As there are extremely lame and ugly front covers, there're also these awesome looking one, such as:


The greatest of all time. The colors fit together just perfectly, and nobody has ever (IMO) depicted the moment of revival from death any better than this.



I like this one because there's no better way to express horror and hideous-ness than letting your imagination complete the picture, and here they did it perfectly



I see this one and I think of nightmares. The blurry lines, the nightmarish scene and the distressing feeling you get is strangely appealing, almost captivating.

Last link is broken.

It is Abigail, by King Diamond.

I really like the cover to Njiqahdda's Nji. Njiijn. Njiiijn. album. The bright colors and overall pleasant vibe not usually seen on the cover of black metal albums is what lead me to purchase this album. Ever since then, they have become one of my all time favorite projects. They have a lot of cool album covers other than this one. They definitely are usually pretty unique and abstract.


I love the album cover to Defenders of the Faith too. There is something so ludicrously metal about it that just screams 80's badass-ness.

Pretty much everything ever done by Seagrave is high on my list.

You know what I love? When a really awesome piece of artwork is given to an album with really awesome music. It results in a totally awesome symbiosis.

Case 1: Nokturnal Mortum's Голос Сталі



Too bad that's the only album on the archive by that artist.

One of my favourites from MR. I feel like I'm entering the domain of Cthulhu himself.

A personal favorite of mine.

Anything by Andreas Marschall really, he's the best cover artist in metal IMO







Simply amazing

I like Dan Seagraves stuff too but he's extremely repetitive with his twisted landscape stuff

One of my all time favorites is Gojira - From Mars To Sirius



It's a very simple and serene piece. And it perfectly captures the feeling of the music. Plus flying whales are the best things ever.

Taking the word badass to a whole new level

YES.

Just because it reminds me of some old horror VHS you'd find hiding in the corner of a dark and musty video store.

I very much enjoy the work of Chris Moyen, otherwise known as Thorncross. Particularly The Oath of Black Blood, Reflections of the Solstice and anything he has done for Archgoat. I absolutely love his extremely detailed yet undeniably minimalistic album covers.

Other than Moyen's work, Storm of the Light's Bane, Those of the Unlight and Hammer of Gods are some of my other favorites.

He's all I came here to say. Everything he does is so detailed and has this 80s fantasy, hand-painted look. You can tell when an album cover is his right away.

Are my personal favorites, if Only because I like Nihilistic/Misanthropic artwork by equally Nihilistic/Misanthropic Death Metal.

Astel Oscora - Eriden, this is just an epic album cover, and listening to "god of dead dreams" while looking at this makes you feel like you are in this vibrant setting.

I'm also going to throw in Riitiir and in the nightside eclipse. Riitiir got a lot of criticism, but I think it really fit the album, as well as it reminded me a lot of stone henge and other spacey structures pointing towards the sky. And in the nightside eclipse was just a great album cover in general, it stood out from a lot of other bm covers at the time/

though we had this kind of thread now and then, I always like it as looking at great covers (even if
opinions about it differ) is always a pleasure to me

Here's a recent fave of mine. The vocalist is a friend of mine and I know first hand that a major part
of the budget went to the cover artist. They absolutely wanted Ola Larsson. The result is awesome!



Other personal alltime faves besides all Derek Riggs' work for Maiden (which are too many to post )









ahh, and many many more. Too many to mention them now, so I leave it to these for now...

Kristian Wåhlin's work... He made a shitload of great album covers... Like these: Wintersun, Dissection, Dark Funeral and many, many more! He's got huge portfolio... Check it out here.

I also really like this one. The idea is great! It shows whole history of the band; long thick roots growing from 'hell' symbolizes past of the band; long, heavy sounding songs. The more you look up the more you see the band as it is today. From these roots grew a tree whose fruits are band members. All these skulls beneath the tree are members who left the band... Thats really good piece of art I think!

And look at this beautiful Winterfylleth's latest album cover! It's so beautiful that at first I though it was painted... Marvellous wiev!

That Winterfylleth one is a great pic, indeed. However the simple typo of the album's title just somehow ruins it a bit.
It looks too poorly, plainly pasted above the image. Well, at least imo... But this happens quite often with many great covers...

grauer_mausling, Manegarm have had some excellent cover art! I especially like Havets Vargar for its sepia tones, and Vargaresa has one of the coolest throne confrontations I've seen.

That Opeth one has great meaning, and that's always appreciated... but the heads hanging from the tree look kind of ludicrous.

Great topic!

Some of my personal favorites.

This one fits the music perfectly. Kristian Wahlin made a few similar ones (Dissection/Emperor) and this one is a perfect fit for the music. It just fits the overall sound and feel perfectly.

Check this out, you may be surprised!

I haven't heard this album, but this is the only album cover in this thread that I really like.

I always liked this one from Portal, the color scheme is really interesting and the imagery is equally astounding.


And the album itself is pretty shit, but Condemned's newest has some cool, vast-feeling artwork:

Y'all need to post some more obscure shit! I remember the last short-lived thread of this kind where people didn't.

Badass and over the top, but in an awesome way, just like their music.


The artwork of this thrash/crossover masterpiece illustrates the band's punk-roots and is also hilarious.


So creepy and atmospheric...

All Running Wild cover till Masquerade are awesome, but this one while being the artwork of one of the greatest heavy metal record of all time, matches exactly the feeling you got by listening to the album


Dont like the record that much, but the cover just owns

A few more of my favorite metal album covers

Not to be the guy that says HOW HAS THIS NOT BEEN MENTIONED YET?! but seriously, how has this not been mentioned yet?

Deicide - Legion. Creat concept, well realized.

Cannibal Corpse - Butchered at Birth. Creepy, over the top, funny.

Hour of Penance - Paradogma. While not a new concept, but so well done, almost gorgeous

The Monolith Deathcult - Trivmvirate. Original, different, striking, a good visual representation of the music.

Sinister - Legacy of Ashes. Campy but evil.

Carcass - Necroticism. Weird, brilliant like the music, highly original.

Anything by Michael Whelan
Anything by Raymond Swanland

I almost forgot one! The cover for Progenie Terrestre Pura's debut. The album isn't even out yet, and this is already one of my favorite album covers of all time. It's beautiful custom artwork, and it reminds me a bit of something out of Mass Effect. As I said in the thread for this album, bands should be flocking towards Alexander Preuss for album art. The guy has quite the imagination.

This thread needs more Kristian Wahlin.



The above is without a doubt my favorite album art of all time, and perfectly fitting for the black metal album.

















/thread

Also, relating to an earlier post, anyone ever notice that the path on the cover of Left Hand Path actually goes to the right?

Those were very blue.

I love Ola Larsson's work, easily my favourite artist of the last few years, the dude knows how to use computers to get that little bit of extra atmospheric effect over pure painting, as far as he's concerned I'd probably still go with the Undergang/Funerbraum cover as his best, with his Disma works all following closely, since I'm not too big on the depiction of Cthulu himself on the Sulphur Aeon one, although city is mindblowingly good.



As for a personal favourite, Kris Verwips work on Sathanas's Thy Dark Heavens has been my go to choice for a few years, it's just mind blowingly epic.



Sure the gate looks oddly flat, but I don't care, proper proportions cannot be expected to exist along size such badassory.

This one pretty much sums up the album perfectly




Gotta throw another MR in. This one just screams epic. I'd like to see this dude as a video game character or something.




Cyborg-Shiva. Now that's gangsta.

Oh yeah, love that one, too. It was done by the great french comic book artist Eric Larnoy (RIP) from
whom I got a few comics. Always loved his style!

other great covers (not of him but just a few faves)







(not metal, so I don't put pics of them here, but I am a total sucker for Mark Wilkinson's artwork
he's done in the 80s for Marillion. Totally fantastic!)

Haha every time this thread happens those 2 Dissection covers get posted multiple times. Great art and a cool band. It's cool to see Manegarm posted, Vredens Tid is a personal favorite:


As far as the Bolt Thrower cover PhilFrog posted, why would they have Imperial Marines on the cover of an album by that name? They're not even fighting chaos they're fighting orks. Just nerd quibbles I guess. I would love for a band to use some of Adrian Smith's Warhammer 40,000 art on an album, he's my favorite. He did GWAR's Violence Has Arrived, by consensus a pretty cool album cover. He just does spiky grim faces so well, and his shading on metallic colors is fuckin bitchin. If a new Bolt Thrower ever happens, or hell even a re-issue of Realm of Chaos, GW should let them use one of Smith's pictures for the cover (HAHA funny joke I just made.)