Only the 9s or 10s / 10 are here. Roughly ordered in time.

1.Agalloch - Marrow Of The Spirit

2.Kingcrow - Phlegethon

3.Crippled Black Phoenix - I, Vigilante

4.Igorrr - Nostril

5.Triptykon - Eparistera Daimones

      View entire list ››

My glorious ranking of the year of our Lord 2017

Top 50 rated 8 and above

Album count: 132
Average rating: 7.1

1.Enslaved - E

2.Mors Principium Est - Embers Of A Dying World

3.Pallbearer - Heartless

4.Myrkur - Mareridt

5.Ulver - The Assassination Of Julius Caesar

      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
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

      View entire list ››

1.Amorphis - Queen Of Time

2.Moonspell - Extinct

3.Ghost - Meliora

4.Ulver - The Assassination Of Julius Caesar

5.Soen - Lotus

      View entire list ››

1.Shade Empire - Poetry Of The Ill-Minded

2.The Dark Element - The Dark Element

3.Threshold - Legends Of The Shires

4.Ulver - The Assassination Of Julius Caesar

5.Vintersorg - Till Fjälls Del II

      View entire list ››

If you were ever following my 2017 list in the beginning of the year and are wondering what happened to that one: well, basically MS deleted it itself. More like half of it. When I was in the mark of 120 albums or so and were updating the stuff, that bug which sometimes happens where some of the albums get cut from the preview happened... And I didn't see it. And I clicked on the submit button... So in the end only the first 50 albums of my original list were now showing and THE REST GOT ALL FUCKING DELETED, so yeah... I got pissed. And deleted the whole thing.

1.

2.AdyS - Pretending

3.Ame To Kanmuri - Nou

4.Ayame - Lumiere Ambree

5.Bathsheba - Servus

      View entire list ››

1.Akercocke - Renaissance In Extremis

2.Leprous - Malina

3.Decapitated - Anticult

4.Archspire - Relentless Mutation

5.Wolves In The Throne Room - Thrice Woven

      View entire list ››

1.Pain Of Salvation - In The Passing Light Of Day

2.Ne Obliviscaris - Urn

3.Voyager - Ghost Mile

4.Persefone - Aathma

5.Ulver - The Assassination Of Julius Caesar

      View entire list ››

Will eventually turn this into an end of year list. Includes both Metal and non Metal stuff.
In no particular order.

1.Process Of Guilt - Black Earth

2.Rosetta - Utopioid

3.Akercocke - Renaissance In Extremis

4.Tchornobog - Tchornobog

5.Schammasch - The Maldoror Chants: Hermaphrodite

      View entire list ››

1.Caligula's Horse - In Contact

2.Pain Of Salvation - In The Passing Light Of Day

3.Sólstafir - Berdreyminn

4.Fen - Winter

5.Vintersorg - Till Fjälls Del II

      View entire list ››

Favourite albums of 2017 (including only those which I would rate 7+)

1.The Contortionist - Clairvoyant

2.Archspire - Relentless Mutation

3.Heretoir - The Circle

4.Converge - The Dusk In Us

5.Ulver - The Assassination Of Julius Caesar

      View entire list ››

1.Power Trip - Nightmare Logic

2.Analepsy - Atrocities From Beyond

3.Kreator - Gods Of Violence

4.Ulver - The Assassination Of Julius Caesar

5.Mors Principium Est - Embers Of A Dying World

      View entire list ››

Top list time! Here we go!

1.La Torture Des Ténèbres - IV - Memoirs Of A Machine Girl

2.Ragana - You Take Nothing

3.Lingua Ignota - All Bitches Die

4.Turia - Dede Kondre

5.Vintersorg - Till Fjälls Del II

      View entire list ››

Getting started on this later than usual

1.Persefone - Aathma

2.Schammasch - The Maldoror Chants: Hermaphrodite

3.Au-Dessus - End Of Chapter

4.Heretoir - The Circle

5.Mastodon - Emperor Of Sand

      View entire list ››

1.Impureza - La Caída De Tonatiuh

2.Aeternam - Ruins Of Empires

3.Nova Collective - The Further Side

4.Persefone - Aathma

5.Witherfall - Nocturnes And Requiems

      View entire list ››