I like The Black Album...

...that being said, "Holier Than Thou", "Wherever I May Roam", "Don't Tread on Me", "Through the Never" and "Struggle Within" are by far my favorite tracks. "Enter Sandman" is absolutely iconic but I get the feeling if I hadn't been inundated with that the past thirty years, it'd be a bit different.

that being said:

Ride the Lightning >>> Master of Puppets.

Well, its the most liked album by people who are not metalheads and the metalheads felt a little bit betrayed by the more commercial side they showed here (however Load was worse off when it came to this kind of critique - people seriously got annoyed that they cut their hair). I also like the black album a lot. Is it their best? Not sure, for me the top spot shifts depending on the mood, but the black album is always hoovering around the top position.

I think I'm with you on this one. I recently had another run-through of their classic original run and while I always held 'Horrorscope' to be my favourite, I really enjoyed the fuck out of 'Feel the fire', very obvious punk influence in that one. Perhaps as they're so different I could have them tied in first place
Also seconding 'Fabulous disaster', that has long been my top Exodus album too (although I've always had a very soft spot for 'Atrocity exhibition Pt. 2', love that one if a bit overlong sometimes).

My favorite Anathema album is one of their very least liked: Serenades. It's also one of my favorite albums of the death doom genre.

That's a respectable opinion - Verisakeet is remarkable too. Though if I'd gotten around to Moonsorrow's music much earlier in my life, Havitetty DEFINITELY would have made my list in that poll.

--

I got a few more after browsing this thread and thinking about it:

Decapitated: Organic Hallucinosis - most people seem to choose either Nihility or Winds Of Creation (which are both good), but Organic Hallucinosis is so god damn terrifying and motherfucking vicious and psychotic that it's without a doubt one of my favourite death metal albums of all time. Coven's voice was perfect for it too.

Immolation: Shadows In The Light - maybe there's some nostalgia because this was my first Immolation record, but it's a damn good one that gets overlooked. I was mightily fucking stoked when I saw them a few months ago and they had this album as a Longsleeve - instant buy!

The Black Dahlia Murder: Unhallowed - most people seem to choose Nocturnal, but there's something about the energy and songwriting on this album that always sits warm with me. They were young, talented kids who didn't have too much experience but did have a ton of fucking heart and it showed - and as good as Ryan Knight and Brandon Ellis are as guitarists, I kinda miss John Kempainen's soloing. Not as much technical finesse as the guys who followed him, but his writing (especially on that album) was super inspired. I also want to give a shoutout to Everblack for having the experimentation they tried with Ritual, but done way fucking better in my opinion.

Darkthrone: A Blaze In The Northern Sky - out of the classic records it seems like most people give the crown to Under A Funeral Moon or Transilvanian Hunger. UAFM isn't too far behind, but Blaze has such a haunting evilness about it that puts it at the top for me (not to mention that Ted's black metal vocals were at their best here, IMO). Plus, I don't think Darkthrone ever wrote a better song than Kathaarian Life Code.

Kataklysm: Victims Of This Fallen World - I still wish I didn't sell my fucking CD of this record. Songwriting-wise, it actually reminds me a lot of bands like Ion Dissonance, The Red Chord, Animosity, The End, and other bands who emerged around that time who had this way of just mashing together riffs that had nothing to do with each other and just finding a way to make it work - and it all just kicked ass. A lot of the ideas on this record are the usual Kataklysm fair (and it seems like they wanted to rediscover themselves after Silvaine Houde left the band), but it was all fresh and inspired and just straight up fun to listen to. Then there's a bunch of random fuckery like the pick-scrape-blast-beat section of Extreme To The Core where you're like "dafuq is this???" but you dig it anyways, then they just decide to go back into a regular riff mid-measure. Also, FUCK the re-recording of this album that they did - they made it sound boring; the shitty garage production adds to the charm and is motherfucking essential.

Also, IMMINENNNNNNT!!! DOWN-FAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLL!!!

Necrophagist

Onset Putrefaction is often hailed as a masterpiece of technical death metal. I never really liked it. The follow up however, Epitaph, is a great album. Better flow, better song structures, more memorable riffs, better melodies etc.

This one is indeed underestimated, often considered long and boring. However it has been highly influential for the doom-death metal scene. It is not my absolute favorite but I like it very much (I prefer Pentecost III).

I thought Blaze is the consensus pick for the best Darkthrone album? It could just be my bubble though

Dark Tranquillity - Haven
Just love the mood of this one, and I am a sucker for electronics used in metal and this album offers plenty of that. Always been my favorite closely followed by "Damage Done" but seem to be among the least favorite album among alot of fans.

The Project Hate MCMXCIX - The Cadaverous Retaliation Agenda
Anything past the "Jo-albums" seem offensive to alot of people, for me this album is their best together with every album that followed it (with the talented Ellinor as vocalissa). Barly ever listen to the Jo-era anymore as they moved past that in both quality, talent, production and memroble song-writing. Not what most think though...

Amon Amarth - Surtur Rising
Alright, "VS The World" is my favorite but this is close second. Most seem to think its them declining to what they´ve become now. To me its them perfecting and weeding out the weaker stuff they did with the previous 2 (and also terrific albums).

Iron Maiden - Somewhere In Time
Being released between 2 obvious fan-favorite classics not many have this as their favorite Maiden album, but i do.

Somewhere in Time can easily be seen as a favorite.

I have always liked Blessed Are The Sick from MA. Most people tend to go for AoM or Covenant over that one. I would give it serious consideration for the best of the 90s poll, if we have one.

Mentioned this in the unpopular opinion thread but Morbid Saint’s Destruction System. Just has better songs than Spectrum. Although Pat Lind’s vocals, while still good, were better on Spectrum.

Yeah I like Blessed are the Sick more, too. I like the slower pace of it.

Darkthrone - The cult is alive

Morbid Angel - Blessed

Slayer - South of Heaven

Coroner - Grin

Pestilence - malleus maleficarum

Edge of sanity - The spectral...

Morgoth - feel sorry for the fanatics (its as good as the other two albums for me).

Agree that Cathedral EPs are among their best, if not is, their best work.

Napalm Death - time waits for no slaves.

Satyricon - Now, diabolical

Cobalt - Eater of Birds and Slow Forever are more my thing then Gin (which is a great album)

secrets of the moon - sun (together with privilegivum)

VOIVOD - PHOBOS!!!!

Ministry - dark Side of the spoon (together with Filth pig)

Testament - Practive what...

Massacra - Sick (incredible good!)

"Tapping the vein" and "Outcast" are surely gems; yes at least Tapping could be their best work (together with Persecution... "better of dead" is criminaly underrated though)

Blessed is definitely my favourite early Morbid Angel. I like that's way less thrashy than AoM, I like my death and thrash nice and separate, I don't think either plays to the strength of the other. Covenant is lame as fuck imo. Super weak, thin, disposable album. I think Domination handled the super slowed down approach way better. Angular big sound Tucker era is probably my preferred style of the band though, and even then I'd rather go for Immo.

Blessed is also my favourite album of theirs for its variety, atmosphere and complexity. I think it's a more mature album than Altars, more thought was put into the flow of the album as a whole.

My two most listened Megadeth albums are the Killing Is My Business and So Far So Good and not Peace Sells or Rust in Peace as everyone would expect.

Therion- Beyond Sanctorum
Amazing occult atmospheric death metal. I have not really given their prog-power fusion metal stuff much of a chance, but most people I talk to like that stuff and pay no attention the death metal era.

Enslaved- Vikingligr Veldi
At one point in time this was my favorite black metal album. Amazing black metal with touches of progressive rock. In some ways I feel this was more progressive than their super popular Pink Floyd-esque albums because it was something new and innovative.

Saxon- Innocence is no Excuse
Great melodic metal album. Just enough hints of glam to make it fun but not overly watered down like Destiny.

I could go on and on about a bunch of other albums to highlight as my personal response for this thread, but my first and most passionately defended choice would be 'Dead Again.' I love each Type O album, but 'Dead Again' is an incredible summation of their sound, the pinnacle of Peter's songwriting and the ultimate (if not unintentional) farewell album. Because I hold each Type O album in such high regard I have to play dumb little games to try to determine which album I like the most - my favorite exercise is to think, If I curated a Type O 'Best of..' which album would have the most "need to include" tracks - each time I mull it over I come away definitively with 'Dead Again' at the top. Great choice Twisted, and it's definitely not just your nostalgia - the album is a true masterpiece (imo).

I absolutely LOVE Candlemass's 2005 "White album." Almost every track on that thing is awesome; totally epic heavy metal. But when people talk about this band, they usually point to their 80's stuff, which, while all of it is certainly very good, it doesn't quite move me the way their 2005 album does.

Edit: And talking of Therion, I thought their "Of Darkness" album was totally crushing mid-paced death metal, one of the best death metal releases of that year. None of their stylistic changes afterwards really did much for me, though. So that one is my favorite, but I certainly wouldn't argue that it is their "best." They never even tried to duplicate it, shifting styles towards more symphonic and progressive (whatever that means) type of stuff as time went on. I like how even on "Of Darkness" the keyboards were present, but they were more subdued, more in the background to provide added mood or sometimes, an intro our outro to a song.

Speaking of Therion... my favorites have always been the two "weird" transitional albums, Symphony Masses and Lepaca Kilffoth.

Grave - Hating Life is one of the finest groove/death albums I know. I think it gets an unfair amount of flack. Personally not hating that particular album.

Motorhead - Inferno

There are a lot of fantastic Motorhead albums, but Inferno has always been my favorite. Aggressive, yet catchy at the same time, there's not a single bad song on that one.

Entombed-Clandestine: I feel it's a stronger album than LHP due to the quality of songwriting. All of the songs on the latter sound samey, and with the exception of the title track the songs don't stick out that much. With Clandestine each song is unique and memorable.

Pestilence- Malleus Maleficarum: At the risk of sounding like a poseur, this is the only Pestilence album I like.

Iron Maiden - Powerslave

It always bugged me that the CD version of Powerslave (the song) is cued incorrectly. The intro with the sound effects was included in the previous track Back in the Village and this track begins on the CD as the rolling drums kick in. This is based on my copy which is from 1998, the one with the enhanced features. Has it always been that way on earlier editions of Powerslave on CD? Has it been corrected in later versions?

The original and 2015 remaster are cued correctly. I highly recommend picking up the original versions (which can be found at good prices on discogs), I don't like any of their remasters.

I love Clandestine just as much as Left Hand Path but I can't understand how songs like Drowned, Supposed To Rot, But Life Goes On, Revel In Flesh, When...I better stop coz I'm gonna list em all...how can these songs not stick out to you?
As for Pestilence...again great album, but Consuming Impulse and Testimony Of The Ancients are fuckin awesome...I mean, c'mon Out Of The Body, The Process Of Suffocation, Twisted Truth, Presence Of The Dead & Land Of Tears, classic stuff. Hopefully you'll revisit these albums and they'll click with ya then.

Game Over and Survive are both great, but Handle With Care is Nuclear Assault's best album (and my favourite). I suspect that the reason why it isn't held in higher regard is because it was released towards the tail-end of the thrash era and a lot of people had moved on by this point, and, as the band's third album, it is not romanticised to the same degree as the first two by fans of the band who were there at the beginning.

A few that come to mind:
Malevolent Creation - Warkult
Ministry - Houses of the Mole/Rio Grande Blood
Morbid Angel - Domination (not super unpopular but also contentious)
Deicide - Scars of the Crucifix

All of these are able to go toe to toe with their classics

My favourite Pantera album is either Far Beyond Driven or The Great Southern Trendkill, depending on the day. I like their other more popular albums, but for whatever reason the darker, more brooding and experimental sound of their later work is more interesting to me, even if there might not be as many outright bangers.

The 1998 remaster of Piece of Mind is also botched. if i recall correctly, "The Trooper" abruptly ends with about 20 seconds left. Those 20 seconds are somehow the "begining" of Still Life. Where they heck was the quality control!?!??!

The 1998 remaster also ruined the overall sound on SIT. Ultra-tinny...

Terrible remasters.

Testament's "The Ritual" for me, probably more for the environment I was living in when I first heard it (Ontario, more in the countryside outside Ottawa). Ontario gets some pretty frequent and magnificent storms, so when I first started listening to this album more often than not a storm would be brewing within a day of taking it for a spin in my CD player, and then I would keep listening to it while the storm raged. This was around the tail end of me figuring out that thrash didn't do much for me anymore, so there was still a bit of exploration going on (Testament in this case) and while I had decided the band was kind of "meh", this album coupled with storm activity just hit so many of the right buttons. And I suppose that it's not technically a thrash album worked in its favour.

I think that's the opposite of poser since it's the most old school album