Ratings go from:

WORSHIP ❤️❤️❤️: Absolute greatness, a mindblowing album.
LOVE ❤️❤️🖤: Amazing release with very few flaws.
LIKE ❤️🖤🖤: Enjoyable but far from perfect.
DISLIKE 💔: Not very good or maybe not fitting my tastes.

I've decided to stop rating albums with a numerical value as I tend to feel uncomfortable with that. This list has a minimalistic, subjective and visceral approach, based purely on sensations and personal tastes. Mainly for personal use and doesn't pretend to be a serious ranking, but emerges from the need to remember which bands and albums I enjoyed and the ones I disliked. I constantly revisit new releases so first impressions may change over time. It usually takes 8-10 spins for me to get completely sure of a rating.

1.Æther Realm - Tarot

2.Abhoria - Abhoria

3.Acid Bath - When The Kite String Pops

4.Agrypnie - Metamorphosis

5.Allegaeon - Fragments Of Form And Function

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Updated 14.4.2024

My rather personal and improvised take on the subject matter. The list is pretty wage, I'll be updating it a lot and the order might vary a little depending on some things, but they're all great and awesome records no matter what.

Limited to metal and rock albums found on Metal Storm. Most of them (at least 90%) are anyway, so doesn't matter. The absent ones are mostly more pop and synth oriented stuff and some really obscure jazz and fusion albums.

1.Marillion - Marbles

2.Anathema - Weather Systems

3.Iron Maiden - Somewhere In Time

4.Moonsorrow - Voimasta Ja Kunniasta

5.Moonsorrow - Kivenkantaja

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People, places, and things have entered my life and have faded away in countless different ways and with varying degrees of consequence. Yet Metal has remained faithfully at my side, eternally ready to provide me with what I need to face a given moment. Metal knows me better than I know myself, and whether a situation involves a fist to a face, a finger to authority, a knife in a back, a razor to a wrist, celebration, creation, destruction, love, hate, life or death, Metal stands ready as a light in the dark.

1.Ensiferum - Ensiferum

2.Ensiferum - Iron

3.Ozzy Osbourne - Ozzmosis

4.Suidakra - Caledonia

5.Amorphis - Queen Of Time

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Stuff that got me hooked in the course of the years, from my very first blurred memories as a toddler to the present day.
Lots of catchy tunes, some cheese, very few flowers.
Songs that had a big impact on me and influenced my taste in music.
Stuff to let it all hang out, songs for campfire sing-alongs and soundtracks to slit your wrists to.
Love at first sight listen.

This is part II of II, covering the years since 2001.

Despite of the list's personal character, suggestions are very welcome.
After all I'm old and I may just have forgotten lots of stuff that did make my day.



Great albums that didn't make it on the list as they can only be enjoyed in their entirety, rather than by picking individual songs:

Thirdmoon - Sworn Enemy: Heaven (Death, 2004)
Defleshed - Reclaim The Beat (Death/Thrash, 2005)
Tyranny - Tides Of Awakening (Funeral Doom, 2005)
Mourning Beloveth - A Murderous Circus (Doom/Death, 2005)
Rotting Christ - Kata Ton Daimona Eaytoy (Black, 2013)

1.Alastis - Unity

2.Diablerie - Seraphyde

3.Dimmu Borgir - Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia

4.Emperor - Prometheus: The Discipline Of Fire & Demise

5.Hollenthon - With Vilest Of Worms To Dwell

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A bunch of albums with a big circle on the cover

1.Karnivool - Sound Awake

2.Skyclad - The Silent Whales Of Lunar Sea

3.Death - Scream Bloody Gore

4.Pentagram - Pentagram

5.Russian Circles - Empros

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1.Meshuggah - Catch Thirtythree

2.Vektor - Black Future

3.Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin IV

4.Opeth - Ghost Reveries

5.Opeth - Blackwater Park

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Some albums are really good. Many of these are good all the way around. And, in many cases, there is a single song that stands out, sometimes it's the last song on the album. This is a list of those songs.

For a more in depth look at this, I've codified each into a given category:
Type 1 - 'The long song at the end.' Often the title track. These have a tendency to be most well written and dynamic pieces on the album.

1.!T.O.O.H.! - Order And Punishment (Řád A Trest)

2.Abigail Williams - Becoming

3.Agalloch - The Mantle

4.Amon Amarth - Versus The World

5.Anekdoten - Vemod

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I know some of the albums are more thrash than death, but I added them anyway, because I guess they could appeal to death metal fans too. Many of the albums are not so well-known, but I prefer them over the classics. If you have any other suggestions of underground albums you think I could enjoy based on my choices, you can suggest me.

1.In Flames - Clayman

2.The Crown - Eternal Death

3.Sororicide - The Entity

4.Pestilence - Malleus Maleficarum

5.Morbid Angel - Altars Of Madness

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These are the Top 20 albums in no particular order that i consider to be the darkest, most powerful, inspirational metal i have heard

1.Secrets Of The Moon - Privilegivm

2.Watain - Sworn To The Dark

3.Dissection - Reinkaos

4.Anaal Nathrakh - Eschaton

5.Behemoth - Thelema 6

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1.Bleed From Within - Fracture

2.Shadow Of Intent - Elegy

3.Kardashev - Liminal Rite

4.Orbit Culture - Nija

5.Imminence - Turn The Light On

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1.Amorphis - Eclipse

2.Rise Against - The Sufferer & The Witness

3.Into Eternity - The Scattering Of Ashes

4.Communic - Waves Of Visual Decay

5.Blood Stain Child - Idolator

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1.Dissection - Reinkaos

2.Wintersun - Wintersun

3.Dissection - Storm Of The Light's Bane

4.Dissection - The Somberlain

5.Blind Stare - Collapsing Dreamworlds

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1.Sepultura - Arise

2.Carcass - Swansong

3.Pantera - Cowboys From Hell

4.Kreator - Enemy Of God

5.Dissection - Reinkaos

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A beginner's guide to genuine blasting. Call it Gothenburg, call it extreme power - whatever, it's always enjoyable.

Now ranked for even more win.

1.Wintersun - Wintersun

2.Children Of Bodom - Hate Crew Deathroll

3.Kalmah - Seventh Swamphony

4.Kalmah - 12 Gauge

5.Blood Stain Child - Idolator

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1.Opeth - Still Life

2.Paradise Lost - Gothic

3.Testament - The Gathering

4.Metallica - Master Of Puppets

5.Megadeth - Rust In Peace

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