Another 3 of My Favorite Album Covers


I made a post a few weeks ago talking about 3 pieces of album artwork that I enjoy a lot. Silly me thought I’d get through 9 more in a timely fashion, but of course life had to get its fat ass in the way. But I’m still doing 3 more now because the I love talking about the less-discussed visual aspect of metal music and the artists contributing to it deserve more recognition.
Leviathan - The Tenth Sub Level of Suicide
As with (I believe) all of Leviathan’s work, its sole musical contributor Wrest created the terrifying artwork of the project’s debut album, and my God! The first time I saw this, its representation of the album’s title struck such a shuddering nerve in me that drew my morbid curiosity in like a siren. Before hearing Leviathan, every artist I had ever heard covering the subject of suicide talked about the heartbreak it leaves and how it’s not something anyone should ever consider. Even though I have since found more in the way of depressive suicidal black metal that turns toward instead of away from the psychological terror of suicide, none have done so quite as powerfully as Wrest has with Leviathan, and The Tenth Sub Level of Suicide accomplished that foray into the darkest, most self-destructive depths of the human psyche both auditorilly and visually. The deeply black, abysmal setting of the cover, depicting the downward decent of a tormented, disheveled figure crawling desperately toward the bottom of a tunnel, allows not a shred of hope or light and in the context of the title, it’s truly unnerving. The state of mind it depicts is one of nearly fatal degradation that many who have committed suicide have stood on the edge of and fallen. It’s a representation of that invisible near-death mental state that Wrest has experienced and escaped, and a respectably tangible and vivid illustration of the human mind as it pines for escape by suicide.
Korn - Untitled
I made another post about this album earlier this year, suggesting it as an underrated moment in the band’s career and talking a little bit about the album artwork, created by an artist named Richard A. Kirk. An uncertainly malicious abstract, Lovecraftian monster ruling over or seething in pain above a host of smaller demented figures. I’m not exactly sure why I enjoy this album’s cover’s minor details and the weird sum they amount to, but for all of the gorily, disgustingly, or sacrilegiously provocative artwork I’ve seen in metal, this is one of the more mild of the bunch, yet I can’t stop looking at it.
Nails - Abandon All Life
Farron Kerzner’s red-heavy cover of Nails’ second short blast of an album features a few wizard-hooded individuals in some sort of reddened, unearthly realm. The depth it depicts gives the impression of some kind of high-temperature, yet not fiery hell, despite how fiery the music within is. It reminds me a lot of Slayer’s Hell Awaits with the background’s vertical paint strokes depicting a vast, but claustrophobic abyss. The varying textures, which sometimes give the impression of pyroclastic flow or of pluming smokey fire, match the constantly changing and explosive musical motifs of the album.
Alright, that’s it for now. I do still have a list of 6 more to talk about.

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