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User
Reviews 12
Approval 76%
Soundoffs 8
Album Ratings 194
Objectivity 70%
Last Active 11-26-17 1:36 pm
Joined 11-09-16
Review Comments 127
| Album art that speaks volumes
Good album cover art can intensify the experience and appreciation of the music. On the contrary: bad album art can spoil a lot of fun. The metal genre is notorious for cover art revealing bad taste, humorless hyperboles and ridiculous over the top inanity. Fortunately there are some fine examples, especially in the metal and prog rock spheres. Borrowing from gothic horror, H.P. Lovecraft, E.A. Poe, William Blake, Aleister Crowley, film and games, and J.R.R. Tolkien these artists created really enjoyable cover art. | | 1 |  | pink floyd
The Dark Side of the Moon
Hipgnosis (Storm Thorgerson) created the most iconic album cover in music ever: the famous prism and rainbow colours.Very appropriate for the most impressive album to ever have seen the light | | 2 |  | Cattle Decapitation
The Anthropocene Extinction
Wes Benscoter - Benscoter's bleak, gruesome vision of man's future demise and fatal industrial-technological direction matches the misanthropic brutality of the band perfectly. | | 3 |  | Venom
Black Metal
Conrad Lant (aka Cronos) – Cronos is responsible for the mishmash of satanic imagery decorating the first Venom albums. Not being a professional artist he although created a very distinctive style and atmoshpere, including the first 'evil' logo in metal. | | 4 |  | burzum
Hvis lyset tar oss
Theodor Kittelsen - Kittelsen is not the designer, but his art work has been used to create really terrifying and unsettling album covers, executed in black and white. The drawings of this nineteenth century Norwegian artist fit the folklore oriented, depressive music so well. | | 5 |  | Iron Maiden
Killers
Derek Riggs - Famous illustrator in punky horror comic book style. Riggs gave shape to one of metal's most notorious mascottes, providing the zombie's 'ead with arms and legs. | | 6 |  | Vandenberg
Alibi
Adrian Vandenberg – Not only known as the very successful and talented guitar player in Whitesnake, but -less known- also a very skilled painter who designed the covers of his band Vandenberg in the 80's in characteristic surrealist style. | | 7 |  | Yes
Close to the Edge
Roger Dean – Band logo and exotic, sci fi, fantasy landscape paintings were groundbreaking and contributed substantially to the eery, spaceship aesthetics of the band. | | 8 |  | Celtic Frost
To Mega Therion
R.H. Giger - He was a Swiss artist who excelled at cold, erotic, biomechanical rendition of humanoid creatures. His cover art for Celtic Frost is particularly disturbing, depicting a diabolical creature with a catapult- crucifix | | 9 |  | Megadeth
Rust in Peace
Ed RepkaThe hyper realistic, iconic-ironic art of Repka is well known to thrash and death metal fans. One of his finest is the depiction of Vic Rattlehead in front of an alien body and surrounded by world leaders. | | 10 |  | Praying Mantis
Time Tells No Lies
Rodney Matthews - Mattews' epic sci-fi fantasy style has suited many album covers, ranging from metal to prog. Praying Mantis is musically and visually a combination of both genres. | | 11 |  | Opeth
Blackwater Park
Travis Smith Dark and introspective, brooding and sometimes horrific, that's the art of Smith, one of the truly talented craftsmen in the graphic arts. His album cover for Blackwater Park is almost monochrome, quite decent and gloomy. | | 12 |  | Aborted
TerrorVision
Par Olofsson Over the top lovecraftian imagery of weird horror, replete with tentacled creatures and all devouring monsters. The cover art for Abysmal Dawn's 'Obsolence' is also impressive. | | 13 |  | Rainbow
Rising
Ken Kelly. Fantasy painter Kelly executed the iconic, larger than life album cover for Rainbow. His style is illustrative, romantic, over the top and sentimental. Still – being a good craftsman – he is responsible for (the interchangeable) famous art work for Kiss and Manowar. | | 14 |  | Bell Witch
Mirror Reaper
Mariusz Lewandowski's quite creepy, surrealist and otherworldly art is enchanting, like this bewildering cover art for Bell Witch by the Polish artist. One of doom metal's favorites. | | 15 |  | Voivod
The Wake
Away (Michel Langevin) - Voivod's drummer and main painter-designer of the band's cover art work is a multitalented musician. His spiky, angular, punky and eery, agressive style, depicting a post apocalyptic world, goes well with Voivod's music. | |
JustJoe.
10.26.18 | Where is Loveless
Also cool list I like album covers | Itsonlyme
10.26.18 | Tangerine Dream, yes: Stratosfear is beautiful | DungeonBoy
10.26.18 | 14 is one of the best from the past decade | StickFeit
10.26.18 | nice list! totally forgot 14, amazing artwork. | Assemblage
10.26.18 | niice list | mrdogthrow
10.26.18 | 14 is boutta make me check out 14 | BerryGarlicia
10.26.18 | Dio, Holy Diver - Dio said that onetime a devote christian asked him why there's a monster killing a priest if his music isn't satanic, Dio Replied with: "How do you know which one is the monster?" | alamo
10.26.18 | bucketehad - pike #13 | Itsonlyme
10.26.18 | Ha ha. Funny james dio! | JayEnder
10.26.18 | Cool list and descriptions my dude. I like the thought you put into em | Itsonlyme
10.26.18 | Away (Voivod) has disappeared...gone away. Gonna put him back asap... | teamster
10.26.18 | I don’t know who did it, I suppose google is my friend, but Awaken The Guardian (Fates Warning) album art is perfect. | BookoftheFallen
10.27.18 | dan seagrave and necrolord | Coast
10.27.18 | Fine looking list | J() Alexander
10.27.18 | You know what genre has mostly bad covers? Classical. Fucking thing is just full of boring ass images of something random kind of related to the music (or not) or a picture of the performer. The only I like (and the best part is that I love the album) is Andras Schiff's Franz Schubert. | Sinternet
10.27.18 | 7 is horrifically bad
most of these are boring af heavy metal covers which are generic beyond belief | MetalMarcJK
10.27.18 | Spinal Tap - The Black Album | IronGiant
10.27.18 | literally ANY mewithoutYou cover | Itsonlyme
10.27.18 | Genericness is part if the metal culture, true to standard values and imagery. But done well it's no problem. | Casavir
10.27.18 | There are a lot of better album covers than the ones featured here. | sixdegrees
10.27.18 | https://www.sputnikmusic.com/images/members/453362.jpg | Vamos
10.27.18 | Interesting. I always thought the Bell Witch cover was as Beksinski work, I'll have to check out Lewandowski's stuff. Thanks for that little fact! | Nbehre11
10.27.18 | Yeah, mwY artwork is good stuff. | Evrimen
10.28.18 | Killers isn't even in the top 5 Maiden cover arts for me but yeah it still rips | BMDrummer
10.28.18 | the blue album | Meridiu5
10.28.18 | necrolord [2]
opeth always has spectacular artwork minus one or two albs like hearse
i always thought kamelot had sweet art during their golden era too albeit some cheese | Dewinged
10.29.18 | This is a great list, wish you added more entries honestly. | THVRTVVN
10.29.18 | "exotic, sci fi, fantasy landscape"
it's a fucking green to black gradient | Itsonlyme
10.29.18 | Easy now THVRTVVN! Take a look inside the album! Broaden your horizon: take al look at the other designs by Dean. And even a green to black gradient can become a fantasy landscape in the minds of people with Imagination... | THVRTVVN
10.29.18 | | TheClansman95
10.31.18 | needs more dragons, cool list tho |
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