We all love to do it - list your favourite albums of all time.
Whilst its impossible for me to do, these are my favourite death metal records:
5. Decapitated - Nihility

Its a close call between Winds of Creation and this, but Nihility was the first one I heard - and remains a favourite to this day. The production is a gripe for some, but song wise - this is an awesome death metal record. Clinical, precise and clean: Nihility is a brilliant album and one of my favourites.
4. Carcass - Necroticism: Descanting The Insalubrious

Everyone knows it, everyone loves it. This is perhaps the quintessential death metal record. I love the contrast between Jeff Walker's rabid vocals and Bill Steers deep bellow...just awesome. Tons of classics and metal anthems, itll always be a favourite.
3. Necrophagist - Onset of Putrefaction

It still amazes me that one guy and a drum machine made this...its just insane. This album gets so many runs through my iPod its not even funny. Every track pummels you with technicality, brutality, musicianship and most of all - catchyness. This is technical music which you can definately headbang too. A definant favourite of mine.
2. Spawn of Possession - Cabinet

If your a fan of Necrophagist, its impossible not to love SoP. Cabinet is just a masterpiece. Why are there so many insane Swedish Death Metal bands? Whats in the water over there? Some may say this is too high, however, give this album a thorough listen through and you'll see why its a favourite. Technical, Catchy, Brutal...all the things I love.
1. Suffocation - Pierced From Within

Not entirely unpredictable that this would be first on my list....but Pierced From Within is an incredible album. Suffocation are not the fastest death metal band, but to me - this album epitomises why I love death metal. Its just perfect. Pierced From Within is lyrically, musically and visually what I think of when I think death metal....I love it.

great, another thread so we can prove how metal we all are
i cant narrow it down to my top 5, sorry.

Incase you needed to know, im fucking metal
I figured there was probably a thread somewhere - but I hadnt seen one in a long while. Doesnt have to be the 'politically correct' top 5...just your own favourites from your collection.

Haha, of course you are Sammy

And I'd have trouble narrowing it down to 5 albums.
Leave it with me a while.....

5. Corrosion of Conformity - Deliverance

I tend to gravitate to music that has a soulful edge, which a lot of Southern music does. This band doesn't really fit into one solid genre, I believe, and this album shows their diversity and flexibility. The mood can shift from indignant (Heaven's Not Overflowing) to pure rage (My Grain) to haunting poignancy (Shelter), which is one of the many things I love about this band.
4. Pantera - Vulgar Display of Power

Every song seems to have an irresistible groove, every note seems to rip at some pent-up piece of rage that modern people suppress and shove down, and every scream that Phil belts out makes you want to jump in the old mosh pits and raise hell. Excuse me, I need a drink.
3. Shinedown - Us and Them

Okay, say what you will, yes, they're an alternative band. This album spoke to me at a difficult time that I was going through a few years ago, and has since remained one of my favorites.
2. SRV and Double Trouble - Couldn't Stand the Weather

I never get tired of this album. 'Nuff said.
1. Nevermore - Politics of Ecstasy/Dreaming Neon Black/Dead Heart in a Dead World
I can't choose, don't make me.
Honorable mentions: Iced Earth - Burnt Offerings and Horror Show, Bathory - Nordland II, Kreator - Enemy of God
And I don't give a shite what you fuckers think of my metalness, or lack thereof. I mean, I love y'all.

well, at the moment (being this past hour), my favorite albums are...
Ulver - Vargnatt (demo)
Very different music from what most are used to from Ulver's Black Metal days, very avant-garde melancholy riffs and times, some amazing acoustic and progressive passages, i recomend this demo to all Ulver fans.
Diapsiquir - Virus STN
Completly insane avant-garde metal band, very original, even for being a avant-garde band, this album included my favorite cover of the Godfather theme, which they somehow made it into a 10 music epic, haha.
Munruthel - Aquarius Epoch
Probably the most beautiful folk black metal album ever written, this album has the perfect mix of melodies, epicness and heavyness to me. This is the solo project for Munruthel (Nokturnal Mortum ex-drummer), who is an amazing multi intrumentalist, playing everything on the record.
Appalling Spawn - Freedom, Hope, and Fury
Lykathea Aflame before they were called Lykathea Aflame, insane technical death metal album, very much in the vein of Lykathea, but a bit different, more brutal at times, and it also features a somewhat different lineup, either way, great album that im enjoying the shit out of at the moment.
Atheretic - Apocalyptic Nature Fury
Probably the most brutal and technical band out of Canada, and this album proves it, amazing musicianship by everybody involved. Another album i recomend to everybody to check out.

I meant to check out Appalling Spawn - shall do soon.

5. Mastodon - Leviathan
Best Mastodon album by far and the first i heard so i love it.
4. Cannabis Corpse - Tube of the Resinated
3. Napalm Death - Mentally Murdered
Features a redone song from the previous album FETO, but made into amazing quailty and the other songs that are done on there are just perfect. This is the last record with Lee Dorrian and he is just on top form. This record is like a perfect cross between Harmony Corruption and FETO, but with amazing quality. TOP NOTCH!
Great album and i love listening to it a lot and its a HUGE influence on how i write and do vocals.
2. Death - Scream Bloody Gore
Essential album for anyone, but this is a favourite of mine by far.
1. Carcass - Necrotism
I just cant believe how good this album is. When i forst heard it i was just blown away. Definatly the best album i have ever heard in my life. I just couldnt get over the riffs in this album and its also now a huge influence on me especially for Minister Bonesaw stuff.

If I had to think off the top of me head right now... I'd say...
5. Scar Symmetry - Holographic Universe
Perfection in melodic death metal/modern metal form! I cant get enough of this album!
4. Kreator - Pleasure to Kill
Non stop brutal fast thrash. Love it!
3. Trivium - Ember to Inferno
Means a lot to me. Trivium's magnus opus. Im sure Shogun will be AMAZING but ETI will always be the best for me.
2. Cannibal Corpse - Tomb of the Mutilated
Pure definition of death metal
1. Death - Human
MASTERPIECE!

7.Napalm Death - Scum

This album is made of sterner stuff, and even 21 years on, this still feels as vital as it is brutal. An album that set off with a new found power that blew everyone else out of the water, and where many bands still fear to tread. A new level of confidence and power (no, I wont be paying Phil Anselmo for that one) on this record, typified by the brazenness of legendary "songs" like You Suffer... and of course the title track, opened the floodgates of metal. We all owe these lads of the Brum a debt of gratitude.
6. Slayer - Reign In Blood

Ruined for us all by fanboys and journalists, this molested metal classic should be overlooked at your peril. This record sets off like a stabbed rat, and suprisingly doesnt find time for a single power ballad in just shy of half an hour of power. With an average bpm of 210, its not one for a slow dance, and is probably one of the only successes of the woefully overrated producer Rick Rubin (the other being his work with Johnny Cash).
5. Possessed - Seven Churches

An absolute classic, benchmark-setting evil bastard of an album. Everything about this album was pervaded with darkness, and it is for this reason I love it.
4. Enslaved - Below The Lights

Probably a contentious decision, it took me a while to come to the conclusion in fact, but this album for me is probably the one I take the greatest pleasure in listening to start to finish. And of course, having the monster track Havenless on there helps.
3. Mastodon - Remission

I think most of everyone knows here that I'm a pretty avid fan of Mastodon, and this was the album that started it all for me, and I think its easy for me to explain why I love this album so much. From the brutal intro of Crusher Destroyer right through to the hauntingly beautiful and effortless conclusion of Elephant Man, this album just oozes everything that is great about Mastodon, and allows you a chance to feel that this is your album, free of all the critical acclaim and overhype that followed on the next records. (They are equally brilliant, and in some places superior, but this is both an unassuming record, whilst at the same time a bold statement of intent from four humble dudes from across the pond who would someday go on to be on the tip of the tongue of every metal journalist on the planet.)
2. Sepultura - Beneath The Remains

This is an album that requires no explanation. Metal classic after metal classic, played at an unrelenting and previously unseen intensity, the machine gun guitars, the howitzer drums and Max's vocals of mass destruction can barely be confined to any tape, CD or vinyl known on this Earth.
1. Metallica - Ride The Lightning

The very first Metallica record I bought (aged 11) helped form my opinions and tastes on music for the past decade. Without the sheer brilliance of this record, metal as we know it would not be the same. This was Metallica at the top of their game (though not of their noteriety). While Master Of Puppets is the critics choice, it falls down where RTL stands up. And whilst it might not have the technical brilliance of ...And Justice For All, it has a vitality that record missed after the departure of Burton. No cliches, no clever lines. This IS Metallica. And this IS modern metal.

I think about mine now. I cant pick a top five because maddens top 3 would be in my top 5. My top 5 would have too many albums in.