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Thumbs up: +5
Top 50 Black Metal Albums

I've been listened to Black Metal since the late 2000s starting with Emperor and Dimmu Borgir. Since then, I've discover dozens of amazing bands thanks to MS and it has become one of my favourite genres, especially the more melodic/symphonic/epic bands.

So here are my favourites of the genre with my rating, its sub-genre and release year:

(Score is an average of each album's song ratings, full list located here)

If you discovered any new albums or like the same sort of black metal, be sure to give this list a thumbs-up and leave a comment so more people can find these amazing bands!

My other lists:
Top 500 Albums (ordered & rated)
Top 25 EPs (also ordered & rated)
Top 200 Overlooked Albums (with genres)
Top 200 Overrated Albums (trigger warning)
So I Heard You Like Wintersun... (Time II find new bands)

1.Agalloch - The Mantle
2.Caladan Brood - Echoes Of Battle
3.Dissection - Storm Of The Light's Bane
4.Emperor - Anthems To The Welkin At Dusk
5.Windir - 1184

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Created by nonZero on 19.02.2024



Thumbs up: +4
Evrope Ov Ólde

These songs make me think of times so old that none of us were there to experience them. The criteria for the inclusion of a song are so personal here that there's a high chance you think something should be on here and I might love the same song you're thinking of but I would still not put it on here.

I don't like Varg btw

1.Enslaved - Vikingligr Veldi
2.Burzum - Hvis Lyset Tar Oss
3.Satyricon - Dark Medieval Times
4.Windir - Arntor
5.Bathory - Hammerheart

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Created by Qualeen on 20.10.2023



My Top 50 Albums Of 2000-2009

1.Opeth - Ghost Reveries
2.Riverside - Second Life Syndrome
3.Pain Of Salvation - Remedy Lane
4.Moonsorrow - Verisäkeet
5.Opeth - Blackwater Park

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Created by JHK on 01.10.2022



Thumbs up: +1
Top Metal Albums Each Year I Have Been Alive, 2003

A little list series where I list my top 20 favorite metal albums every year starting from the year I was born in.

2003 may not have been that spical, but for me I think it was possibly one of the best years for Power and Symphonic metal, also this was the year where I started to listen to metal regularly going back to classic albums and bands, starting my metal journey.

1.Masterplan - Masterplan
2.Epica - The Phantom Agony
3.Lost Horizon - A Flame To The Ground Beneath
4.Moonsorrow - Kivenkantaja
5.Swallow The Sun - The Morning Never Came

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Created by Handala on 22.09.2022



My Top 30 Albums Of 2003

1.Moonsorrow - Kivenkantaja
2.Edge Of Sanity - Crimson II
3.The Mars Volta - De-Loused In The Comatorium
4.Windir - Likferd
5.Opeth - Damnation

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Created by JHK on 19.06.2022



Thumbs up: +2
Fave BM (and BM-adjacent) Albums

* 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.Caladan Brood - Echoes Of Battle
3.Deathspell Omega - Fas - Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternum
4.Oranssi Pazuzu - Mestarin Kynsi
5.Altar Of Plagues - Teethed Glory & Injury

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Created by sgtrobo on 26.11.2021



Thumbs up: +6
1001 Metal Albums to Hear Before You Die

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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Created by metalriff on 05.02.2021



Top 25 Black Metal Albums Of The 00's

1.Windir - 1184
2.Enslaved - Isa
3.Keep Of Kalessin - Armada
4.Alcest - Écailles De Lune
5.Immortal - Sons Of Northern Darkness

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Created by Mrtvozornik on 10.06.2020



Thumbs up: +5
Top 100 (+5) Of 2000-2004

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
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 2000 to 2004, with at least 1 vote, were included.
The average expected rating (C) was determined by averaging all the Metal Storm ratings from 2000-2004.
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 +5.

C for 2000-2004 = 7.599
m = 30

Number of albums from each year in the list:
2000 - 15
2001 - 27
2002 - 14
2003 - 20
2004 - 29

Ratings are accurate as of 30/10/2023

1.Opeth - Blackwater Park
2.Agalloch - The Mantle
3.Tool - Lateralus
4.Wintersun - Wintersun
5.Ensiferum - Ensiferum

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Created by Crys1s on 26.09.2019



Thumbs up: +21
Top 500 Albums of All Time

I've been listening to Metal since 2005 and it has become my biggest passion in life.

Rarely a day goes by where I don't listen to it in one form or another. The bands I listened to in my teens inspired me to pick up the guitar (and later drums) and start making music of my own.

So here are the albums that have stood out and made the largest impact on me. To be as transparent as possible, I've labelled albums as 'nostalgia bias' where my memories of the album give it an advantage over others.

(Score is an average of each album's song ratings, full list located here. There are a ton of albums that I've rated 9/10 in the 'TBR' tab that may never make it to this list, be sure to check those out.)

If you discovered any new albums or like the same sort of metal, be sure to give this list a thumbs-up and leave a comment so more people can find these amazing bands!

My other lists:
Top 25 EPs (ordered & rated)
Top 200 Overlooked Albums (with genres)
Top 200 Overrated Albums (trigger warning)
So I Heard You Like Wintersun... (Time II find new bands)

Genre-Specific:
Top 50 Black Metal Albums
Top 50 Melodic Death Metal Albums
Top 45 Thrash Metal Albums
Top 40 Power Metal Albums
Top 30 Doom Metal Albums
Top 30 Heavy Metal Albums

1.Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral
2.Opeth - Blackwater Park
3.Metallica - Master Of Puppets
4.Edge Of Sanity - Crimson
5.Opeth - Still Life

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Created by nonZero on 06.10.2018



Thumbs up: +1
My Top 100 Metal Albums Of All Time

1.Linkin Park - Hybrid Theory
2.Slipknot - Iowa
3.Summoning - Stronghold
4.Septicflesh - Communion
5.Summoning - Old Mornings Dawn

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Created by Anghellic67 on 08.09.2017



Thumbs up: +1
My Top 10 Of 2003

1.Cradle Of Filth - Damnation And A Day
2.Dimmu Borgir - Death Cult Armageddon
3.Katatonia - Viva Emptiness
4.The Mars Volta - De-Loused In The Comatorium
5.Moonsorrow - Kivenkantaja

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Created by Archie 666 on 09.08.2017



Thumbs up: +4
Magical Albums

Good musical pieces are those that initiate an emotional reaction or a subconscious shift of your subjective perception. The best music are those that elicit the most positive or dramatic of changes to our psyches. This is a list that I return to occasionally for these effects.

It is subjective of course.

1.Agalloch - The Mantle
2.Agalloch - Ashes Against The Grain
3.Amon Amarth - Twilight Of The Thunder God
4.Arcturus - The Sham Mirrors
5.Atoma - Skylight

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Created by Oriax on 08.06.2016



Thumbs up: +3
The Black/Death Metal Bucket List

These are the Must-Do's of Black and Death Metal. This list was made in no particular order.

1.Ruins - Spun Forth As Dark Nets
2.Origin - Informis Infinitas Inhumanitas
3.Odious Mortem - Cryptic Implosion
4.Cannibal Corpse - The Bleeding
5.Emperor - In The Nightside Eclipse

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Created by HeavyWork on 25.11.2014



Thumbs up: +10
Favorite Black Metal Albums

1.Mayhem - De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas
2.Darkthrone - Transilvanian Hunger
3.Bathory - Under The Sign Of The Black Mark
4.Emperor - In The Nightside Eclipse
5.Satyricon - Nemesis Divina

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Created by ManiacBlasphemer on 02.10.2012