These are the albums with the highest possible rates in my personal list. Sometimes it was an emotional decision made after one single spin, but mostly these actually are my favorite albums. Also, I was wondering what genre would be most represented.

PS. The image was selected intentionally to piss you off. Still, I do consider Diabolus In Musica to be an almost perfect album

1.1833 AD - My Dark Symphony

2.1914 - The Blind Leading The Blind

3.Akhlys - Melinoë

4.Amorphis - The Karelian Isthmus

5.Amorphis - Tales From The Thousand Lakes

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I started listening to metal music when I was a teenager, somewhere around the end of the 90's. After all these years, I thought it was high time to compose my personal top list of metal albums. What you see here is the absolute best of the best ... according to my taste.

To compile this list I have put all albums that I have given a 10/10 here on MS. Then I have put all these albums in a Ranking Engine (https://www.pubmeeple.com/ranking-engine) where they were put head to head and I had to choose which I liked more. The list below is what came out of this exercise.

1.Opeth - Deliverance

2.Opeth - Blackwater Park

3.Edge Of Sanity - Crimson

4.Edge Of Sanity - Purgatory Afterglow

5.Cobalt - Eater Of Birds

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This is a list of all the death metal albums I have listened to that I thought were at all worth remembering. Like my other genre lists, this is just a record of my own listening experience that I use for personal organization, not a definitive account of the best or all of the death metal out there; there will probably be albums or bands that are not death metal in the strictest sense. You'll find some OSDM, melodeath, tech death, death-doom, maybe a bit of deathcore, I don't know. Maybe some non-death metal albums by death metal bands that I put in here just because.

1.Death - The Sound Of Perseverance

2.Death - Symbolic

3.At The Gates - With Fear I Kiss The Burning Darkness

4.At The Gates - Slaughter Of The Soul

5.Amon Amarth - With Oden On Our Side

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1.All time & genre (including Non-Metal on MS)
2.Only studio albums & EPs
3.The genre is primary one.
4.Only ESPECIALLY favorite (a bit more stringently than ver1 and rating 10 is not enough)
5.The order: A to Z (initial of band's name), next release date
6.Black Wisdom, an album of Russian band Grey Heaven Fall, is deleted. When the situation gets better, I will repost.
Last modified on 3 March 2022

1.Akhlys - The Dreaming I

2.Altar Of Plagues - Mammal

3.Angra - Temple Of Shadows

4.Anthrax - Among The Living

5.Arkha Sva - Gloria Satanae

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The bands are in that order on purpose, from most to least favorite, but favorite nonetheless. The format is:

band | favourite album by the band | favorite song (or 2) by the band

Last updated on 4 November 2022.

1.Meshuggah - Nothing

2.Opeth - Blackwater Park

3.Immolation - Close To A World Below

4.Death - Symbolic

5.Agalloch - The Mantle

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1.Anaal Nathrakh - Endarkenment

2.Orbit Culture - Nija

3.Make Them Die Slowly - The Bodycount Continues

4.Within The Ruins - Black Heart

5.Code Orange - Underneath

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1.Draconian - Under A Godless Veil

2.The Ocean - Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic / Cenozoic

3.Oranssi Pazuzu - Mestarin Kynsi

4.Anaal Nathrakh - Endarkenment

5.Lunatic Soul - Through Shaded Woods

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My very subjective ranking of all heard metal and metal-adjacent albums 2020.

1.Imperial Triumphant - Alphaville

2.Oranssi Pazuzu - Mestarin Kynsi

3.Mamaleek - Come & See

4.Sweven - The Eternal Resonance

5.Afterbirth - Four Dimensional Flesh

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Subjective list | Top albums of 2020

1.Mare Cognitum - Wanderers: Astrology Of The Nine [Collaboration]

2.Countless Skies - Glow

3.Caligula's Horse - Rise Radiant

4.Bell Witch - Stygian Bough: Volume I [Collaboration]

5.Katatonia - City Burials

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I feel like my overall favorites list is getting too long. I'm splitting it up by rating.

1.Ulcerate - Stare Into Death And Be Still

2.Madder Mortem - Eight Ways

3.Blind Guardian - Imaginations From The Other Side

4.Ayreon - 01011001

5.Igric - Svet Svetlom Stvorený

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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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Note: Tool intentionally ommitted because they don't consider themselves metal. Otherwise you'd see their first 4 albums in top 25.

Last updated: 27 March 2024.

1.Moonsorrow - Kivenkantaja

2.Agalloch - The Mantle

3.Opeth - Blackwater Park

4.Edge Of Sanity - Crimson

5.Lost Horizon - A Flame To The Ground Beneath

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Loose order, incomplete

"Extreme" metal albums only

1.Molested Divinity - Unearthing The Void

2.Defeated Sanity - The Sanguinary Impetus

3.Induced - Coproporeal

4.Putrescent Seepage - Dead And Demented

5.Scatology Secretion - Submerged In Glacial Ruin

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I just want to note that these are my favorites to listen to right now, and not necessarily the albums I would rate "best" or "most classic". Pure preference

1.Entombed - Left Hand Path

2.Antestor - The Forsaken

3.Emperor - Anthems To The Welkin At Dusk

4.Amenra - De Doorn

5.Wintersun - Wintersun

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All my favourite songs ranked in order best down.

1.Rush - 2112

2.Deep Purple - In Rock

3.Jethro Tull - Aqualung

4.Rainbow - Rising

5.Black Sabbath - Paranoid

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