1.Insomnium - Winter's Gate

2.Kauan - Sorni Nai

3.Enslaved - Axioma Ethica Odini

4.Wilderun - Veil Of Imagination

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

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1.Kauan - Sorni Nai

2.Wilderun - Sleep At The Edge Of The Earth

3.Steven Wilson - Hand. Cannot. Erase.

4.Amorphis - Under The Red Cloud

5.Dødheimsgard - A Umbra Omega

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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
2010-2014 list: http://www.metalstorm.net/users/list.php?list_id=5828

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 grows 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 2015 to 2019, with at least 1 vote, were included.
The average expected rating (C) was determined by averaging all the Metal Storm ratings from 2015-2019.
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 2015-2019 = 7.422
m = 20

Number of albums from each year in the list:
2015 - 31
2016 - 24
2017 - 18
2018 - 12
2019 - 17

Ratings are accurate as of 30/10/2023

1.Mgła - Exercises In Futility

2.Insomnium - Winter's Gate

3.Amorphis - Under The Red Cloud

4.Vektor - Terminal Redux

5.Trees Of Eternity - Hour Of The Nightingale

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1.Anathema - We're Here Because We're Here

2.Leprous - Coal

3.Lingua Mortis Orchestra - LMO [Collaboration]

4.Devin Townsend - Empath

5.Steven Wilson - Grace For Drowning

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1.TesseracT - Polaris

2.Caligula's Horse - Bloom

3.Arcturus - Arcturian

4.Steven Wilson - Hand. Cannot. Erase.

5.Leprous - The Congregation

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2015 was a very good year in metal and rock stuff for me.

1.Tribulation - The Children Of The Night

2.Ghost - Meliora

3.Year Of The Goat - The Unspeakable

4.Baroness - Purple

5.Motörhead - Bad Magic

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1.Leprous - The Congregation

2.TesseracT - Polaris

3.Heart Of A Coward - Deliverance

4.Arcane - Known / Learned

5.Swallow The Sun - Songs From The North I, II & III

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1.Chelsea Wolfe - Abyss

2.Deafheaven - New Bermuda

3.Mutoid Man - Bleeder

4.Mgła - Exercises In Futility

5.Draconian - Sovran

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overall it was a great yer , i heard so many good albums this year so here i put the list of my favorites

1.Chelsea Wolfe - Abyss

2.Dave Gahan & Soulsavers - Angels And Ghosts

3.Puscifer - Money Shot

4.Steven Wilson - Hand. Cannot. Erase.

5.Paul Minesweeper - Northreach

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Order is sorted by album repeat.

1.Leprous - The Congregation

2.Enslaved - In Times

3.Rivers Of Nihil - Monarchy

4.Melechesh - Enki

5.Northlane - Node

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1.Steven Wilson - Hand. Cannot. Erase.

2.Mgła - Exercises In Futility

3.Swallow The Sun - Songs From The North I, II & III

4.Shape Of Despair - Monotony Fields

5.Cattle Decapitation - The Anthropocene Extinction

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1.Amorphis - Under The Red Cloud

2.Moonspell - Extinct

3.Swallow The Sun - Songs From The North I, II & III

4.Angra - Secret Garden

5.The Gentle Storm - The Diary

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This are my favorite albums of the year.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

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1.Steven Wilson - Hand. Cannot. Erase.

2.Senegal Grindcore Mafia - Hay Daño En Casa

3.Leviathan - Scar Sighted

4.Ahab - The Boats Of The Glen Carrig

5.A Forest Of Stars - Beware The Sword You Cannot See

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I will update soon.

1.Steven Wilson - Hand. Cannot. Erase.

2.Subterranean Masquerade - The Great Bazaar

3.Deafheaven - New Bermuda

4.Leprous - The Congregation

5.Native Construct - Quiet World

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