Am I doing this right?

1.Caladan Brood - Echoes Of Battle

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As usual, interesting albums of the year to be ranked and reviewed.

This time I'll make it easier for myself, and group weaker releases by genre as soon as I rate them. Expect only 5-3,5/5 to be ranked in order of preference, and possibly a 3,25 category if it's needed.

1.Torres - Torres

2.SubRosa - More Constant Than The Gods

3.Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Push The Sky Away

4.Procession - To Reap Heavens Apart

5.Obscure Sphinx - Void Mother

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1.Steven Wilson - The Raven That Refused To Sing (And Other Stories)

2.Monolithe - Monolithe IV

3.Nails - Abandon All Life

4.Totem Skin - Still Waters Run Deep

5.Ataraxie - L'Être Et La Nausée

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Pretty self explanatory. Although I usually forget to keep these kinds of lists up all year so we'll see if I keep this one up all year or forget about this one too after a couple months...

*This list is not in order of preference, just the order in which I add the albums so as to make it easy to identify the most recently added albums.

1.Abyssal - Novit Enim Dominus Qui Sunt Eius

2.Amiensus - Restoration

3.Lascaille's Shroud - Interval 01: Parallel Infinities - The Inner Universe

4.Katalepsy - Autopsychosis

5.Octopus - Into The Void Of Fear

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As is the case with my other lists, this is for my own organizational purposes and is designed purely to help me keep track of all the many black metal bands and albums that I enjoy, since I can't keep all of this information in my head. It has no other benefit whatsoever and will likely result in tantrums should anyone else see it. I'm aware that I haven't listened to every black metal album that I should have. I only went down to the 6s on this list, so it's possible that I have listened to your favorite black metal album that you desperately need to suggest and I thought it was terrible. There are a lot of heinously incompetent black metal bands out there.

On the off-chance that you've found this and actually care about what I think (you shouldn't), be advised that my favorites come first. Some are favorites in the general sense; some are favorites within black metal. The first few of those are in some order and not so much after that.

Because this is for my own purposes and not intended to be a definitive list of pure black metal, there are some black metal-adjacent bands, or albums by black metal bands that may not themselves be black metal. That's why you'll find so much Sigh clogging up the top of the list. I prefer to keep whole discographies together on one list. I used to include Primordial, Forefather, and other such bands, but a while back I created a list for folk and I decided that those artists would fit better there.

I update these lists very infrequently. This was last updated December 7, 2022.

1.Sigh - Imaginary Sonicscape

2.Sigh - Graveward

3.Dissection - Storm Of The Light's Bane

4.Sigh - Heir To Despair

5.The Meads Of Asphodel - The Murder Of Jesus The Jew

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Some of the best metal albums ever released have been by bands that only had one full length release.
List is (and probably always will be) a constant work-in-progress.
If you know of a "one-and-done" metal band/album that isn't on my list, feel free to recommend

1.Weakling - Dead As Dreams

2.Caladan Brood - Echoes Of Battle

3.Lykathea Aflame - Elvenefris

4.Timeghoul - 1992-1994 Discography

5.Thorns - Thorns

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Compiled for personal recollection as much as it is for public scrutiny, I hope this list leads you somewhere you want to go. No Order whatsoever. I'm using ♦ to rate the albums, there's really no scale, the more ♦ there is, the better I like the album.

1.The Ruins Of Beverast - Blood Vaults (The Blazing Gospel Of Heinrich Kramer)

2.Gris - À L'Âme Enflammée, L'Äme Constellée...

3.Witherscape - The Inheritance

4.Wormlust - The Feral Wisdom

5.Ulcerate - Vermis

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1.Iron Maiden - Powerslave

2.Judas Priest - Painkiller

3.Summoning - Minas Morgul

4.Windir - 1184

5.Moonsorrow - Voimasta Ja Kunniasta

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The MS top 200 is supposed to represent the absolute peak of metal music, the timeless classics. I have been listening to metal for about 6 years now and would consider myself fairly knowledgeable about the genre. Yet, I have barely heard half of what the top 200 has to offer. I am now on a quest to listen to it all and give an honest opinion on what I thought of it.
This list will show every album of the top 200 and if I've listened to it whether it's an all-time favourite of mine (+++), I really like it (++), I like it (+), it’s good (*), it’s not great (-), I really dislike it (--) or I hate it from the bottom of my heart (---). The same symbols will be used to characterize what I think my opinion of the albums I haven't heard yet will be, based on my knowledge of the bands and of the genre they play. (?) signifies that I have no idea of whether I'll enjoy it or not and (/) means that my opinion of the album is probably obsolete, and I need to listen to it again. A ★ means the album is in my own top 200.
Edit: The bottom of the top 200 has been changing a lot, with some stuff formerly in the list now closer to 240th, so this is now a top 250. I’m not sure I want to expand the list further down, but I’ll see whenever it’s completed if I feel like going for a top 300 or something like that.
Best discoveries so far: Wildhoney, Nightfall, Out Of Myself, Portal Of I, Autumn Aurora, Nemesis Divina, Abigail, V: Hävitetty, Sounds Of Pain.

1.

2.

3.W.A.S.P. - The Crimson Idol

4.Saturnus - Veronika Decides To Die

5.Ensiferum - Ensiferum

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Ranked from Best to Worst, to what Sucks...
Suggestions are welcomed!

1.Amorphis - Circle

2.Sirenia - Perils Of The Deep Blue

3.Dark Tranquillity - Construct

4.Kalmah - Seventh Swamphony

5.Orphaned Land - All Is One

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Another year, another top list. These are all the 2013 releases that I have listened to so far.

1.SubRosa - More Constant Than The Gods

2.Nhor - Within The Darkness Between The Starlight

3.Wolvserpent - Perigaea Antahkarana

4.Kauan - Pirut

5.An Autumn For Crippled Children - Try Not To Destroy Everything You Love

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Here's my AotY for each year from 1970, with a runner up (or two) following.
Pink Floyd and Yes aren't here, King Crimson is, so I'll include King Crimson

1.Black Sabbath - Paranoid

2.Deep Purple - In Rock

3.Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin IV

4.Black Sabbath - Master Of Reality

5.Uriah Heep - Demons And Wizards

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That's the 2013 gnirpz's essentials in order, following the releases along the year. Every ranking should be based on production quality, originality, musical technicality and specs like that.

Unfortunatelly, mine is based on headbanging, taste of beer, air guitar and air drum solos.

2013 feelings, form best to worst

1.Gris - À L'Âme Enflammée, L'Äme Constellée...

2.Ghost B.C. - Infestissumam

3.Deafheaven - Sunbather

4.ASG - Blood Drive

5.Skeletonwitch - Serpents Unleashed

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I've been listened to Black Metal since the late 2000s starting with Emperor and Dimmu Borgir. Since then, I've discover dozens of amazing bands thanks to MS and it has become one of my favourite genres, especially the more melodic/symphonic/epic bands.

So here are my favourites of the genre with my rating, its sub-genre and release year:

(Score is an average of each album's song ratings, full list located here)

If you discovered any new albums or like the same sort of black 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 500 Albums (ordered & rated)
Top 25 EPs (also 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)

1.Agalloch - The Mantle

2.Caladan Brood - Echoes Of Battle

3.Dissection - Storm Of The Light's Bane

4.Emperor - Anthems To The Welkin At Dusk

5.Windir - 1184

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I will most likely look back at this decade as the dark ages of popular music. A time where mainstream music was largely dominated by talentless pop/hip hop music with less memorable songs than the previous decade. However, that doesn't mean that metal music followed the same path. While it was largely dominated by metalcore during the beginning of the decade, I started to grow to love more music in this decade for metal music than I initially did during the beginning of the decade. This was the decade where I became a metalhead, where I became who I am today and started expanding my horizons musically and learn to appreciate a lot of metal music released during this decade and that will be something I will look back at fondly. As the 2010's comes to a close, I decided to make a list of the top 50 metal albums of the decade that I would consider the best. NOTE: this list might change if I discover more music from this decade that I thought are amazing.

1.Trees Of Eternity - Hour Of The Nightingale

2.Kauan - Sorni Nai

3.Angellore - La Litanie Des Cendres

4.Les Discrets - Ariettes Oubliées...

5.Woods Of Ypres - Woods 5: Grey Skies & Electric Light

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