A list of the ultimate releases in gothic metal. Suggestions are welcome.

1.After Forever - Prison Of Desire

2.Artrosis - Ukryty Wymiar

3.Ava Inferi - Onyx

4.Avrigus - The Secret Kingdom

5.Before The Dawn - Deadlight

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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

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Some stories, themes or concepts are presented not just in one single song but are split in separate tracks that (often) share the same title but are distinguished by a number of the corresponding part of the song series.

However, sometimes these parts are not found together on one album, but are included on different releases of the artist.
They can be found on two (or more) conceptually linked albums (where they function as part of an ensemble together with the other songs), or they can be included on independent releases (where only they alone continue their story).

Therefore, the main purpose of this list is to give an overview that enables the reader to find the missing song pieces - or even to inform that these pieces exist at all.

Please feel free to find and suggest more examples of these "song jigsaw puzzles": one song(concept) in separate parts on different albums.

1.After Forever - Prison Of Desire

2.Agathodaimon - Higher Art Of Rebellion

3.Agathodaimon - Phoenix

4.Alestorm - Sunset On The Golden Age

5.Alestorm - Curse Of The Crystal Coconut

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Comprehensive list of my top 50 metal albums from the previous decade. Though a number of non-metal albums would make my 50, I have excluded them here.

1.Primordial - The Gathering Wilderness

2.Agalloch - The Mantle

3.Negură Bunget - OM

4.Primordial - To The Nameless Dead

5.Green Carnation - Light Of Day, Day Of Darkness

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Updated 14.4.2024

My rather personal and improvised take on the subject matter. The list is pretty wage, I'll be updating it a lot and the order might vary a little depending on some things, but they're all great and awesome records no matter what. If there are some great records missing, that doesn't necessarily mean I consider them bad, maybe I just forgot about them or just haven't listened to them enough to consider them personal favourites.

Limited to metal and rock albums found on Metal Storm. Most of them (at least 90%) are anyway, so doesn't matter. The absent ones are mostly more pop and synth oriented stuff and some really obscure jazz and fusion albums.

1.Marillion - Marbles

2.Anathema - Weather Systems

3.Iron Maiden - Somewhere In Time

4.Moonsorrow - Voimasta Ja Kunniasta

5.Moonsorrow - Kivenkantaja

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OK, let's get this straight right now: THIS IS NOT A LIST OF MY FAVOURITE ALBUMS. Neither is it a 'Best Of' list in any shape, manner or form. And it is also not a list of albums I consider to be important in Metal history in general (though many of them assuredly would be considered so).

What this list is:
I started thinking about why I listen to Metal, and why I listen to certain bands and not others. And how my tastes have changed enormously in the approx 15 years I've been, as one might say, a Metalhead. I thought it would be interesting to look over my collection and pick out those albums I consider to be landmarks in my listening career and write a little bit about why each is significant to me.

1.Anathema - Judgement

2.Black Sabbath - Paranoid

3.Cradle Of Filth - Midian

4.Darkthrone - Transilvanian Hunger

5.Def Leppard - Hysteria

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Album art is a crucial element to what makes a great album become monumental to the music fan. It gives us a vision and a feeling through visual sensations that are linked in the mind to the sounds that embody those ideas. A great album is intertwined into those concrete images and the two aspects make them whole. The following is a list of albums by some of the most influential, well known illustrators in the Arts Community. These artists are key figures in relation to how famous their art has become either by the success of the bands they worked for or the popularity of their own work.

1.Electric Wizard - Electric Wizard

2.Darkthrone - F.O.A.D.

3.Cradle Of Filth - Midian

4.Converge - Jane Doe

5.Blind Guardian - Nightfall In Middle-Earth

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1.Tool - Lateralus

2.Dream Theater - Awake

3.Queensrÿche - Rage For Order

4.The Tea Party - The Edges Of Twilight

5.Arcturus - La Masquerade Infernale

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A little list series where I list my top 20 favorite metal albums every year starting from the year I was born in.

2000 was a pretty solid year especially for progressive metal, Symphonic metal and power metal, also pretty good year for death metal. This also was the year I started to listen to metal music thanks to those iconic linkin park singles (RIP Chester Bennington).

1.Haggard - Awaking The Centuries

2.Koyaanisqatsy - From The Yearning To Burst The Perpetual Circle

3.Nevermore - Dead Heart In A Dead World

4.Pain Of Salvation - The Perfect Element, Part I

5.Iron Maiden - Brave New World

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The purpose of this list is not to find and record which albums are the best but to define Dark Metal. We will try to specify which albums are the definitive examples of Dark Metal. "Dark Metal" is what we would call a "post-subgenre". An album that's not quite Black, not quite Death, sometimes a little Doom or Gothic, other times just Melodic or Symphonic or even "Atmospheric", anything that could fall somewhere in between some or all of these categories, that could probably be a "Dark Metal" album, as long as the tone is somewhat dark.

1.Rotting Christ - Sanctus Diavolos

2.Celtic Frost - Monotheist

3.Nightfall - At Night We Prey

4.Septicflesh - Sumerian Daemons

5.Behemoth - I Loved You At Your Darkest

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1.Theatre Of Tragedy - Velvet Darkness They Fear

2.Cradle Of Filth - Midian

3.Old Man's Child - Ill-Natured Spiritual Invasion

4.Tristania - Beyond The Veil

5.Darzamat - In The Opium Of Black Veil

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Certainly a good year. Northern Europe really killed it this time. The top 5 is without a doubt some of the best albums of all time.

1.Children Of Bodom - Follow The Reaper

2.Nightwish - Wishmaster

3.Cradle Of Filth - Midian

4.Iron Maiden - Brave New World

5.In Flames - Clayman

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From last.fm (27.07.12)

1.Dream Theater - Train Of Thought

2.Machine Head - Unto The Locust

3.Machine Head - The Blackening

4.Death - The Sound Of Perseverance

5.Machine Head - Through The Ashes Of Empires

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1.Cradle Of Filth - V Empire

2.Cradle Of Filth - Dusk... And Her Embrace

3.Cradle Of Filth - Midian

4.Cradle Of Filth - Cruelty And The Beast

5.Cradle Of Filth - Nymphetamine

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Why metal is so fascinating ??

1.Children Of Bodom - Hatebreeder

2.Cradle Of Filth - Midian

3.Hunter - Medeis

4.Swallow The Sun - The Morning Never Came

5.Carpathian Forest - Defending The Throne Of Evil

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