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GD's Top 10 Most Awesome Album Covers

31/07/09 || Global Domination

Introduction by Daemonomania: Hello again, ‘tis that time of the month where our uterine lining sloughs off and our readership peruses another installment of Global Domination’s Top 10 lists. It would be a delight if you chose to comment upon our choices, and an even GREATER delight if you chose to disagree with our picks, rankings, and general demeanor.

This month’s list documents the Top Ten Most Eyegasm Inducing Album Covers of All Goddamn Time. This is the artwork you’ve fondled alone in the dark for years when you thought no one was watching. Well we were watching you dirty fuck. Watching and doing some fondling of our own. Without further ado, here’s the faces that launched 1,000 seamen on their respective ships; the images that were obscured a billion times as long hair headbanged across them – the artwork that has graced countless pit-stained t-shirts.

10. Pantera: Vulgar display of power

On “Cowboys from hell”, Pantera began their path to being one of the most dominating bands of the 90’s, but they truly assumed that mantle with “Vulgar display of power”; full of sharp, dissonant riffage, screaming solos, and tough guy call-outs from Phil Anselmo, its album cover is pretty much the perfect fit for the music within. What you get with its art is a fist coming from off the right side and just SLAMMING into a guy’s cheek, smushing the face in and making his head and neck wrench about as far to the other side as they can go, an image that should leave you no doubts that this music will kick your ass from the moment you press play. It’s a great representation of the overall attitude Pantera held (basically “we’ll kick your fucken ass!”), and a vulgar display of power, indeed.

-Smalley

9. Sepultura: Beneath the remains

3 Roses
1 wolverine (psychotic)
1 dice
16 stairs that lead nowhere
1 spider
1 stone formation
1 black marble (shiny)
A couple of worthless coins

Turn off the room light. Ignite a small fire. Form all the ingredients listed above into a bad-ass, reddish skull around the fire and place it at the bottom right of the picture. Carve a tree skin-like structure into the exposed bone areas, except for the spot at the top which receives a polished finish. Don’t hesitate to use a little more polish, as the final highlight needs to be almost yellow. Apply bushels of scarce hair to the sides of the skull and pull out a few teeth. Then, smash a hole into it at the top right to allow the fire to breathe. Gently blow some air from the left side to let the smoke exiting the freshly created hole take a curvy trail. Make sure the surroundings are devoid of any badly drawn band logos. Replace potential leftovers with a cool font, e.g. Casablanca. Apply the same treatment to the album title and reorder its letters so that they read from top to bottom. Little details make a big difference, so as a finishing touch, place a simple, tiny red bar next to the white album title. Voilà! You’ve just created one of the best metal covers ever. Original recipe by Michael Whelan. Goes well with 1989 vintage Belo Horizonte thrash.

-Habakuk

8. Mastodon: Leviathan

Mastodon are one of my favourite bands for “Remission”, “Leviathan” and most recently “Crack the Skye”. The band’s 2004 output takes the cake from the remaining two spectacular efforts though, riff after riff comprising pure quality; what completes the package is the finely detailed (check out the full image to get an idea of the scope of the artist’s vision) artwork that ties in with the ambitious Moby Dick-related album concept – you can practically see the lyrics brought to life within the complete masterwork, the spiral into madness Ahab succumbed to his death in chasing this gargantuan creature across the seas amidst all kinds of crazy shit. A true to the story ethic with Mastodon’s maddening touch, one of the greatest movies ever just got a revamp, baby!

-The Duff

7. Dismember: Like an everflowing stream

If it hadn’t been for death, life would’ve been an everflowing stream of nonsense. Hail death! And, fucking hails to Dan Seagrave as well. “A great artist he is”, claims the dude barely able to draw a stickman. Modesty aside, his surname is way fucking better than anything he ever did with a pen, penis, paintbrush, paint-shop, photo-super-market, dildo, and already I made a mess of this. Hardy har, tuddelitu, and utterly fuck you if Seagrave isn’t among the best surnames ever. And also forever. Yep, I suspect he made it up all by himself, after all he is a creative fuck, but drowning all of humanity in the sea at once is nonetheless a glorious dream to dream.

Thanks, Dan!

What graces the front of “Like an everflowing stream” is a river neverending up in hell, in a necroskull able to transform water into lava exactly. I know, very awesome indeed. And it gets better, for on its left and right we have skeleton-dragons spewing the very same fluid into this necro skull-thing taken straight out of He-Man. Me always liked thunder, thunder, Thundercats! Better, don’t ask me why, this cunt namely got some sense to do before he fuck off’s and start a war.

Dan Seagrave is a seriously talented artist, and not only that, his talent I think not coincidentally ended up adorning quality death almost exclusively. Roughly put. Don’t ask me why.

-Kampfar

6. Sepultura: Arise

From a purely artistic point of view, the cover of Sepultura’s “Arise” is a perfect representative of the post-Realism school, which flourished during the second half of the 60’s and came to be synonymous with the Hippie generation and ideology. The style is characterized by the deep earthy tones used by the artists who, literally, gave birth to it and…

OH, MY FUCKING GOD, IT MOVED!!! IT FUCKIN’ MOVED!!! THE EYE!!! AND… AND THE MANDIBLES!!! THEY’RE FUCKIN’ MOVING!!! OH, JESUS, FUCK, WHAT THE FUCK’S HAPPENING HERE!!! OH, NO, NO,NONONONONONONONO!!! AAAAAARGH!!!!………

Hailssss, puny humanssss. The ssssilly sssspecimen of your laughable kind who had the gall to try and appraissssse me isssss no more. Pity he wasssssn’t more tasssssty, though. Anyway, I’m here to dessssstroy all your haplesssss fantasssssiessss about me. I’m alive and rissssssen. Maybe Sepultura thought that they could forsssse me to ssssstay calm with their death/trassssssh brootality. Maybe Michael Whelan thought that hisssss hidden sssspellssss in the artwork could keep me ssssssafe and ssssssslumbering. NOT SSSSSSO! I’m here now, ssssssso prepare to meet your end, inssssside my jungle-rotten ssssssstomachsssss. For a thoussssssand yearsssssss… “Arissssse”, indeed…

-Khlysty

5. Dissection: Storm of the light’s bane

This cover here, ladies and gentlemen, is simply the truly fucken best ever that black metal has had to offer. This is the ultimate representation of evil in its coldest, classiest and most northern form. Believe me when I say it holds more malignant feelings within than any number of pentagrams or corpse-painted goons. Just admire the hooded grim reaper on a winter plain, riding a black steed with his scythe standing tall in one hand, while he holds an hourglass that undoubtedly measures the time you maggots have left to live in the other. Frozen dead trees lie on the ground, while the dark pine forests and snowcapped mountains obscure the horizon. A black storm that will indeed be the bane of all light is brewing in the sky… fucken beautiful! A fitting cover to one of the greatest records you’ll ever have the displeasure to listen to, and the perfect graphic depiction of what the murderous, all-round fucken nutcase Jon Nödveidt would write in his demented lyrics:

Pain, plague and pestilence shall sweep through your sight
Grim is the truth that hides behind the fading light
The eyes of the beholder stares empty silent and cold
For the deeds of the dark ones are fearful to behold

-Baalzamon

4. Opeth: Blackwater park

Opeth had been quietly doing the rounds of the underground network and getting quite some praise, but it was in “Blackwater Park” that they took the world by storm and became a loved (and hyped) band. Fanboys began crawling out of the work, and it all started right here on this album. Cuts like “The Drapery Falls”, “Bleak” and “The Leper Affinity” became instant classics and are, to this day, requested and played at concerts. Naturally, a great album deserves a great cover, and Travis Smith is renowned for his talent in the metal word for delivering awesome art. This Opeth cover is, in my opinion, his crowning achievement, a haunting scene which can be interpreted as a quiet, lonely forest, or as a foreboding moor, where sinister creatures, seen only as dark shapes, dwell in the background. It perfectly fits the atmospheric mood of the album, which sways from heavy, mid-paced death metal to soothing acoustic passages.

-Euthanatos

Mercyful Fate: Don't break the oath 3. Mercyful Fate: Don’t break the oath

Just follow the magic caaaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllll.

C’mon, this cover screams metal. The only thing it doesn’t do, since it sure as hell prepares you for the awesome music inside, is prepare you for the over the top vocals of King Diamond.

Aaaaaaahhhhhaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh aaaaahhhhh aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh aaaaaaaaaaahhhhh.

Why is this so much better than other covers? Well, for one you have someone with horns and fire in place of eyes. Plus pointy ears/nails. Pointy ears/nails = evil. Evil and fire = Hell. Hell undeniably means Satan, and Satan is just plain cool. Just like this cover. Well deserved spot above all but the best two.

-Trauma

Entombed; Left hand path 2. Entombed: Left hand path

When I think of metal and artwork combined, 3 cover artists instantly come to mind; Kristian Wåhlin (has done work for At The Gates and 400 million other bands), Ed Repka (has done work for Death and like 7 other bands) and finally: Dan muthafucken Seagrave (responsible for the works of Entombed, Blümchen, Iron Maiden and The Tootsiepoops). Sure, we have Derek Riggs and a ton of other geniuses whose artwork we all grew up with, but these 3 first-mentioned ones definitely define album artwork for me. This fucken guy at hand, an Englishman called Dan Seagrave (what are the odds to be born with such a surname and be destined to do death metal covers for the better part of his life?) has done brilliant paitings (yes, paintings, fuck you, Photoshop) for the best of the best and the rest of the rest in metal.

The first 2 covers that I think of when I hear his name is our number one feature in this list and this one; Entombed’s mighty fucken album “Left hand path”. The artwork here is quite possibly one of the finest pieces to ever grace an album. I hold this one over “Altars of madness” any day of the week. You can actually see the same kind of small demons on “LHP” that the whole cover of “Altars” are build up around. Those demons look cartoonish but for some reason yet absolutely evil and wicked. The black and blue colors that dominate the picture, the absolute abyss to the right of the left hand path, the forest everything is taking place in and the mighty tombstone to the left with its cryptic inscription – it all makes for the perfect death metal cover. Not to forget the most important ingredients; the yellow slime that is coming out of the tombstone together with one of the most beautiful logos of death metal, here displayed in the non-metal color yellow… It’s just perfect. You can smell the insanity the album at hand contains, just by looking at the fantastic paiting. And get this: the fact that the cover has a blue theme with just this yellow slime and yellow logo means something more… Did you ever think of the fact that those colors are the colors of the Swedish flag? And what country are Entombed from? There you go, not only is the cover majestic as a fucken golden 100 foot penis in broad sunlight, complete with a hundred-or-so of Lemmy’s warts on top, it also connects to the band’s origin. Intentional? I fucken betcha. A completely fucken classic artwork for a fucken classic album. Un-fucken-beatable.

-Lord K

1. Morbid Angel: Altars of madness

What a surprise to see Mr. Dan Seagrave appear at several points and eventually top the list, eh? The man’s body of work speaks for itself. Mention a classic death metal band and chances are they’ve met the Brit in question, flossed with his ass hairs for a few weeks, and have an iconic album cover to show for it. “Altars” would have been a fantastic, genre-defining chunk of DM even if it had featured my nine-year old penis on the front. But to have this evil, twisting ball of stretched visages spinning in a lightening-traced vortex of purple… just perfection. Seagrave says in our interview that he had never heard Morbid Angel when starting the piece, which is supposed to represent the different emotions of humanity. Nonetheless the book (or disc in this case) can be judged by its demonic cover. Since it won the number 1 spot, we’re also doing a special promotion at GD based on “Altars”. Videotape yourself making each of the faces in the picture in rapid succession, post it on YouTube, send us the link. The winner will receive an amazing package that includes a Caribbean cruise, three nights all-inclusive at a luxury hotel, and the eternal mockery of the entire GD staff for being a fucking idiot.

-Daemonomania

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