1.Disembowelment - Transcendence Into The Peripheral

2.Weakling - Dead As Dreams

3.Greylotus - Dawnfall

4.John Petrucci - An Evening With John Petrucci & Jordan Rudess [Collaboration]

5.John Petrucci - Suspended Animation

      View entire list ››

1.In Vain - Ænigma

2.Disillusion - Ayam

3.Sculptured - Embodiment

      View entire list ››

This is a list of all the death metal albums I have listened to that I thought were at all worth remembering. Like my other genre lists, this is just a record of my own listening experience that I use for personal organization, not a definitive account of the best or all of the death metal out there; there will probably be albums or bands that are not death metal in the strictest sense. You'll find some OSDM, melodeath, tech death, death-doom, maybe a bit of deathcore, I don't know. Maybe some non-death metal albums by death metal bands that I put in here just because.

1.Death - The Sound Of Perseverance

2.Death - Symbolic

3.At The Gates - With Fear I Kiss The Burning Darkness

4.At The Gates - Slaughter Of The Soul

5.Amon Amarth - With Oden On Our Side

      View entire list ››

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

      View entire list ››

1.Shylmagoghnar - Emergence

2.Galneryus - Angel Of Salvation

3.Blindead - Affliction XXIX II MXMVI

4.Batushka - Litourgiya

5.Leprous - Bilateral

      View entire list ››

1.Mors Principium Est - Embers Of A Dying World

2.Allegaeon - Elements Of The Infinite

3.In Vain - Ænigma

4.Obscura - Omnivium

5.Wolfheart - Shadow World

      View entire list ››

This list is meant to be an extensive, but by no means exhaustive, collection of the greatest (modern) metal albums and eps. Running the gamut from avant-garde to trve norweigan black metal. *As someone who is young in age, my tastes tend to revolve around the period of the 80s to the present.* Although certain metal albums from before will certainly be featured, the period of the 60s-70s will be under-represented. I refer you to this excellent list to gain a better appreciation for some of the best metal from that period: https://rateyourmusic.com/list/freis/martin_popoffs_the_top_500_heavy_metal_albums_of_all_time/

All bands will be limited to one album unless they had a significant change in style (e.g. Amorphis and Katatonia). It goes without saying that as this is my personal list the genres that are included more than others expresses my bias and I am open to listening to any suggestions on additional albums to add. This list will be separated by letters as including them all in one list would make it overly long. Just to give you an idea: my personal collection is over 10,000 songs, most of them in the metal genre.

Most of the bands featured here have other great albums so if you like the album featured here be sure to peruse their other works. Artists whose names start with 'The' or A/An' will be included in whatever letter follows, e.g. ' A Forest of Stars' will be included in F. This list(s) contains the most well-known bands e.g. Opeth, to the most obscure e.g. Vanguard x Mortem.

The list(s) will be updated periodically. If you have trouble locating an album on this list or think I missed a particular album feel free to contact me, and share this list far and wide so that more people can benefit from the incredible array of musical experience metal has to offer.

You can find me on all of these other websites: https://my.bio/friedrich-ux

(Broke 10k songs!, onward to 20k...): https://imgur.com/a/PvgLCy3

1.I - Between Two Worlds

2.I Built The Sky - The Sky Is Not The Limit

3.I Shalt Become - Poison

4.Iapetus - The Body Cosmic

5.IATT - Nomenclature

      View entire list ››

Input:
10 years
20 decade lists
749 bands
973 albums

Output:
200 top albums from 2010-2019


FAQ

How are the points calculated?
Simple math.

Ranked top lists:
1st place = 150 pts.
2nd place = 149 pts.
...
100th place = 51 pts.
...
150th place = 1 pt.

Alphabetically sorted lists:
Each place = 100 pts.

Why just a Top 200?
Because 200 list entries are more than enough.

Is it by pure coincidence that the first four positions are occupied by bands with the initial letter "E"?
Yes.

Will your list be updated on a regular basis?
No.

Why is my favorite power metal abum not featured?
I don't know. Let's ask the list owners:

AgentOrange94 - Top 10 Albums Of The 10's
andreosokin - Top 25 Albums Of 2010s
ChapuLviz - Top 100 Grind List (2010-2019)
Chobo_jokeR - JokeR's Top Hunnid From 2010 - 2019
Desha - Me(tal) In The 2010s
Draugen - Top 100 of the 2010s
embracing - My Completely Subjective Top 10 Of The 2010-2019 Decade
Enemy of Reality (RIP) - 100 Album Guide To The Decade 2010-19
FullyOttoMatic - 50 Favorite Metal (And Metal-Adjacent) Albums Of The 2010's
Iron Men - A Decade Of Aggression
Kuroboshi - Top 100 Albums Of 2010-2019
Maco - 2010-2019 Top 100
musclassia - 150 Albums To Become An Adult To: 2010-2019
mz - Best Of 2010-2020 By Mz
Neachy - Neachy's Select: Top 100 Albums Of The 10s
nikarg - Old Nick's Top-101 Of The '10s
nonZero - My Top 50 Albums of the 2010s (deleted)
RaduP - You Know It's Technically 2011-2020, Right?
VIG (RIP) - VIG's Top 100 Of The 2010s
Zap - I Too Listened To Some Metal In The 2010's

1.Enslaved - Axioma Ethica Odini

2.Esoteric - Paragon Of Dissonance

3.Emptiness - Nothing But The Whole

4.Esoteric - A Pyrrhic Existence

5.Tribulation - The Formulas Of Death

      View entire list ››

Another 2010-2019 list! I guess a lot of people will hate on me for #2, but I love that album. Enjoy!

1.Møl - Jord

2.The Haunted - Unseen

3.The Moth Gatherer - A Bright Celestial Light

4.Vola - Applause Of A Distant Crowd

5.Liberteer - Better To Die On Your Feet Than Live On Your Knees

      View entire list ››

To explain the title, there is no year 0, regardless of what Ghost may tell you. Thus, the first decade was years 1-10, instead of 0-9. So then it would be 11-20, and so on. But I know that would imply that Paranoid is a 60s album, which we cannot have.

So now that all the cool kids are doing it, here is my top 100 albums of the "decade", most of it might be a bit too mainsteam, most of it you'll find on others' lists, and so on. Restricted to one album per artist/band (including collabs), ordered alphabetically.

1.Abyssal - Antikatastaseis

2.Agalloch - The Serpent & The Sphere

3.Akhlys - The Dreaming I

4.Alcest - Écailles De Lune

5.Altar Of Plagues - Teethed Glory & Injury

      View entire list ››

I began this decade in my final year of high school, in the early phases of my metal journey (Mastodon, Machine Head, Dream Theater, Pantera and Avenged Sevenfold were still recent discoveries). One Masters degree and one PhD later, I'm now a tax-paying Londonian, and have ploughed through what must be comfortably over 2000 new releases during the previous ten years. To commemorate the end of a turbulent decade, I've put together a list of the albums that have stuck with me throughout this decade - I wouldn't consider this to be a 'best albums' list, as there have been some truly ingenious works released in more avant-garde territories, but ultimately these are the albums that have ended up dominating my listening habits, or otherwise making a sufficient impression to make this list.

1.Sylosis - Monolith

2.Sylosis - Edge Of The Earth

3.Amorphis - Under The Red Cloud

4.Be'lakor - Of Breath And Bone

5.Cult Of Luna - Vertikal

      View entire list ››

1.In Vain - Ænigma

2.SubRosa - More Constant Than The Gods

3.Cult Of Luna - Vertikal

4.Mael Mórdha - Damned When Dead

5.Obscure Sphinx - Void Mother

      View entire list ››

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.Deafheaven - Sunbather

2.Bring Me The Horizon - Sempiternal

3.Gorguts - Colored Sands

4.Ghost - Infestissumam

5.The Dillinger Escape Plan - One Of Us Is The Killer

      View entire list ››

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

      View entire list ››