In the world of album art, the line between great and hilarious is fine indeed, and nowhere moreso than the niche of heavy metal. Sure, a million srs bsns bands with names like Aphonic Threnody (real) or Somnolent Vasectomy (made-up, I think) might play it safe with chiaroscuro lighting and a rotting skull or pentagram or some such bullshit, but if you don't take the risks, you can't expect to qualify for the rewards. With that in mind, here are the album covers that dared to dream.
1. "Easy Prey" - Predator
Watch out, unwary beachgoer! This homeless bum with a condom on his head will grab you! What's most fascinating about this is the perfect placement of the swimmer out at sea, creating a triangular perspectival composition that suggests way more effort went into this shoot than the concept might incline you to believe. Is there a happy ending for our unsuspecting heroine?
No!!!
2. Mutiny - Dammaj
A pirate getting hit by lightning via his guitar sounds pretty metal to me. Too bad this off-the-rack Halloween costume was the best the record company would deign to splurge for. But just look at his enthusiasm for the role! In my book, this dude belongs up in the pantheon with Eddie and Vic Rattlehead.
3. Battle at Helm's Deep - AttackeR
AttackeR: "you've read Lord of the Rings, right?"
Gigachad: "yes." *Draws He-Man fighting a green lobster-bat*
4. Pink Bubbles Go Ape - Helloween
 |
???? |
Just kidding. For me, it's Better than Raw:
 |
>tfw no goth gf who gets wet af stirring my dinner |
5. Lion and Tiger - Fire Strike
"I want a tiger, a lion, a sorceress with rocking cans, a crystal ball and her hair on fire" - Brazil's Fire Strike, correctly.
6. Ravening Iron - Eternal Champion
From the pyramidal composition to the characteristically "cat-like" features of the enthroned exhibitionist, this is a textbook case of doing it right vis-à-vis Frank Frazetta pastiche. Naturally, we give it to you censored to avoid offence. Honourable mention must go to Ültra Raptör's efforts in the same spirit, which simply rip off the master's poses wholesale, and throw in a dinosaur atop a Mesoamerican-style step pyramid:
 |
A band after my own heart. |
7. Tooth and Nail - Dokken
As the title implies, this was a do-or-die bid for superstardom from the hair scene's GOAT ensemble. How best to let the world know what manner of virtuosic axework and superlative songwriting were to be found within the album sleeve? If you ventured "the Creature from the Black Lagoon's claw bursting through the aluminium waves from a fiery pit below to grab the band logo rendered in shiny chrome", you share an eerie counterintuitive genius with some based cokehead whom I can't be bothered to look up.
8. Soldiers Under Command - Stryper
Looking like something out of Games Workshop's Necromunda, Soldiers' album cover will make you pray for a Christian Mad Max ripoff starring a hair metal band tooling around the post-nuke world dispensing justice from their yellow-and-black striped armoured vehicle. Now you want to see it too, don't lie.
9. Killing is My Business...and Business is Good! (eventually) - Megadeth
It's only fitting that the greatest GOAT metal band of all time (deal with it, tastelets) should have rung in his, uh, their career with this majestically edgy design featuring Vic in what can only be described as what the doodles in the back of my schoolbooks looked like in my head. Too bad the fuckups at the record company lost the original design and so for years it was released with this cover instead:
 |
Presumably they got this plastic skull from the same Dollar Tree where Dammaj got their pirate costume. |
No World Order! - Gamma Ray
This, on the other hand, looks precisely like the type of shit I used to doodle back in school (still do, too). The world is at war between an evil Grim Reaper leading the Illuminati and a good, Buddhist Grim Reaper (????) each armed with shamshir lightsabres (lightshamshirs; OC DO NOT STEAL). I have no idea what the fuck Kai Hansen meant by this, but I'll take it over a band photo anyday.
Do ÿöü have a favourite album cover??? Share in the comments!!!