My top prog albums. The list will be regularly updated.

1.Opeth - Ghost Reveries

2.Opeth - Blackwater Park

3.Dream Theater - Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From A Memory

4.An Abstract Illusion - Woe

5.Gojira - Magma

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Almost all album titles fall in one of two categories: The album shares the title with one of its songs (the title track) or, alternatively, the album title is independent from the songs (no title track).

However, there are examples of songs that have a central link to the album title without sharing the same name. In these cases, certain lyrics from the song were chosen as the album title.

This (alphabetical) list shows the names of these “hidden title tracks” and the central lyrics that gave the name to the corresponding album.

Please feel free to suggest more of your favorite metal/hard rock examples of these “hidden title tracks”.

1.40 Watt Sun - Wider Than The Sky

2.A Forest Of Stars - A Shadowplay For Yesterdays

3.Acid Bath - When The Kite String Pops

4.Agalloch - The Mantle

5.Agalloch - Ashes Against The Grain

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1.Insomnium - Winter's Gate

2.Moonsorrow - Jumalten Aika

3.Witherscape - The Northern Sanctuary

4.Ihsahn - Arktis.

5.Alcest - Kodama

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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.Textures - Phenotype

2.Twelve Foot Ninja - Outlier

3.Ihsahn - Arktis.

4.Panic! at the Disco - Death of a Bachelor

5.Madder Mortem - Red In Tooth And Claw

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1.Leprous - Live At Rockefeller Music Hall

2.Meshuggah - The Violent Sleep Of Reason

3.Dark Tranquillity - Atoma

4.Textures - Phenotype

5.Haken - Affinity

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Better never than late, right? Order is not particular.

1.Vektor - Terminal Redux

2.Dark Tranquillity - Atoma

3.Insomnium - Winter's Gate

4.Uada - Devoid Of Light

5.Be'lakor - Vessels

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A lot of great albums from different genres this year. Ereb Altor released the best cover album of all time.

1.Borknagar - Winter Thrice

2.Netherbird - The Grander Voyage

3.Equilibrium - Armageddon

4.Twilight Force - Heroes Of Mighty Magic

5.Katatonia - The Fall Of Hearts

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Here are my favourite releases (8+ ratings) from 2016! This year, my preferences are ranked in order of how I'd rate them. I didn't manage to listen to an exceptional amount of new music this year, so please feel free to recommend and share some releases I may not have gotten to.

Impression about 2016: A terrible year for prog and alternative metal, if I had to be honest, mostly because my expectations were sky-high for releases from Headspace, Haken, Third Ion and Dissona. On the other hand, Vektor revitalized the stagnant genre of thrash with an incredible release. It was a decent year for post-metal or post-influenced things (Départe, Moanaa, Bossk, Blindead), but it was tough to top some of the gems from 2015 (mainly, Sunpocrisy's Eyegasm, Hallelujah! album). Finally, the combination of krautrock with metal in 2016 tantalized me frequently earlier in the year (exemplified by the music of ZÖN and Vaults of Zin).

1.Départe - Failure, Subside

2.40 Watt Sun - Wider Than The Sky

3.Gorguts - Pleiades' Dust

4.Aluk Todolo - Voix

5.Vektor - Terminal Redux

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Some excellent records this year, it was sometimes really difficult to choose in what order I wanted to rank them.

I based this list on the scores I would give each album. When it's a tie between 2 or more albums, I usually pick the one I listened to the most during the year.

NOTE: If I at some point listen to an album that I think deserves to be in this top 20. I'll edit it into the list.

1.Iron Mask - Diabolica

2.Heavenwood - The Tarot Of The Bohemians: Part 1

3.Fractal Cypher - The Human Paradox

4.Stone Magnum - Holy Blessings To None

5.In The Woods... - Pure

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Scoring copied from Sword_Chant:

✮✮✮✮✮ - Incredible, possibly Album Of The Year
✮✮✮✮½ - Awesome
✮✮✮✮ - Solid release
✮✮✮½ - Good release
✮✮✮ - Not bad
✮✮ - Disappointing
✮ - Bad / very bad

1.Be'lakor - Vessels

2.Moonsorrow - Jumalten Aika

3.Borknagar - Winter Thrice

4.Ihsahn - Arktis.

5.Fleshgod Apocalypse - King

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Most wanted albums to get right here and now. Ranked from Most to More liked +++.

1.Thy Catafalque - Meta

2.Cult Of Luna - Mariner [Collaboration]

3.Moonsorrow - Jumalten Aika

4.Oranssi Pazuzu - Värähtelijä

5.Crippled Black Phoenix - Bronze

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1.Cult Of Luna - Mariner [Collaboration]

2.Insomnium - Winter's Gate

3.Trees Of Eternity - Hour Of The Nightingale

4.Ihsahn - Arktis.

5.Haken - Affinity

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Hi here is my list from this year hope you like and comment it.
❤ : Awesome Album
+ : Need to be listen
- : Don't like it
O : Coming Soon (Not listen yet =))
$ : Current listening

Notable Song (Try to limit at 2)
Useful Link (for bands not yet on MS)
Don't forget it's just my opinion.

1.Witherscape - The Northern Sanctuary

2.Be'lakor - Vessels

3.Hypno5e - Shores Of The Abstract Line

4.In Mourning - Afterglow

5.Haken - Affinity

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All subgenres of progressive music.

1.Obscura - Akróasis

2.Josh Middleton Project - Hollowed-Out Planetoid

3.Textures - Phenotype

4.Ihsahn - Arktis.

5.Haken - Affinity

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