Wow... A prize for whoever can guess which genre I was obsessed with in 2007... :

Plus my top three favourite tracks from each release. \m/

Honourable mentions:
Ava Inferi - The Silhouette (Gothic)
Machine Head - The Blackening (Groove)
Rotting Christ - Theogonia (Black)
Gospel Of The Horns - Realm Of The Damned (Black/Thrash)

1.Primordial - To The Nameless Dead

2.Candlemass - King Of The Grey Islands

3.Marduk - Rom 5:12

4.Mayhem - Ordo Ad Chao

5.Immolation - Shadows In The Light

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1.Porcupine Tree - Fear Of A Blank Planet

2.Antimatter - Leaving Eden

3.Moonsorrow - V: Hävitetty

4.Riverside - Rapid Eye Movement

5.Dark Tranquillity - Fiction

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This list came into being after reading RaduP's Getting Into: Negura Bunget article. I have always wondered why people are so in awe of Om and disregard Vîrstele Pămîntului. Since this is not the only band where I tend to prefer another album than what many perceive as the climax of a band. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

1.Abigor - Totschläger (A Saintslayer's Songbook)

2.Agalloch - Pale Folklore

3.Amon Amarth - Versus The World

4.Bethlehem - Bethlehem

5.Blind Guardian - Nightfall In Middle-Earth

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1.Opeth - Still Life

2.Katatonia - Last Fair Deal Gone Down

3.Dissection - Storm Of The Light's Bane

4.In Flames - Whoracle

5.Emperor - In The Nightside Eclipse

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2000-2004 list: http://www.metalstorm.net/users/list.php?list_id=5844
2010-2014 list: http://www.metalstorm.net/users/list.php?list_id=5828
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 2005 to 2009, with at least 1 vote, were included.
The average expected rating (C) was determined by averaging all the Metal Storm ratings from 2005-2009.
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 +8.

C for 2005-2009 = 7.593
m = 20

Number of albums from each year in the list:
2005 - 26
2006 - 20
2007 - 23
2008 - 17
2009 - 23

Ratings are accurate as of 30/10/2023

1.Agalloch - Ashes Against The Grain

2.Opeth - Ghost Reveries

3.Be'lakor - Stone's Reach

4.Gojira - From Mars To Sirius

5.Saturnus - Veronika Decides To Die

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1.Afgrund - Vid Helvetets Grindar

2.After Forever - After Forever

3.Agalloch - The Mantle

4.Agalloch - Ashes Against The Grain

5.Alcest - Souvenirs D'un Autre Monde

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1.Agalloch - Pale Folklore

2.Agalloch - The Mantle

3.Agalloch - Ashes Against The Grain

4.Ahab - The Call Of The Wretched Sea

5.Ahab - The Boats Of The Glen Carrig

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1.Agalloch - The Mantle

2.Iron Maiden - Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son

3.Opeth - Ghost Reveries

4.Metallica - Ride The Lightning

5.Megadeth - Rust In Peace

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1.Judas Priest - British Steel

2.Venom - Welcome To Hell

3.Iron Maiden - The Number Of The Beast

4.Slayer - Show No Mercy

5.Metallica - Ride The Lightning

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1.Dio - Holy Diver

2.Huntress - Spell Eater

3.Iron Maiden - The Number Of The Beast

4.Judas Priest - British Steel

5.Nightmare - Insurrection

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1.Primordial - To The Nameless Dead

2.Thurisaz - Circadian Rhythm

3.Type O Negative - Dead Again

4.Marduk - Rom 5:12

5.Machine Head - The Blackening

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My personal annual choice for top 10 metal albums for each year. 2007 selection, fantastic year with at least 50 quality albums.

1.Epica - The Divine Conspiracy

2.Dark Tranquillity - Fiction

3.Turisas - The Varangian Way

4.Therion - Gothic Kabbalah

5.Sirenia - Nine Destinies And A Downfall

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1.Primordial - To The Nameless Dead

2.Menhir - Hildebrandslied

3.Ophis - Stream Of Misery

4.Tulus - Biography Obscene

5.Ulver - Shadows Of The Sun

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1.Novembre - Wish I Could Dream It Again

2.Primordial - The Gathering Wilderness

3.Metallica - ...And Justice For All

4.Novembre - Arte Novecento

5.Metallica - Ride The Lightning

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1.Dark Tranquillity - Fiction

2.Threshold - Dead Reckoning

3.Phideaux - Doomsday Afternoon

4.Le Grand Guignol - The Great Maddening

5.Thurisaz - Circadian Rhythm

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