1.Abbath - Outstrider

2.Amon Amarth - Berserker

3.As I Lay Dying - Shaped By Fire

4.Belzebubs - Pantheon Of The Nightside Gods

5.Blood Incantation - Hidden History Of The Human Race

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After seeing Guib's great list (go check it out) , I wanted to create my own lineup of albums that really hit the spot for me. I'm all about heavy guitars mixed with symphonic elements/melodies. While I'll mostly lean towards technical death metal & deathcore, I'm open to throwing in other stuff that fits the vibe.

I'll list them in order of date. Feel free to post recommendations. One album each band.

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Personal favorite 2024:
Job For A Cowboy - Moon Healer

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TAGS: Technical Death Metal, Melodic Tech-Death, Brutal, Atmospheric, Progressive, Blackened Tech-Death, Deathcore, Symphonic, Dissonant Tech-Death, Metalcore

1.The Faceless - Akeldama

2.Born Of Osiris - The Discovery

3.Northlane - Singularity

4.Aversions Crown - Tyrant

5.Rings Of Saturn - Lugal Ki En

      View entire list ››

1.Agalloch - Pale Folklore

2.Agalloch - The Mantle

3.Agalloch - Ashes Against The Grain

4.Ahab - The Call Of The Wretched Sea

5.Amon Amarth - Twilight Of The Thunder God

      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.Swallow The Sun - When A Shadow Is Forced Into The Light

2.Soilwork - Verkligheten

3.In Mourning - Garden Of Storms

4.Shadow Of Intent - Melancholy

5.Eternal Storm - Come The Tide

      View entire list ››

No stars - Don't know yet
✮✮✮✮✮ - Incredible, possibly Album Of The Year
✮✮✮✮½ - Awesome
✮✮✮✮ - Solid release
✮✮✮½ - Good release
✮✮✮ - Not bad
✮✮½ - Shuffle material (probably boring as an album)
✮✮ - Disappointing

1.Cattle Decapitation - Death Atlas

2.Wachenfeldt - The Interpreter

3.Hath - Of Rot And Ruin

4.In Mourning - Garden Of Storms

5.Ethereal Darkness - Smoke And Shadows

      View entire list ››

My favorites 2010 albums.

1.After The Burial - Dig Deep

2.Shadow Of Intent - Melancholy

3.Gojira - Magma

4.Slash - World On Fire

5.Batushka - Litourgiya

      View entire list ››

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

2019 was solid year to end the decade with great releases in Progressive and black metal, doom metal had a strong showing and I finally found a deathcore band that I care about, the 2010's may not have been the most influential decade in metal but it did had a punch of great releases, that might be considered classics down the line, time will tell.


My favorite non metal albums of 2019

1. Remind Me Tomorrow
By Sharon Van Etten (Indie Pop, Synthpop)


2. GREY Area
By Little Simz(UK Hip Hop, Conscious Hip Hop)


3.Titanic Rising
By Weyes Blood (Art pop, Dream pop)


4. Morbid Stuff
By PUP (pop punk)


5. There Existed an Addiction to Blood
By clipping. (Industrial Hip Hop, Horrorcore)



My favorite movie from 2019

1.Wilderun - Veil Of Imagination

2.Swallow The Sun - When A Shadow Is Forced Into The Light

3.Lingua Ignota - Caligula

4.Crypt Sermon - The Ruins Of Fading Light

5.Insomnium - Heart Like A Grave

      View entire list ››

1.Death Angel - Humanicide

2.Acid Reign - The Age Of Entitlement

3.Aeon Zen - INVERITAS

4.Allegaeon - Apoptosis

5.Alter Bridge - Walk The Sky

      View entire list ››

Well, here I put my personal top with which to me have been the best albums of 2019. They are not all they are, but if they all are.

1.Shadow Of Intent - Melancholy

2.Memoriam - Requiem For Mankind

3.Infant Annihilator - The Battle Of Yaldabaoth

4.Equipoise - Demiurgus

5.Disillusion - The Liberation

      View entire list ››

1.Swallow The Sun - When A Shadow Is Forced Into The Light

2.Soilwork - Verkligheten

3.Gloryhammer - Legends From Beyond The Galactic Terrorvortex

4.In Mourning - Garden Of Storms

5.Twilight Force - Dawn Of The Dragonstar

      View entire list ››

1.Darkwater - Human

2.Swallow The Sun - When A Shadow Is Forced Into The Light

3.Beast In Black - From Hell With Love

4.Belzebubs - Pantheon Of The Nightside Gods

5.Borknagar - True North

      View entire list ››

1.Misþyrming - Algleymi

2.Cult Of Luna - A Dawn To Fear

3.Sinmara - Hvísl Stjarnanna

4.Fleshgod Apocalypse - Veleno

5.Insomnium - Heart Like A Grave

      View entire list ››

Here are my favorite metal records from 2019.

1.Shadow Of Intent - Melancholy

2.Jinjer - Macro

3.Allegaeon - Apoptosis

4.Alcest - Spiritual Instinct

5.Insomnium - Heart Like A Grave

      View entire list ››

Favourite albums of 2019 (including only those which I would rate 7+)

1.Infant Annihilator - The Battle Of Yaldabaoth

2.Shadow Of Intent - Melancholy

3.Periphery - Periphery IV: Hail Stan

4.Cattle Decapitation - Death Atlas

5.Numenorean - Adore

      View entire list ››