My top 50 of the year. Rated 8 & Above

Alcest, Gojira, Les discrets and Blut Aus Nord make the french connection . Allez les bleus!

Black Sabbath announced their reunion, Wintersun reappeared with time Soundgarden too for the last time.

Nearly forgot the world was supposed to end....

Album count: 172
Average rating: 7.05

1.Gojira - L'Enfant Sauvage

2.Alcest - Les Voyages De L'âme

3.Saturnus - Saturn In Ascension

4.Cult Of Fire - Triumvirát

5.Les Discrets - Ariettes Oubliées...

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

2012, was a solid year for metal a lot of good releases in black metal, one of the best Progressive metal albums of the decade and a banger in power metal.


My favorite non metal albums from 2012

1. The Seer
By Swans (Experimental Rock, Post-Rock, Noise Rock)


2. good kid, m.A.A.d city
By Kendrick Lamar (West Coast Hip Hop, Conscious Hip Hop)


3. channel ORANGE
By Frank Ocean (Alternative R&B, Contemporary R&B)


4. 'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!
By Godspeed You! Black (Post-Rock
Drone, Noise Rock)


5. History Will Absolve Me
By Billy woods(Hip Hop, Abstract Hip Hop)


My favorite movie from 2012

1.Galneryus - Angel Of Salvation

2.Ne Obliviscaris - Portal Of I

3.Mgła - With Hearts Toward None

4.Vesperian Sorrow - Stormwinds Of Ages

5.Be'lakor - Of Breath And Bone

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1.Ne Obliviscaris - Portal Of I

2.Antimatter - Fear Of A Unique Identity

3.Sigh - In Somniphobia

4.Enslaved - RIITIIR

5.Katatonia - Dead End Kings

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1.Leprous - Bilateral

2.Ne Obliviscaris - Portal Of I

3.Persefone - Spiritual Migration

4.Threshold - March Of Progress

5.Witherscape - The Northern Sanctuary

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1.Kamelot - Silverthorn

2.Serj Tankian - Harakiri

3.Firewind - Few Against Many

4.Sabaton - Carolus Rex

5.Paradise Lost - Tragic Idol

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1.Lunatic Gods - Vlnobytie

2.Enslaved - RIITIIR

3.Borknagar - Urd

4.In Mourning - The Weight Of Oceans

5.Gojira - L'Enfant Sauvage

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2000-2004 list: http://www.metalstorm.net/users/list.php?list_id=5844
2005-2009 list: http://www.metalstorm.net/users/list.php?list_id=5838
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 2010 to 2014, with at least 1 vote, were included.
The average expected rating (C) was determined by averaging all the Metal Storm ratings from 2010-2014.
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 +2.

C for 2010-2014 = 7.478
m = 20

Number of albums from each year in the list:
2010 - 24
2011 - 28
2012 - 16
2013 - 22
2014 - 12

Ratings are accurate as of 30/10/2023

1.Gallowbraid - Ashen Eidolon

2.Enslaved - Axioma Ethica Odini

3.Aquilus - Griseus

4.Ne Obliviscaris - Portal Of I

5.Be'lakor - Of Breath And Bone

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1.Diablo Swing Orchestra - Pandora's Piñata

2.Periphery - Periphery II: This Time It's Personal

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

4.Ne Obliviscaris - Portal Of I

5.Converge - All We Love We Leave Behind

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2008 might've been my first proper taste of metal, with the acquisition of albums from the likes of Metallica, Megadeth, Black Sabbath and that most grandiose of gateway bands, DragonForce. 2009 might've seen me expanding my palette, with Iron Maiden, Alice In Chains, Avenged Sevenfold, and more entering my world, and Guns N' Roses triumphantly re-entering it. But 2010 was when I delved into more 'intense' stuff with Machine Head, In Flames, and most notably of all, Sylosis, and saw my relationship with metal shift from ever-increasing interest into full-blown love affair. To commemorate this 5-year anniversary, and because I love making lists, I decided to do a retrospective of the best albums and songs that have been released during this time period, and give brief tributes to them. Yay music!

1.Sylosis - Edge Of The Earth

2.Sylosis - Monolith

3.Protest The Hero - Volition

4.Orphaned Land - The Never Ending Way Of ORwarriOR

5.Be'lakor - Of Breath And Bone

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1.The 11th Hour - Lacrima Mortis

2.Epica - Requiem For The Indifferent

3.Kreator - Phantom Antichrist

4.Ensiferum - Unsung Heroes

5.Swallow The Sun - Emerald Forest And The Blackbird

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My favourite full-lengths from 2012, with probably a few not existing on here. Maybe doing this too late, but who cares anyway? Spread the metal, spread the love.

1.Ne Obliviscaris - Portal Of I

2.Thy Art Is Murder - Hate

3.Make Them Suffer - Neverbloom

4.Slice The Cake - The Man With No Face

5.Ravenface - Divided Kingdom

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Progressive rock / metal - what I love the most in my collection. Would love suggestions to add to it.

1.Animals As Leaders - Animals As Leaders

2.Animals As Leaders - The Joy Of Motion

3.Ayreon - The Human Equation

4.Between The Buried And Me - Colors

5.Between The Buried And Me - The Parallax II: Future Sequence

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1.Between The Buried And Me - The Parallax II: Future Sequence

2.Enslaved - RIITIIR

3.Obsidian Kingdom - Mantiis

4.Meshuggah - Koloss

5.Gojira - L'Enfant Sauvage

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1.Between The Buried And Me - The Parallax II: Future Sequence

2.Enslaved - RIITIIR

3.In Mourning - The Weight Of Oceans

4.Obsidian Kingdom - Mantiis - An Agony In Fourteen Bites

5.Moonspell - Alpha Noir / Omega White

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1.Enslaved - RIITIIR

2.Meshuggah - Koloss

3.Gojira - L'Enfant Sauvage

4.In Mourning - The Weight Of Oceans

5.Be'lakor - Of Breath And Bone

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