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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When Metal Fusion with Avant-garde, Psychedelic , Prog, Pop, Jazz. Bands outside of regular metal rules. Bands that make something new and different.
An exploration of the metal limits🔥

1.Watchtower - Energetic Disassembly

2.Mr. Bungle - Mr. Bungle

3.Tool - Lateralus

4.Death - Symbolic

5.Dream Theater - Awake

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Just for my favorite
2016.09.16

1.Dream Theater - Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From A Memory

2.Symphony X - The Divine Wings Of Tragedy

3.Pain Of Salvation - Remedy Lane

4.Queensrÿche - Operation: Mindcrime

5.Circus Maximus - The 1st Chapter

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Back when I joined the site in 2011, I did a customary top 100 album list. Every year since then, when I've looked back at it it's become increasingly unrecognisable from my own tastes. Seeing bands I once listened to daily vanish from my playlists, new bands emerge as favourites, and bands even come and go in my reckonings during that time period (Iced Earth, Alcest, even Pain Of Salvation and more certainly peaked in my listening habits around 2011-12 to slowly vanish into obscurity). Now that it's just gone 5 years since I did that list, I thought I might do an updated list just to see how much my tastes have shifted. Whilst compiling the list, I pretty much worked on gut instinct, which was weird as I found myself almost disregarding albums I know I like whilst promoting albums I'm honestly undecided on - it almost seemed to veer away from album quality at times to embracing a subconscious effect the albums have had. Anyway, here it is, plus some honorable mentions that I was surprised missed out.

1.Dream Theater - Images And Words

2.Sylosis - Monolith

3.Sylosis - Edge Of The Earth

4.Agalloch - The Mantle

5.Protest The Hero - Kezia

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My favorite and most enjoyed album's of the decade 2000-2009. Roughly in order, but not exactly.

You can kinda tell from this list that I joined Metalstorm in 2009. I started discovering far more music thanks to this site, hence the number of '09 releases featured. I'm slowly starting to pick back through the top lists of previous years, so I expect more pre-'09 releases will be added to this list.

1.Opeth - Blackwater Park

2.Vektor - Black Future

3.Between The Buried And Me - The Great Misdirect

4.SikTh - Death Of A Dead Day

5.Protest The Hero - Fortress

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My best of 2009

1.Epica - Design Your Universe

2.Trail Of Tears - Bloodstained Endurance

3.Wine From Tears - Through The Eyes Of A Mad

4.Be'lakor - Stone's Reach

5.Novembers Doom - Into Night's Requiem Infernal

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1.Kalisia - Cybion

2.Thy Catafalque - Róka Hasa Rádió

3.Karnivool - Sound Awake

4.Finsterforst - ...Zum Tode Hin

5.While Heaven Wept - Vast Oceans Lachrymose

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Call me easily impressed or what, but 2009 has been an amazing year for metal releases for me. Being well into 2010, I had the chance to let everything sink in and the more memorable albums stand out more while certain release that had initially escaped attention could also be "auditioned". Having listened to over 230 releases, just narrowing down a list of top 30 has already been a challenge, but for an annual list to go over 20 kind of loses its purpose of recommendation, so I just tried even harder. At the same time, I allowed myself to cheat a little bit by using another list of overlooked albums and influential albums. Some that didn't quite make the cut: Bloodbound, Artillery, Delain, Fairyland, Dark Moor, Vomitory, Immortal, Paradise Lost, Amesoeurs, Skyfire, The 11th Hour, Process Of Guilt and Anaal Nathrakh

1.Thy Catafalque - Róka Hasa Rádió

2.Amorphis - Skyforger

3.Samael - Above

4.Sun Of The Blind - Skullreader

5.While Heaven Wept - Vast Oceans Lachrymose

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