1.Latitudes - Old Sunlight

2.Borknagar - Winter Thrice

3.Bloodiest - Bloodiest

4.Mountain Witch - Burning Village

5.Sunnata - Zorya

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Order is sorted by album repeat.

1.Meshuggah - The Violent Sleep Of Reason

2.Vale Of Pnath - II

3.Dark Tranquillity - Atoma

4.Fallujah - Dreamless

5.Be'lakor - Vessels

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1.Borknagar - Winter Thrice

2.Fates Warning - Theories Of Flight

3.Obscura - Akróasis

4.Witherscape - The Northern Sanctuary

5.Dark Tranquillity - Atoma

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Listed in alphabetical order

1.Acid Witch - Witchtanic Hellucinations

2.Ahab - The Boats Of The Glen Carrig

3.Alcest - Les Voyages De L'âme

4.Amorphis - Silent Waters

5.Atheist - Piece Of Time

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My favorite metal albums sorted alphabetically by band name and chronological by release date.

1.Æther Realm - Tarot

2.Acid Witch - Witchtanic Hellucinations

3.Allegaeon - Proponent For Sentience

4.Amon Amarth - Once Sent From The Golden Hall

5.Amorphis - Tales From The Thousand Lakes

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1.Insomnium - Winter's Gate

2.Moonsorrow - Jumalten Aika

3.Witherscape - The Northern Sanctuary

4.Ihsahn - Arktis.

5.Alcest - Kodama

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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
2010-2014 list: http://www.metalstorm.net/users/list.php?list_id=5828

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 grows 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 2015 to 2019, with at least 1 vote, were included.
The average expected rating (C) was determined by averaging all the Metal Storm ratings from 2015-2019.
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 2015-2019 = 7.422
m = 20

Number of albums from each year in the list:
2015 - 31
2016 - 24
2017 - 18
2018 - 12
2019 - 17

Ratings are accurate as of 30/10/2023

1.Mgła - Exercises In Futility

2.Insomnium - Winter's Gate

3.Amorphis - Under The Red Cloud

4.Vektor - Terminal Redux

5.Trees Of Eternity - Hour Of The Nightingale

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Hi there!
My list is most alike the 'Musical Menu'. And this chapter is dedicated to mysterious sounds of Black Metal genre.

1.Emperor - Anthems To The Welkin At Dusk

2.Moonspell - Night Eternal

3.Covenant - Nexus Polaris

4.Arcturus - The Sham Mirrors

5.Rotting Christ - Sanctus Diavolos

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1.Amoral - In Sequence

2.Borknagar - Winter Thrice

3.Delain - Moonbathers

4.Evergrey - The Storm Within

5.Jorn - Heavy Rock Radio

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The choice was though, not only because there were some very good albums out there, but also because as you get older, life fucks you up, and you never have enough time to listen to all the albums you want, for as much as you want. Or as much as they deserve. I must add that the list could be different if I made it on any other day, depending on the mood. I would like to note some honorable mentions too, such as Witherscape - The Northern Sanctuary, Rotting Christ - Rituals, Avantasia - Ghostlights, Skuggsja - A Piece For Mind and Mirror, Ihsahn - Arktis, Moonsorrow, Jumalten Aika, Be'lakor - Vessels, Thy Catafalque Meta, and most of all Katatonia - The Fall of Hearts and Fates Warning - Theories of Flight.

1.Borknagar - Winter Thrice

2.Dark Tranquillity - Atoma

3.Insomnium - Winter's Gate

4.Trees Of Eternity - Hour Of The Nightingale

5.Delain - Moonbathers

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1.Netherbird - The Grander Voyage

2.Novembre - URSA

3.Ordog - The Grand Wall

4.Pretty Maids - Kingmaker

5.Primal Fear - Rulebreaker

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SEXY stuff from 2016. Lots of prog.

Rating:

5 - Perfect
4,5 - Excellent
4 - Great
3,5 - Very good
3 - Good
2,5 - OK, but nothing special

1.Haken - Affinity

2.Fates Warning - Theories Of Flight

3.Be'lakor - Vessels

4.Witherscape - The Northern Sanctuary

5.Devin Townsend - Transcendence

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1.Myrath - Legacy

2.Moonsorrow - Jumalten Aika

3.Mute The Saint - Mute the Saint

4.Whispered - Metsutan - Songs Of The Void

5.First Fragment - Dasein

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In order, to keep track of them. Simple.

1.Forteresse - Thèmes Pour La Rébellion

2.Vektor - Terminal Redux

3.Blood Ceremony - Lord Of Misrule

4.Latitudes - Old Sunlight

5.Cult Of Luna - Mariner [Collaboration]

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1.Borknagar - Winter Thrice

2.Ulver - ATGCLVLSSCAP

3.Ihsahn - Arktis.

4.Katatonia - The Fall Of Hearts

5.Opeth - Sorceress

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