Metal has spawned its share of iconic imagery, great artists like Ed Repka (Megadeth) and Pushead (Metallica) and some pretty magnificent album sleeves. These aren’t any of them! I’ve chosen instead to celebrate some of metal’s greatest artistic blunders. These are a few of the “misses” that littler metal’s larger than life landscape. In the case of most of these records, the music is hardly at issue. In fact, there’s a few records that went onto classic status listed here – and a few that didn’t. In all of these cases, the suck-ola imagery that’s celebrated here certainly didn’t help any of these discs go onto securing their spot in heavy metal history. Still, most of ‘em have made great T-shirts’!
Various: Stars on Thrash (Roadrunner 1988): An airbrushed atrocity that earns top honors for not only general artistic suckage, but also scores immensely for absolutely no focal point whatsoever. Long the topic of debate who exactly the characters represented on the front cover might be: current thinking might be DRI’s Kurt Brecht on vocals, The Great Kat on guitar,;could that be Fates Warning’s Jim Mateos on bass? The drummer does have more than a passing resemblance to Corrosion of Conformity’s Reed Mullin. A copy of this rarity which somehow scored a live Slayer track (“Evil Has No Boundaries”) amongst the likes of Acrophet and Mucky Pup has been prominently displayed in my office for nearly a year since a copy found itself in my possession. Why this doesn’t hang in the Guggenheim is anyone’s guess.
Indestructible Noise Command-Razorback (Giant Records 1986): Whose little brother was handed this homework assignment? Unremarkable and totally forgettable Connecticut thrashers who would have been consigned to the shifting sands of metal history – save for this retarded Rembrandt. Who at the record company got handed this one and said: “cool”? Fire that man immediately.
Venom – Nightmare 12” (Neat Records 1985): Now guitarist Jeff “Mantas” Dunn may have split the upside-down ibex scene for a quieter life in Newcastle, UK after this single and its titular LP got released but Venom finally crossed the proverbial line with this baby. This one got banned. The cover had to be changed. Damn shame too… THIS is the sort of thing any teen metal fan would want. An incubi crawling from the great beyond to get it on with some unwilling female. Let’s not get into silly moral discussions here. This one’s shock for shock’s sake – and looks like it was rendered on someone stoned out of their gourd one afternoon.
Mercyful Fate-Nuns Have No Fun (Rave On 1982) The record itself is a stone-cold classic and first release release for this Danish band that’s influenced everyone from Lars Ulrich to Varg Vikiernes. In many ways, Ground Zero for Black Metal and the record that introduced the world to the original corpse-painter, King Diamond. There’s two absolute MF classics on this one – the title track and “A Corpse Without a Soul”. Buuut, let’s turn our attention to the pencil and charcoal masterpiece that adorns the cover. The evil cabal has gathered. The sacrificial hot chick is up on the cross (where do they get these Beez-lovin’ babes anyway?). This must be how the Danes really party!
Slayer-Show No Mercy (Metal Blade 1983): Another mind-blowing record. And while Slayer has had some amazing cover artwork in their career, we can only hail Satan that they would come with the brilliant imagery that would adorn “Reign in Blood” just a few years later.
Pantera – Metal Magic & Projects in the Night (self-released 1983 and 1984, respectively) No matter how amazing the covers that adorn “A Vulgar Display of Power” or even “Reinventing the Steel” might be, these are complete and total shit. Now granted, this is the imagery that went with the pre-Anselmo straightforward rock era Pantera rather than the genre-shaking metal machine they ultimately became…but hoooo-ha! That “cat-man” on the cover of “Metal Magic” is hilarious! “Projects in the Jungle” looks like a screen shot from some piss-poor video-game. Thank you Phillip Horace for coming in and stepping things up to a new level – of vastly better artwork!
Mayhem-Dawn of the Black Hearts (Warmaster Records 1995): This bootleg of an early Mayhem gig wins the “gag-reflex” grand prize. Basically, it’s a snapshot taken by Mayhem guitarist Euronymous on discovering his band-mate having freshly blown his brains out. It’s really a masterpiece of bad taste that’s become a key image in black metal history. Will ya look at those vibrant colors! Talk about a brain-teaser! Oooof! It’s not like Eur-y got off much better when his pal Count Grishnakh paid him a visit one night to check up on royalities owed from the Mayhem man’s Deathlike Silence label. Nothing like a good ol’ fashioned stabbing between friends!
Trivium –The Crusade (Roadrunner 2007): Looks like a friggin’ Chinese menu. Paul Romano (Mastodon) is usually pretty amazing. Here – not so much.
Omen-Battle Cry (Metal Blade 1984): Pretty unremarkable and forgettable bunch who boast a one-time Annihilator vocalist. The cover is a real mess of orange-brown-puke colors, line drawings, Nazguhl warriors, castles…just a altogether affront to the art of the abum sleeve.
Send this article by email
What is your name?
Please indicate below the emails to which you want to send this article: Gitter's Worst Covers
