How many of you have accidentaly come across hidden messages, songs, sounds, text, codes to deciphor etc over the years of listening to Metal??? Things hidden in the booklets, imagery, text, or the actual music itself?

There are corpses hidden in the booklet of "Blasphemy Made Flesh". they are easy to see, but hard to focus on.

Would the hidden meanings of songs go through here as well?

Yeah, why not!

Any thing hidden. Any messages, pics, codes.

Okay, then.

This is common knowledge, but in "The Golden Walls of Heaven" by Bathory, the first letters in each stanza form the words "CHRIST THE BASTARD SON OF HEAVEN" when put together.

Ha ha, I didn't know that! Well there you go!

Actually, in The Golden Walls of Heaven the letters form "SATAN SATAN SATAN SATAN"; "CHRIST THE BASTARD SON OF HEAVEN" comes out in Dies Irae from the same album.

Not sure how true this is, but I remember a mate saying quite some time back that on one of the Darkthrone albums there is a hidden message or messages when played backwards???

Is this true?

I always get those two things mixed up. Thank you for the correction, Rage.

Umm... "Swine of The Cross" by Cryptopsy is about nuclear armageddon if you scrutinize over it enough.

Never mind that, it may be about The Hills Have Eyes... there is evidence for both directions.

@ Sen - Darkthrone's album, "Transilvanian Hunger", on the seventh track, "As Flittermice as Satans Spys", has this message: In the name of God, let the churches burn.

Haha, pretty cool!

When played in reverse?

Are the corpses in the reissue or just the original?

These are some pretty well known ones. On Arcturus' "La Masquerade Infernale" you can rewind the beginning song to find a short hidden track before the album actually begins.

Also, all of Sigh's studio albums, in chronological order, spell out the band name. E.G:
Scenario IV
Imaginary Sonicscape
Gallows Gallery
Hangman's Hymn

Well then I should also point out that all of Morbid Angel's albums are in alphabetical order (expect for Aboms, but it was written earlier)

Altars of Madness
Blessed are the Sick
Covenant
Domination
Entangled...
Formulas...
Gateways...
Heretic
*And their next album which probably starts with 'I' *

Yes, but only the last few seconds, that would normally sound like something being played backwards.

Good observations! I don't know how you pointed those out, but that is very interesting!

The only "hidden" thing that I've seen myself was that Opeth's album Morningrise clocks in at a total duration of 66:06, but that's old news to most people on board. Not sure if it was intentional or not.

Ha ha, cool!

I wonder if anyone has made a song that sounds the same in reverse as forward for the whole song? That would be interesting, although probably not possible!

I thought the Morbid Angel one was common knowledge...?

I don't know about that, but if you play most songs that are comprised of just blasts and tremolo picking, it sounds pretty cool.

The re-issue. I don't have the booklet for the original, it is missing. I have the vinyl, re-issue, and the original CD version of it. The re-issue's corpses are on most of the pages in the booklet, you may have noticed them. They probably weren't meant to be hidden anyways.

I'd be surprised if Boris hasn't already done something like this, or won't in the future.

Its a pattern. The first four major releases did the same thing.

Scorn Defeat
Infidel Art
Ghastly Funeral Theatre
Hail Horror Hail.

EDIT: I'm a little slow tonight, aren't I?

Even with Abominations of Desolation included it would still be alphabetical, because of the second letter.
Iblis the Great... I'm stoked!

Wasn't there a code in Opeth's latest album? Did anyone ever crack it?

I guess I was never bored enough to stare at the lined up discography of Morbid Angel to reveal the beginning of the alphabet, excluding only Abominations of Desolation...oh well.

Haha, don't worry about it. I worded the first post pretty poorly. Much clearer now.

I guess another well known one would be all of the references in Iron Maiden covers. For example, The picture on the front of Somewhere in Time has:
-23:58 on the clock (2 minutes to midnight)
-The Ancient Mariner Restaurant
-The Aces High Bar
-The street is called Acacia Avenue

There are quite a few more, I think.

"A few"? There are like 50 more!

Somewhere in Time messages

That reminds me of Emperor's album art for In the Nightside Eclipse. The reaper who is seen riding the black stallion on the Emperor EP is seen on the upper left hand corner.

In Metallica's "Orion", at 5 minutes 23 seconds, you can faintly here someone yell "Hey!".

Whoa, I had no idea that there were that many. That's awesome.

I don't think it's hidden per se, more of a coincidence, but at a certain bitrate (I think it's 24 kb/s, but I'm not exactly sure) Iron Maiden's Number of the Beast song comes in at exactly 6.66 megabytes.

Edit: Sorry, I meant 124 kb/s. But I don't think that's it. I'm pretty computer illiterate and a friend showed this to me. I wish I could remember that bitrate now...

24 kb/s! Is that even listenable?

There's no way it would be even close to 6 MB at 24 kbp/s.

Man, that's pretty common sense, too. Look at some of your own mp3 files that are at 192 kbp/s that don't even reach 6 MB.

Yeah, I suppose thats obvious.

I know on the artwork for Eaten Back To Life via Cannibal Corpse theres a skull full of maggots in the graveyard in reference to the song. I dont remember if it was on the front or the back but its on there some where.

Yeah speaking of Cannibal Corpse album covers, there is supposed to be some tie between Tomb Of The Mutilated and another album cover. Something about the arm of the dead body in the picture being seen on another cover or something? Someone help me out?

It's like saying Eddie appears in all of Maiden covers (almost all of them)

Well, instead of pointing out how obvious some things are and how stupid people are for not knowing, how about adding to the discussion with some worthwhile stuff?

There's messages written on the pyramid in Powerslave. I forget a few but one says "Wot...no Guiness?"

The art work to Dream Theater's Awake album has some references to the songs on that album. The clock in the moon is set at 6:00, there's a spider web next to the mirror, the figure in the mirror is different than the one looking at him (A Mind Beside Itself), which The Mars Volta totally ripped off in Frances the Mute.

Octaravium also has a mega ton of hidden things that I don't even know where to start describing.

On Skuldom's 'Nativity In brown', the 6th track (which is untitled) is a woman talking over ambience, but it's played backwards. I want to know what she's saying, but I don't have any way of reversing it to find out. If anyone can find out for me, or give me a way of finding out, that'd be great. But yeah, i figure that fits in with this thread.

The Finnish black metal band Barathrum has put out a whole slew of singles and demos, but on all of their actual full length releases, the first letters of each release spell out "HEIL SOVA". Sova is the last name of the founding member of the band, Janne "Demonos" Sova. The full length releases are as follows:

Hailstorm
Eerie
Infernal
Legions of Perkele

Sataana
Okkult
Venomous
Anno Aspera: 2003 Years After The Bastard's Birth

songstowearpantsto.com did this, although nothing to do with metal.

The song is essentially a beat and...I think a bass line (It's been awhile since I've listened) with the lyrics being "If you play this song backwards it will sound the same" followed by that exact recording reversed.