1.System Of A Down - Mezmerize

2.Nevermore - This Godless Endeavor

3.Firewind - Allegiance

4.Nightwish - Dark Passion Play

5.Paradise Lost - In Requiem

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

Honourable mentions:
Belphegor - Pestapokalypse VI (Black/Death)
Moonspell - Memorial (Gothic)
Iron Maiden - A Matter Of Life And Death (NWOBHM)
Ahab - The Call Of The Wretched Sea (Doom)
Panzerchrist - Battalion Beast (Black/Death)
Skinless - Trample The Weak, Hurdle The Dead (Death)

1.Celtic Frost - Monotheist

2.Solitude Aeturnus - Alone

3.Cannibal Corpse - Kill

4.Satyricon - Now, Diabolical

5.Deicide - The Stench Of Redemption

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These are my favorite metal albums in no particular order.

1.Gojira - From Mars To Sirius

2.Gojira - The Way Of All Flesh

3.Cattle Decapitation - Monolith Of Inhumanity

4.Agalloch - Ashes Against The Grain

5.Amon Amarth - With Oden On Our Side

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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.Amon Amarth - Deceiver Of The Gods

2.Amon Amarth - Twilight Of The Thunder God

3.Amon Amarth - With Oden On Our Side

4.Amon Amarth - Versus The World

5.Amon Amarth - Jomsviking

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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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Only Awesome Albums (OAA)

1.Metallica - ...And Justice For All

2.Machine Head - The Blackening

3.Omnium Gatherum - The Redshift

4.Viikate - Marraskuun Lauluja I

5.Viikate - Marraskuun Lauluja II

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1.Avenged Sevenfold - City Of Evil

2.DevilDriver - The Fury Of Our Maker's Hand

3.Five Finger Death Punch - War Is The Answer

4.Iced Earth - Something Wicked This Way Comes

5.Killswitch Engage - The End Of Heartache

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Top albums in no particular order. The first decade of the new millenium turned out to be a good one for Viking music! I realize Nightwish might be a controversial entry, but their (pre-Annette) music can invoke the inner Norseman in me!

1.Amon Amarth - With Oden On Our Side

2.Ensiferum - Victory Songs

3.Falkenbach - Tiurida

4.Finntroll - Jaktens Tid

5.Finntroll - Ur Jordens Djup

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1.Mercenary - The Hours That Remain

2.Amorphis - Eclipse

3.Keep Of Kalessin - Armada

4.Communic - Waves Of Visual Decay

5.Amon Amarth - With Oden On Our Side

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Metal / Rock / Instrumental / Etc...

1.Fanisk - Noontide

2.Be'lakor - Stone's Reach

3.Amon Amarth - With Oden On Our Side

4.

5.Anathema - A Moment In Time

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My favorite albums from 2000-2009. Just my opinion.

1.Opeth - Ghost Reveries

2.Vital Remains - Icons Of Evil

3.Bloodbath - Nightmares Made Flesh

4.Behemoth - Demigod

5.Katatonia - The Great Cold Distance

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1.Iron Maiden - Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son

2.Iron Maiden - The Number Of The Beast

3.Agalloch - The Mantle

4.Judas Priest - Painkiller

5.Therion - Lemuria

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Here's my 2006 list of top albums.

1.Amon Amarth - With Oden On Our Side

2.Communic - Waves Of Visual Decay

3.Draconian - The Burning Halo

4.Iron Maiden - A Matter Of Life And Death

5.Eternal Tears Of Sorrow - Before The Bleeding Sun

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sequences are mixed

1.Katatonia - Brave Murder Day

2.Agalloch - The Mantle

3.Trivium - Ascendancy

4.Amon Amarth - With Oden On Our Side

5.Opeth - Damnation

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