 releases featured. I'm slowly starting to pick back through the top lists of previous years, so I expect more pre-'09 releases will be added to this list.

1.Opeth - Blackwater Park

2.Vektor - Black Future

3.Between The Buried And Me - The Great Misdirect

4.SikTh - Death Of A Dead Day

5.Protest The Hero - Fortress

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Here are my top 25 of 2009, going to try to get more years done as I get more free time.

1.Be'lakor - Stone's Reach

2.Baroness - Blue Record

3.Amorphis - Skyforger

4.While Heaven Wept - Vast Oceans Lachrymose

5.Mastodon - Crack The Skye

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This is a list of debut albums from 2007-2009 that I believe are the first from bands that will leave a legacy of great albums in their wake. It's a short list, and I chose 2007 because I wanted to pick bands that have had at most only 1 album since the debut.

1.In Mourning - Shrouded Divine

2.Irminsul - Irminsul

3.Griftegård - Solemn, Sacred, Severe

4.Kalisia - Cybion

5.Baroness - Red Album

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My top prog albums. The list will be regularly updated.

1.Opeth - Ghost Reveries

2.Opeth - Blackwater Park

3.Dream Theater - Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From A Memory

4.An Abstract Illusion - Woe

5.Gojira - Magma

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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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Alphabetically sorted list of concept albums I know and love them so much to feature them here. Just one album per band in case they have more.

1.Agalloch - Faustian Echoes

2.Aina - The Metal Opera - Days Of Rising Doom

3.Avantasia - The Metal Opera Part I

4.Ayreon - The Human Equation

5.Crystallion - Hundred Days

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working on the final review

1.Cain's Offering - Gather The Faithful

2.Sonata Arctica - The Days Of Grays

3.Amorphis - Skyforger

4.Be'lakor - Stone's Reach

5.Shakra - Everest

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1.Mastodon - Crack The Skye

2.Rammstein - Liebe Ist Für Alle Da

3.Amorphis - Skyforger

4.Kalisia - Cybion

5.Kreator - Hordes Of Chaos

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1.Dredg - El Cielo

2.In Flames - The Jester Race

3.AFI - Black Sails in the Sunset

4.Agalloch - Ashes Against The Grain

5.Deafheaven - Sunbather

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A mix of progressive, doom and the darker side of metal.

1.Ihsahn - Eremita

2.Jeff Loomis - Plains Of Oblivion

3.Virgin Black - Sombre Romantic

4.Virgin Black - Elegant...And Dying

5.Akercocke - Words That Go Unspoken, Deeds That Go Undone

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