1.Leprous - Bilateral

2.Symphony X - Iconoclast

3.Pain Of Salvation - Road Salt Two

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

5.Pagan's Mind - Heavenly Ecstasy

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1.Primordial - Redemption At The Puritan's Hand

2.Moonsorrow - Varjoina Kuljemme Kuolleiden Maassa

3.Septicflesh - The Great Mass

4.Obscura - Omnivium

5.MaYaN - Quarterpast

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These are the bands that have spent the most time coming through my speakers (or will have by the end of the year). In other words: TOP PICKS for 2011, listed in no particular order and updated but not finished...

1.Scar Symmetry - The Unseen Empire

2.Pagan's Mind - Heavenly Ecstasy

3.Omnium Gatherum - New World Shadows

4.Heavenwood - Abyss Masterpiece

5.Havok - Time Is Up

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I don't believe in illegal downloading of easily available albums, so this list is only albums I have actually purchased and own a hard copy or official download of. The order is VERY fluid, and in all likelihood, wrong. But oh well....

Coming soon: Comments for each album & finalised order for the year...

1.Thy Catafalque - Rengeteg

2.Omnium Gatherum - New World Shadows

3.Ulcerate - The Destroyers Of All

4.Symphony X - Iconoclast

5.Cormorant - Dwellings

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Hello to everyone! This list will be renewed each time something deserves to be added to it! I hope I will be able to find the time to listen to as many albums as possible in order to expand the list!

1.Septicflesh - The Great Mass

2.Amorphis - The Beginning Of Times

3.Primordial - Redemption At The Puritan's Hand

4.Graveyard - Hisingen Blues

5.Hell - Human Remains

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1.Draconian - A Rose For The Apocalypse

2.Heavenwood - Abyss Masterpiece

3.Novembers Doom - Aphotic

4.To Cast A Shadow - In Memory Of

5.Midnattsol - The Metamorphosis Melody

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1.Revocation - Chaos Of Forms

2.Hell - Human Remains

3.Obscura - Omnivium

4.Charred Walls Of The Damned - Cold Winds On Timeless Days

5.Disma - Towards The Megalith

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1.Havok - Time Is Up

2.Assaulter - Boundless

3.Journey - Eclipse

4.Skull Fist - Head Öf The Pack

5.Exhumed - All Guts, No Glory

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1.Machine Head - Unto The Locust

2.Anthrax - Worship Music

3.Morbid Angel - Illud Divinum Insanus

4.Vektor - Outer Isolation

5.Primordial - Redemption At The Puritan's Hand

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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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So far I stand by my position on this decade, it's awful and so is anyone who lived through it.

Plus my top three favourite tracks from each release. \m/

Honourable mentions:
Draconian - A Rose For The Apocalypse (Gothic/Doom)
Anaal Nathrakh - Passion (Black/Grindcore)
Taake - Noregs Vaapen (Black)

1.Primordial - Redemption At The Puritan's Hand

2.Septicflesh - The Great Mass

3.Ava Inferi - Onyx

4.Warbringer - Worlds Torn Asunder

5.Belphegor - Blood Magick Necromance

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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
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 2010 to 2014, with at least 1 vote, were included.
The average expected rating (C) was determined by averaging all the Metal Storm ratings from 2010-2014.
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 2010-2014 = 7.478
m = 20

Number of albums from each year in the list:
2010 - 24
2011 - 28
2012 - 16
2013 - 22
2014 - 12

Ratings are accurate as of 30/10/2023

1.Gallowbraid - Ashen Eidolon

2.Enslaved - Axioma Ethica Odini

3.Aquilus - Griseus

4.Ne Obliviscaris - Portal Of I

5.Be'lakor - Of Breath And Bone

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best album of each year from 1970 onwards

1.Wayfarer - American Gothic

2.Grima - Frostbitten

3.Beast In Black - Dark Connection

4.Havukruunu - Uinuos Syömein Sota

5.Slipknot - We Are Not Your Kind

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1.Linkin Park - Hybrid Theory

2.Slipknot - Iowa

3.Summoning - Stronghold

4.Septicflesh - Communion

5.Summoning - Old Mornings Dawn

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1.Judas Priest - British Steel

2.Venom - Welcome To Hell

3.Iron Maiden - The Number Of The Beast

4.Slayer - Show No Mercy

5.Metallica - Ride The Lightning

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