Doom Metal is one of those genres that I'd never really taken much notice of until I started working my way through the MS top 200 albums. I'd listened to Black Sabbath when a teacher at my school gave me his copy of Paranoid to borrow around 2007/08, which I highly enjoyed! Since then, Over the last few years, I've discovered so many great doom metal bands such as Slumber, Doom:VS, October Tide and Swallow the Sun.

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 doom 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.Black Sabbath - Paranoid

2.Black Sabbath - Master Of Reality

3.Slumber - Fallout

4.Doom:VS - Dead Words Speak

5.October Tide - Rain Without End

      View entire list ››

Top 50 of 2008. Albums I rated 8 and above.

Album count: 210
Average rating: 6.84

1.Septicflesh - Communion

2.Opeth - Watershed

3.Amon Amarth - Twilight Of The Thunder God

4.Ihsahn - AngL

5.Dornenreich - In Luft Geritzt

      View entire list ››

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

2008 was a really strong one for metal, Progressive metal had a very strong one, power metal at it's peak, strong output of Doom metal and 2000s Alternative going strong, 08 was one of the best.

1.Ayreon - 01011001

2.Septicflesh - Communion

3.Seventh Wonder - Mercy Falls

4.Equilibrium - Sagas

5.Opeth - Watershed

      View entire list ››

- From my collection & wishlist (last update)

- One album per band

- Bands & Albums I consider have a strong Doom flavour

- Ranked from best to worst imo

- Everything I know of is there

Let's the Doom begins

1.Candlemass - Epicus Doomicus Metallicus

2.Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath

3.Empyrium - Songs Of Moors And Misty Fields

4.My Dying Bride - The Angel And The Dark River

5.Shape Of Despair - Monotony Fields

      View entire list ››

1.Esoteric - The Maniacal Vale

2.Darkspace - Dark Space III

3.Equilibrium - Sagas

4.Septicflesh - Communion

5.Ayreon - 01011001

      View entire list ››

1.Uaral - Sounds Of Pain

2.Virgin Black - Requiem - Fortissimo

3.My Dying Bride - Songs Of Darkness, Words Of Light

4.Doom:VS - Dead Words Speak

5.Myriads - Introspection

      View entire list ››

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

      View entire list ››

If you are into doom, then you are already rotten. It's like drugs-it destroys you yet you want more. You reek of hatred and death. Your life is fucked up and there is no escape for you.
Here are some albums to help you along the dive into the abyss.

1.Colosseum - Chapter 1: Delirium

2.Shape Of Despair - Monotony Fields

3.Comatose Vigil - Fuimus, Non Sumus...

4.Swallow The Sun - Songs From The North I, II & III

5.Shape Of Despair - Written In My Scars

      View entire list ››

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

      View entire list ››

An unordered list of records on the dark side.
Solitude, despair, sadness, melancholy. Just a bit of rage.
Cooked to introduce you to the dark side of a once sunny day,

1.Mouth Of The Architect - The Ties That Blind

2.Swallow The Sun - The Morning Never Came

3.The Sins Of Thy Beloved - Lake Of Sorrow

4.Potentiam - Bálsýn

5.Doom:VS - Dead Words Speak

      View entire list ››

1.In Flames - Reroute To Remain

2.Katatonia - Viva Emptiness

3.Crematory - Pray

4.The Project Hate MCMXCIX - Armageddon March Eternal (Symphonies Of Slit Wrists)

5.Mercenary - The Hours That Remain

      View entire list ››

This is a list of the doom albums I have listened to.

The list starts with a handful of what I'd call my favorite doom albums. The first few of those count among my favorite of all time, with Paranoid, Watching From A Distance, and Черно at present holding a perfect 10. This list does have a cutoff point, stretching from those 10s through some high 9s and all the way down to middling 6s. If I rated it below a 6, it does not appear on this list, and that's because I disliked the album.

Given how much music I listen to and how many lists I have going concurrently, I don't update this as I go; I let albums accumulate for a while and then do periodic overhauls, so the list won't change for months at a time.

Last updated October 17, 2021.

1.Black Sabbath - Paranoid

2.Warning - Watching From A Distance

3.Kypck - Черно

4.Woods Of Ypres - Woods 5: Grey Skies & Electric Light

5.Heaven And Hell - The Devil You Know

      View entire list ››

Well, here it is. I was a bit reluctant over listing my favorite funeral doom metal albums but here they are. Feel free to leave a suggestion or two. It's highly appreciated.

Also the albums are sorted by the date of release.

1.Fungoid Stream - Prehuman Shapes

2.Wolvserpent - Perigaea Antahkarana

3.Elysian Blaze - Blood Geometry

4.Faal - The Clouds Are Burning

5.Night Of Suicide - Desire

      View entire list ››

A mix of progressive, doom and the darker side of metal.

1.Ihsahn - Eremita

2.Jeff Loomis - Plains Of Oblivion

3.Virgin Black - Sombre Romantic

4.Virgin Black - Elegant...And Dying

5.Akercocke - Words That Go Unspoken, Deeds That Go Undone

      View entire list ››

1.Draconian - Arcane Rain Fell

2.My Dying Bride - Turn Loose The Swans

3.Doom:VS - Dead Words Speak

4.Empyrium - Songs Of Moors And Misty Fields

5.Agalloch - The Mantle

      View entire list ››