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Top 50 Melodic Death Metal Albums

I've always been a fan of melodic death metal, having listened to bands such as In Flames, Dark Tranquillity and At The Gates in my first few years of getting into metal around 2005-2008. Now, thanks to MS, I've gotten into many more amazing bands such as Wintersun, Insomnium and Scar Symmetry and it has become one of my favourite sub-genres.

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 melodic death 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.Wintersun - Time I
2.Wintersun - Wintersun
3.Insomnium - Winter's Gate
4.At The Gates - Slaughter Of The Soul
5.The Haunted - The Haunted Made Me Do It

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Created by nonZero on 26.02.2024



AJ's Ranking Of 2009

Top 50 of albums I rated 8 and above.

Album count: 222
Average rating: 6.96

1.Ahab - The Divinity Of Oceans
2.Insomnium - Across The Dark
3.Fen - The Malediction Fields
4.Ghost Brigade - Isolation Songs
5.Isis - Wavering Radiant

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Created by AJ The Great on 02.01.2024



Thumbs up: +1
Insomnium Albums Ranked

Insomnium is possibly my favourite melodeath band of all time. I certainly think they're the most consistently great when it comes to albums. I'd rate all of their Albums between an 8-10 easily. Saying all of that, this makes these guys an insanely hard band to rank. I think this ranking could change a lot on here. I certainly change my mind IRL which is my favourite. Disclaimer: I love every single album on this damn list...

1.Insomnium - Winter's Gate
2.Insomnium - Shadows Of The Dying Sun
3.Insomnium - Heart Like A Grave
4.Insomnium - Above The Weeping World
5.Insomnium - One For Sorrow

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Created by Oldy86 on 14.07.2023



My Top 30 Albums Of 2009

1.Riverside - Anno Domini High Definition
2.Kauan - Aava Tuulen Maa
3.Katatonia - Night Is The New Day
4.Be'lakor - Stone's Reach
5.Ghost Brigade - Isolation Songs

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Created by JHK on 03.05.2022



My All Time Favourite Metal Albums

1.Alter Bridge - Blackbird
2.Alter Bridge - One Day Remains
3.Amorphis - Elegy
4.Amorphis - Tuonela
5.Arcturus - La Masquerade Infernale

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Created by jubakala on 08.07.2021



Top 30 Death Metal Albums Of The 00's

1.Kalmah - The Black Waltz
2.Insomnium - Above The Weeping World
3.Kalmah - They Will Return
4.Amon Amarth - With Oden On Our Side
5.Insomnium - Since The Day It All Came Down

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Created by Mrtvozornik on 12.05.2020



My Top 10 Albums of 2009

1.Ghost Brigade - Isolation Songs
2.Sólstafir - Köld
3.Be'lakor - Stone's Reach
4.Insomnium - Across The Dark
5.Soulfallen - Grave New World

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Created by Angaroth on 02.11.2019



Thumbs up: +1
Top 100 (+8) Of 2005-2009

2000-2004 list: http://www.metalstorm.net/users/list.php?list_id=5844
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 2005 to 2009, with at least 1 vote, were included.
The average expected rating (C) was determined by averaging all the Metal Storm ratings from 2005-2009.
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 +8.

C for 2005-2009 = 7.593
m = 20

Number of albums from each year in the list:
2005 - 26
2006 - 20
2007 - 23
2008 - 17
2009 - 23

Ratings are accurate as of 30/10/2023

1.Agalloch - Ashes Against The Grain
2.Opeth - Ghost Reveries
3.Be'lakor - Stone's Reach
4.Gojira - From Mars To Sirius
5.Saturnus - Veronika Decides To Die

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Created by Crys1s on 19.09.2019



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
Top 50 Bands And Favourite Album

1.Agalloch - Ashes Against The Grain
2.Alcest - Écailles De Lune
3.Amorphis - Under The Red Cloud
4.As I Lay Dying - Shadows Are Security
5.Before The Dawn - Deadlight

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Created by tysly on 21.02.2018



Top 100 Albums Since 2000

1.Wintersun - Wintersun
2.Be'lakor - Stone's Reach
3.Ensiferum - Ensiferum
4.Septicflesh - Communion
5.Insomnium - Above The Weeping World

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Created by rasim777 on 16.12.2017



My Top Of 2009

1.Alice In Chains - Black Gives Way To Blue
2.Behemoth - Evangelion
3.Insomnium - Across The Dark
4.Immortal - All Shall Fall
5.Nile - Those Whom The Gods Detest

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Created by Archie 666 on 04.03.2017



Thumbs up: +3
A Brief History Of Taste

My musical journey seems to be radically different to most that I've seen, so here are some defining albums (one per band) for my taste in list form. There are, of course, quite a few here that I don't listen to anymore.

Generally chronological.

1.
2.
3.Muse - Absolution
4.Frank Zappa - Apostrophe (')
5.Maxïmo Park - Our Earthly Pleasures

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Created by Wukk on 24.11.2014



Thumbs up: +9
My Top 50 Albums

My top list by far......
last update : 23/01/2019

1.Be'lakor - Of Breath And Bone
2.Gojira - From Mars To Sirius
3.Amon Amarth - Twilight Of The Thunder God
4.Amorphis - Silent Waters
5.Death - Symbolic

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Created by MetalAce on 09.12.2013



Thumbs up: +1
Top Doom and/or Melodeath Albums I Keep Getting Back To

Lately I have found that I am really, really into melodeath and doom/melancholic metal albums. I enjoy other genres, but after a while I keep reverting back to a small list of masterpieces.

This is a list of these albums. They somehow keep finding their way back into my CD player. As it happens, they (mostly) fit in the following genres:

1.Ghost Brigade - Isolation Songs
2.Katatonia - Dead End Kings
3.Amorphis - The Beginning Of Times
4.Before The Dawn - Deathstar Rising
5.Insomnium - Across The Dark

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Created by Therapy? on 24.10.2012