The goats. The near perfect albums that never get old. Some are full of catchy bangers I'm always humming, and some are so full to the brim of details that I still haven't even uncovered them all.

A brief outline of my ratings:
8.5-9.0 = An excellent album with a few mild drawbacks (Weak song, slightly irritating vocals, odd flow)
9.0-9.5 = Perfect albums that haven't quite warranted the time-earnt 9.5+.
9.5-9.9 = Perfect albums that have stood the test of time, ranked by preference.
10 = I don't expect to hear another album like these, ever.

(I use 'perfect' lightly as it makes no sense for a man-made creation to be flawless. 'Perfect' is simply a term to outline how high a level of enjoyment is, specifically the level of enjoyment when minor faults become insignificant.)

(I evaluate albums outside of metal vastly differently to the ones here, which explains the lack of representation of my other favourite genres. Blue Sky Mining is an exception due to being structured very similarly to my optimal metal album. I may add some picks from other genres down the line.)


STATS:
I know y'all don't look at my lists, so these are purely for my own interest.

-Decades
'10s: 38
'20s: 25
'00s: 7
'90s: 2

-Genres (By best fit or most prominent)
Prog: 36
Death: 11
Power: 9
Symphonic: 4
Black: 4
Soundtrack: 3
Contemporary: 2
Folk: 1
Doom: 1
Rock: 1

1.Devin Townsend - Empath

2.Memories Of Old - The Zeramin Game

3.Wintersun - Time I

4.An Abstract Illusion - Woe

5.Persefone - Aathma

      View entire list ››

1.Insomnium - Winter's Gate

2.Kauan - Sorni Nai

3.Enslaved - Axioma Ethica Odini

4.Wilderun - Veil Of Imagination

5.Steven Wilson - The Raven That Refused To Sing (And Other Stories)

      View entire list ››

* Updating this as I get around to doing song-by-song on RYM.
* 1 album per band
* limiting this to actual black metal releases, as opposed to releases by bands that were, at one time, black metal.
>> Some bands really do incorporate a lot of both death metal or doom (or avant garde or folk, etc) and black metal in their albums, so I consider them to be 'black metal adjacent' even if it might not be 'purely black metal'

1.Weakling - Dead As Dreams

2.Dissection - Storm Of The Light's Bane

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

4.Caladan Brood - Echoes Of Battle

5.Oranssi Pazuzu - Mestarin Kynsi

      View entire list ››

"CALENDAR MADE OF METAL"
February = Black Metal
Listening to as many albums as possible in said genre during said month and listing them here as I go. Suggestions welcome.

1.Tsjuder - Kill For Satan

2.Lord Belial - Kiss The Goat

3.Satyricon - Dark Medieval Times

4.Enthroned - Prophecies Of Pagan Fire

5.Advent Sorrow - Kali Yuga Crown

      View entire list ››

1.Opeth - Still Life

2.Katatonia - Last Fair Deal Gone Down

3.Dissection - Storm Of The Light's Bane

4.In Flames - Whoracle

5.Emperor - In The Nightside Eclipse

      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
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

      View entire list ››

It's always changing.

1.Moonsorrow - V: Hävitetty

2.Moonsorrow - Verisäkeet

3.Equilibrium - Sagas

4.Týr - Ragnarok

5.Finsterforst - Rastlos

      View entire list ››

1.Agalloch - Pale Folklore

2.Agalloch - The Mantle

3.Agalloch - Ashes Against The Grain

4.Ahab - The Call Of The Wretched Sea

5.Ahab - The Boats Of The Glen Carrig

      View entire list ››

Nightwish, Dimmu Borgir, Septicflesh and their respective clones are not welcome here. The title is a bit misleading since none of these albums are 'symphonic metal' per se, but they're metal with symphonic/orchestra elements added in a way that's unconventional, or at least as far as I know. Suggestions welcome.

1.Apocalyptica - Plays Metallica By Four Cellos

2.Aquilus - Griseus

3.Blind Guardian - At The Edge Of Time

4.Blood Thirsty - Sanguine River Absolution

5.Igorrr - Hallelujah

      View entire list ››

2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2011, 2010

1.Insomnium - One For Sorrow

2.Gernotshagen - Weltenbrand - ...Den Banner Hoch Der Nacht Entgegen

3.Omnium Gatherum - New World Shadows

4.Sólstafir - Svartir Sandar

5.Septicflesh - The Great Mass

      View entire list ››

These CDs are on the highest shelf

1.Anthrax - Fistful Of Metal

2.Anthrax - Among The Living

3.Anthrax - Sound Of White Noise

4.Biohazard - State Of The World Address

5.Biohazard - Nativity In Black - A Tribute To Black Sabbath

      View entire list ››

Here is my top 50 of 2011. Albums rated 8+

In 2011, I started my second MS account after losing the first to the discontinuation of my Uni email address.

"But your account says you joined in 2020" I hear you say. Yes I also lost access to my second account you see. Be welcomed on my third you smartass

Album count: 248
Average rating: 6.69 (so close but still nice)

1.Septicflesh - The Great Mass

2.Mastodon - The Hunter

3.Insomnium - One For Sorrow

4.Leprous - Bilateral

5.Helheim - Heiðindómr Ok Mótgang

      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.

2011 was a solid year for metal, one of the best for black metal in years, a revival of 70s stone and doom metal sound, and a strong showing of power metal.

My favorite non metal albums of 2011

1.Aquilus - Griseus

2.Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats - Blood Lust

3.Thy Catafalque - Rengeteg

4.Insomnium - One For Sorrow

5.Septicflesh - The Great Mass

      View entire list ››

The second part of my list year by year!

1.The Foreshadowing - Oionos

2.Aquilus - Griseus

3.Saturnus - Saturn In Ascension

4.Hamferð - Evst

5.Shylmagoghnar - Emergence

      View entire list ››

1.Thy Catafalque - Rengeteg

2.Leprous - Bilateral

3.Aquilus - Griseus

4.Pain Of Salvation - Road Salt Two

5.Omnium Gatherum - New World Shadows

      View entire list ››