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Thumbs up: +2
Favorite Full Length Debuts

To add fuel to the fire of the "they'll never top their first album" rhetoric, here are all my favorite full length debuts in alphabetical order. Full lengths, not EPs.

1.Acid Witch - Witchtanic Hellucinations
2.Aeternus - Beyond The Wandering Moon
3.Agruss - Morok
4.Ahab - The Call Of The Wretched Sea
5.Alcest - Souvenirs D'un Autre Monde

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Created by Ryanm123 on 18.06.2023



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



Through Time And Space. My Favorite Progressive And Post Metal Albums

Progressive metal and post metal might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but for us highly intellectual listeners, it can really tickle our twigs and berries…

1.Mastodon - Blood Mountain
2.Between The Buried And Me - The Parallax II: Future Sequence
3.Opeth - Blackwater Park
4.Tool - Lateralus
5.Mastodon - Crack The Skye

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Created by ThenLividity96 on 04.07.2022



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
The Timeless Ver2

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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Created by Lastempire on 13.02.2022



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



Thumbs up: +3
Essential Metal/ Hard Rock Albums

It's possible that you've glossed over some of these because they're too "popular".
Maybe you've never heard of a few.
Regardless, these are albums that I think everyone should hear at least once if you're a novice metal fan or have been head banging for years.

1.Edge Of Sanity - Crimson
2.Summoning - Stronghold
3.Death - Human
4.Rush - A Farewell To Kings
5.The Angelic Process - Weighing Souls With Sand

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Created by Ryanm123 on 05.11.2020



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: +3
Top 100 Albums Of All Time

Current Top 100 as of September 2019. Having listened to metal for 45 years or so - here are my favourites (favourite track). One album limit per band. Enjoy!

1.Absu - Absu
2.AC/DC - If You Want Blood You've Got It
3.Agalloch - The Mantle
4.Akercocke - Words That Go Unspoken, Deeds That Go Undone
5.Alcest - Écailles De Lune

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Created by dp2412@aol.com on 12.09.2019



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 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: +1
Best Albums Of Ever

Some easy stuff, some different. Mostly prog.
Things after 10 aren't really in any order

1.Edge Of Sanity - Crimson
2.Orphaned Land - Mabool
3.Pain Of Salvation - Remedy Lane
4.Opeth - Still Life
5.Agalloch - The Mantle

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Created by BigNaughtyV on 06.05.2013



Thumbs up: +57
Most Talented Vocalists In Metal

My other lists:
Tasty Stuff Not Currently Featured On MS
So I Heard You Like Opeth...

A concise list of my metalhead man-crushes (now featuring ladies.)

While there is little introduction required for some of these bands and their front(wo)men, there are no words that can accurately describe such jaw-dropping talent anyhow. The albums and youtube links listed are meant to display the full capacity of vocalists' talents, not the bands' most quality or popular tracks - click the links below and behold the prowess.

1.Abstrakt Algebra - Abstrakt Algebra
2.Adagio - Underworld
3.Akercocke - Words That Go Unspoken, Deeds That Go Undone
4.Amorphis - Silent Waters
5.Anaal Nathrakh - Vanitas

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Created by LeKiwi on 03.05.2013



Thumbs up: +1
Album Of The Year (1993-2013) By Vez

The best album of each year (and one close 2nd) from the past 20 years. Some years were much harder than others to choose the best 2 albums.

1.In Vain - Ænigma
2.Summoning - Old Mornings Dawn
3.Dissona - Dissona
4.Ne Obliviscaris - Portal Of I
5.Obscura - Omnivium

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Created by vez on 29.03.2013



Thumbs up: +5
Personal Favorite Albums

1.Tool - Lateralus
2.Porcupine Tree - In Absentia
3.Dream Theater - Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From A Memory
4.Devin Townsend - Ziltoid The Omniscient
5.Agalloch - The Mantle

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Created by Serpentica on 18.06.2012