1.Steven Wilson - The Raven That Refused To Sing (And Other Stories)

2.Riverside - Shrine Of New Generation Slaves

3.Caladan Brood - Echoes Of Battle

4.Omnium Gatherum - Beyond

5.Haken - The Mountain

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I haven't used this website seriously in a long time, but I think it would be fun to catalog my favorite Metal releases from the past decade.

1.Devin Townsend - Empath

2.Darkspace - Dark Space III I

3.Kayo Dot - Hubardo

4.Bell Witch - Mirror Reaper

5.Deftones - Koi No Yokan

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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

      View entire list ››

1.Orphaned Land - All Is One

2.Steven Wilson - The Raven That Refused To Sing (And Other Stories)

3.Ghost B.C. - Infestissumam

4.Trivium - Vengeance Falls

5.Avenged Sevenfold - Hail To The King

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1.Pomegranate Tiger - Entities

2.Steven Wilson - The Raven That Refused To Sing (And Other Stories)

3.Orphaned Land - All Is One

4.Riverside - Shrine Of New Generation Slaves

5.Haken - The Mountain

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My favorites of 2013..

Oh, and it's a WIP btw.. I have a lot of catching up to do.. Been sleeping for six months I guess.

1.Persefone - Spiritual Migration

2.Haken - The Mountain

3.Ayreon - The Theory Of Everything

4.Leprous - Coal

5.Steven Wilson - The Raven That Refused To Sing (And Other Stories)

      View entire list ››

---10.04.2014.
Many moons later (twelve of them, in fact), I'm still disappointed with 2013.

It wasn't as terrible as it looked back nearly a year ago (previous update was March 10, 2013 (coincidence, btw)), but not a single thing to really blow me away or make me feel I found something fresh.

So it goes.

1.Satan - Life Sentence

2.Avatarium - Avatarium

3.Caladan Brood - Echoes Of Battle

4.Coprolalia Intoxication - Level 7

5.Death Dealer - War Master

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Personal best picks...

1.Jolly - The Audio Guide To Happiness (Part 2)

2.TesseracT - Altered State

3.Alter Bridge - Fortress

4.The Ocean - Pelagial

5.Haken - The Mountain

      View entire list ››

1.Omnium Gatherum - Beyond

2.Soilwork - The Living Infinite

3.Steven Wilson - The Raven That Refused To Sing (And Other Stories)

4.Eternal Tears Of Sorrow - Saivon Lapsi

5.Mourning Beloveth - Formless

      View entire list ››

1.Leprous - Coal

2.Lingua Mortis Orchestra - LMO

3.Orphaned Land - All Is One

4.Stratovarius - Nemesis

5.Persefone - Spiritual Migration

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My top 50 of 2013. Rated 8 and above.

The year we said hello again to Carcass and farewell to Jeff Hanneman

Album count: 150
Average rating: 6.97

1.Summoning - Old Mornings Dawn

2.Carcass - Surgical Steel

3.Leprous - Coal

4.Oranssi Pazuzu - Valonielu

5.Arx Atrata - Oblivion

      View entire list ››

Order is sorted by album repeat.

1.Shade Empire - Omega Arcane

2.Soilwork - The Living Infinite

3.The Safety Fire - Mouth Of Swords

4.Protest The Hero - Volition

5.Battlecross - War Of Will

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1.King Crimson - In The Court Of The Crimson King

2.Jethro Tull - Aqualung

3.Arena - Immortal?

4.Faith No More - Angel Dust

5.King Crimson - Red

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My favorite albums on alphabetical order.

1.Agalloch - Ashes Against The Grain

2.Agalloch - The Mantle

3.Anaal Nathrakh - In The Constellation Of The Black Widow

4.Bathory - Blood Fire Death

5.Bathory - Under The Sign Of The Black Mark

      View entire list ››

By Year.

1.Empyrium - Weiland

2.Anathema - A Natural Disaster

3.Evergrey - The Inner Circle

4.Opeth - Ghost Reveries

5.Katatonia - The Great Cold Distance

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