1.Cattle Decapitation - Death Atlas

2.Devin Townsend - Empath

3.Mgła - Age Of Excuse

4.Borknagar - True North

5.Insomnium - Heart Like A Grave

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1.Disembowelment - Transcendence Into The Peripheral

2.Weakling - Dead As Dreams

3.Greylotus - Dawnfall

4.John Petrucci - An Evening With John Petrucci & Jordan Rudess [Collaboration]

5.John Petrucci - Suspended Animation

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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)

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1.Disillusion - The Liberation

2.Wilderun - Veil Of Imagination

3.Insomnium - Heart Like A Grave

4.Tool - Fear Inoculum

5.Iapetus - The Body Cosmic

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1.Wilderun - Veil Of Imagination

2.Opeth - In Cauda Venenum

3.Borknagar - True North

4.Eternal Storm - Come The Tide

5.Soen - Lotus

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Here are albums (ordered by subgenre) that I want to listen to, but haven't yet.
For some albums, I've heard one or two songs, but not the entire album. Therefore, these albums still await my judgement!
Recommendations are always welcome!

1.

2.Frail Body - Artificial Bouquet

3.Ulterror - Transcendent Origins

4.Mastiff - Deprecipice

5.Verberis - The Apophatic Wilderness

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Last updated on 11 April 2024.

1.Dream Theater - Images And Words

2.Moonsorrow - Kivenkantaja

3.Wintersun - Wintersun

4.Dissection - Storm Of The Light's Bane

5.Iron Maiden - The Number Of The Beast

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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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1.Thy Catafalque - Rengeteg

2.Rotting Christ - Κατά Τον Δαίμονα Εαυτού

3.Necrophobic - Mark Of The Necrogram

4.Thy Catafalque - Sgùrr

5.Shining - Redefining Darkness

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An ongoing list for personal use as well as for reference for beginners (& veterans alike). This is solely my personal opinion and taste (Death & Prog mostly but do give every genre a try). Basically will include albums I've rated 8 & above. Sorted by year since I'll need a Venn diagram to sort by genre (seriously MS please make it happen if possible). Will feature multiple releases per year (obviously) and per band (since if a band is putting out better albums it deserves more recognition). Keeping the metal faith alive from India

1.Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin

2.King Crimson - In The Court Of The Crimson King

3.Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin III

4.Black Sabbath - Paranoid

5.Uriah Heep - Look At Yourself

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1.Brymir - Wings Of Fire

2.Avantasia - Moonglow

3.Insomnium - Heart Like A Grave

4.Borknagar - True North

5.Twilight Force - Dawn Of The Dragonstar

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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.Ba'al - Ellipsism

2.Back To R'lyeh - The Awakening / Last Fight Of The Primordial

3.Bad Salad - Uncivilized

4.Bakos Attila - Aranyhajnal

5.Balance Of Power - Book Of Secrets

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All the albums released in 2019 that i have listened to, ranked from best to worst. This is of course my opinion. Recommendations are always welcome.

1.Abigail Williams - Walk Beyond The Dark

2.Misþyrming - Algleymi

3.Tool - Fear Inoculum

4.Alcest - Spiritual Instinct

5.Esoteric - A Pyrrhic Existence

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Well, 2020 is not the most enjoyable year, is it...

So I looked back at 2019 to do a little nostalgic ranking of when the world was only half crazy....

My top 50 (rate 8 & above)

Like always opinion my own and I am obviously right

Album count: 160
Average rating: 7

1.Cult Of Luna - A Dawn To Fear

2.Alcest - Spiritual Instinct

3.Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen

4.Borknagar - True North

5.Swallow The Sun - When A Shadow Is Forced Into The Light

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Here is a list of all the bands who received at least one write-in vote during MSA 2019.

Following the annoucement of the results, this information is lost, I post it here so you can continue to explore your favorite genres !

I'm still working on fixing links, if you find errors, feel free to notify in the comments !

1.Babymetal - Metal Galaxy

2.Cave In - Final Transmission

3.Mother Of Millions - Artifacts

4.Slipknot - We Are Not Your Kind

5.Soen - Lotus

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