FINAL SIX: THE SIX COOLEST & LAMEST METAL ALBUM COVERS

You know the band sucks. Everyone has told you that they suck, and that this album sucks harder than any of its predecessors. But look at that cover! You’ve never seen an album cover this badass before! It’s hard to describe exactly what it is—sort of a dissected human body being used to wipe the Devil’s ass while he raises the Worm Chalice aloft—but it immediately makes you want to buy a bullet belt and brand a huge inverted cross into your sternum. Buy the album and love the cover, or save your money for an In Flames reissue? What do you do, hotshot? What do you do?!

A good album cover makes all the difference in metal. Sure, a great album can have a bad cover and still rock, as many if not all of W.A.S.P.’s releases have proven, but a good album cover, a good image representing an album, can greatly influence that record’s power on the musical landscape. How well a cover transfers onto a shirt is an important issue, too; hell, I fucking worship Ace Of Spades, but my Motörhead T-shirts feature the MotörDog, not a murky shot of three dudes dressed like leather cowboys in the desert. And so, because this one has been a long time coming, I bring you the Six Coolest and Lamest Metal Album Covers.

The Six Coolest Metal Album Covers

1) Iron Maiden, Killers A big-haired rotting zombie leers over his desperate victim, bloody hatchet in hand. A dystopian apartment complex glows in the background. Maiden singer Paul Di’Anno quit the band after this album and was soon replaced by Bruce Dickinson. The zombie went on to conquer the whole fucking world.

2) Slayer, South Of Heaven A giant skull with a cross jammed through it sinks into a lake of blood in Hieronymus Bosch’s Vatican. Artist Larry Carrol took Slayer’s slow, riffy album and perfectly translated it into this, the ultimate Hellscape.

3) Celtic Frost, To Mega Therion Satan aims his Jesus-slingshot at you while phallic skull-faced demons (one of them is in a top hat) shriek and gibber. H.R. Giger’s “Satan I” adorns the cover of the album that every black-metal band has wanted to make, ever.








4) Dissection, Storm Of The Light’s Bane Eight-year-old Ezra Lux described this album cover as “doom man on a doom horse in doom land,” and damn, the kid’s astute. Images rarely capture a record’s atmosphere as perfectly as Kristian “Necrolord” Wahlin’s icy and morose reaper.








5) Cannibal Corpse, Vile The name says it all. I could describe what’s going on here, to you, but it wouldn’t do the cover justice. Jesus, CC artist Vince Locke went above and beyond with this one. You see the penis? It has a penis.









6) Mastodon, Remission AAAAAAH! PUT IT OUT PUT IT OUT PUT IT OUT! GET SOME WATER! HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?! WHAT THE FUCK?!

The Six Lamest Metal Album Covers

1) Judas Priest, Turbo This cover sums up pretty much everything I hate about the ’80s. It’s gaudy, it’s super-femme, and it has some topical bullshit video-game theme. Honestly, is there anything good about this album?









2) Evanescence, Fallen I respect female rock vocalists, but it’s beyond lame when their glamour takes the spotlight over their band. So when the cover of your debut album is a DeviantArt-level Photoshop of your female singer’s face? Knock knock. Who’s there? Hugo. Hugo who? HUGO FUCK YOURSELF.







3) Annihilator, Carnival Diablos I have a soft spot for this album—it was introduction to the mighty Annihilator—but man, how many couch cushions did Jeff Waters & Co. overturn to pay for this cover? I can honestly say I have no clue what’s going on here.








4) Soilwork, Figure Number Five Come on, guys—the Natural Born Chaos cover is so awesome! Whatever. I think this is a pile of driftwood—or rocks? Are they rocks?—in the middle of a compass. Or something. Who cares?









5) Limp Bizkit, Chocolate Starefish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water Look, I’ll always take the time to hate on Limp Bizkit, but the covers of the two albums previous to this one were pretty fucking cool. This one, however, is lazy, juvenile, actually repellent to me (and honestly, did you see the previous six? VILE, dude! It has a penis.).







6) Scorpions, Lovedrive “Don’t you hate it when you feel up a girl…and her nipples turn into hot bubble gum! Oh my God, you guys, too?!”

By amateur spelunker Chris Krovatin