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Metal_Jaw
Metalhead

Joined: Fri Sep 30, 2011 12:57 pm
Posts: 753
Location: United States
PostPosted: Wed Feb 19, 2014 2:09 am 
 

Image

My girlfriend and I were just discussing the what we thought the meaning was behind the artwork for Sabbath's "mob Rules", which is one of my favorites. Anyway, what we came to thinking about was that maybe it was a grisly metaphor for the grim situations regarding the Berlin Wall, and the outcry for it to be torn down. The creepy hooded figures with their anonymous faces and rusted water hoses seem to represent the riot police, who surely used hoses on rioters, and their uniform helmets disguising their faces. The bloody tarp on the rack seems to me just the bloodshed which occurred, represented in the devil face on the tarp. The wall behind is the wall itself, and and the wood stand is just a stand to try and see over the wall. It gets covered with the tarp, like to be forgotten.

Obvious? Maybe. Some of you surely already figured it out, but thinking about it, it's morbidly fascinating. Maybe some of you guys see something else in the artwork. Tell me, what do you see in certain heavy metal album covers beyond just "seeing" the covers?

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Turner
Metalhead

Joined: Fri Aug 23, 2002 2:04 am
Posts: 2247
Location: Australia
PostPosted: Wed Feb 19, 2014 6:28 am 
 

christ, just looking and it could be about almost ANYTHING. not being too familiar with the album and the individual songs, i'm guessing anything from the crusades to the french revolution (note the crucifix and the guillotine-type structure), but i didn't figure the berlin wall. were they already calling for it to be torn down in 1980? the wheels in the background and spears suggest sometime before the 20th century. slightly steampunk, ha ha ha. most likely, it doesn't actually represent any one situation in particular.

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mindshadow
Echoes in an empty cranium

Joined: Wed Jan 12, 2011 8:36 am
Posts: 2004
Location: Panopticon
PostPosted: Wed Feb 19, 2014 12:55 pm 
 

Religious artifacts, a shroud with some face pushing into it, instruments of torture through the ages?, automated people.

we are the creators of our own heaven and hell?


I think the lyrics -

"Break the circle and stop the movement, the wheel is thrown to the ground
Just remember it might start rolling and take you right back around"

are saying stop continually making the same mistakes? (we're caught in the samsaric wheel).
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Last edited by mindshadow on Wed Feb 19, 2014 1:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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~Guest 21181
The Great Fearmonger

Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 3:44 am
Posts: 3987
PostPosted: Wed Feb 19, 2014 1:05 pm 
 

Spoiler: show


In pretty much everything that isn't power metal. ;)

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Desperta_Ferro
Metalhead

Joined: Sun Jun 13, 2010 6:45 am
Posts: 715
Location: Argentina
PostPosted: Wed Feb 19, 2014 6:20 pm 
 

Mob Rules has an amazing cover. One of my favourites, looks like something (to me) out of WH40k, it's grim as fuck.

I have been always intrigued by the cover of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, the second one. Something about the rise of christianity and the fall of heathen beliefs it seems, the huge brain has a crown of thorns, a half-bitten apple, the earth torn asunder from where the brain (God himself?) borns. After all, you have a song about the ragnarok, Twilight of the Gods, and just then the spoken part on Rising Unchained talks about some One God that rises after Odin falls.

Spoiler: show
"Meeting on the Twilight Bridge, the giants of Jotunheim align
against the hosts of Heaven. The sun turns black and falls,
lightning cracks Bifrost the Rainbow Bridge of three hues,
while time comes to an end.
The wolf Fenrir breaks his chain, Yggdrasil is laid waste and the
universe comes crashing down. But after defeat, One will come
beyond the reach of all evil, greater even than Odin, to create a
new Heaven and Earth set in a golden age forevermore."


Spoiler: show
Image


Pretty cool stuff if you ask me. When I first saw it I thought that it was some random shit that looked good, but there is a meaning behind it all. It reminds me of the cover on Maiden's Seventh Son.

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Arkhane
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Aug 30, 2010 3:39 pm
Posts: 1820
Location: South Texas
PostPosted: Wed Feb 19, 2014 10:14 pm 
 

Hmm. I've never really taken the time to study a piece of album art besides something to represent the atmosphere or mindset of that particular album. I do tend to get distracted very easily, so it's not too much a wonder.
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grauer_mausling
Metalhead

Joined: Sun Dec 20, 2009 8:00 am
Posts: 1873
Location: Germany
PostPosted: Sat Feb 22, 2014 4:35 pm 
 

Maiden's "Somewhere…" full sleeve surely ranks among the greatest ones. Derek Riggs (Maiden's "resident artist" back then)
put so many hints to other song titles on it as well as incorporating forme cover elements (both single and album art).

I'm sure you all know this but is just had to been mentioned here :wink:

Spoiler: show
Image
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Metal Shark
Metalhead

Joined: Tue Feb 25, 2014 9:54 am
Posts: 1066
Location: United States
PostPosted: Sat Mar 15, 2014 11:34 am 
 

The hooded figures are the MOB, and they've tortured and killed someone, as shown by the bloodstains on the cloth.

" the devil face "

I never noticed that before!! I guess it doesn't show up on cd-size art so much. Looks a LITTLE like Dio's mascot, curiously enough.

and of course, the album RULES.

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elf48687789
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Feb 02, 2009 2:03 pm
Posts: 1662
PostPosted: Sat Mar 15, 2014 3:45 pm 
 

grauer_mausling wrote:
Maiden's "Somewhere…" full sleeve surely ranks among the greatest ones. Derek Riggs (Maiden's "resident artist" back then)
put so many hints to other song titles on it as well as incorporating forme cover elements (both single and album art).

I'm sure you all know this but is just had to been mentioned here :wink:

Spoiler: show
Image

It's cyber-something, probably could have many meanings, but I find it pretty funny that there is a "Pizza Hot" (great name for a restaurant), and I'm not sure why it says "kefir" in Russian there (it's slightly funny, but not that funny).

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larrybaldwin
Mallcore Kid

Joined: Tue Mar 18, 2014 9:53 am
Posts: 1
Location: Romania
PostPosted: Tue Mar 18, 2014 10:00 am 
 

I guess the original artwork was made by Greg Hildebrandt in 1971 , and it`s called Dream 1 : Crucifiers.


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Aydross
Metalhead

Joined: Sun Feb 12, 2012 9:21 pm
Posts: 552
PostPosted: Tue Mar 18, 2014 9:35 pm 
 

This image I always found amazing, and I actually have no idea what's going on, but whatever it is, it must be epic.

Spoiler: show
Image


Maybe it has some meaning?

Edit: but seriously, what the heck with that spider :oh shit:
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Metallumz
Metal newbie

Joined: Mon Jan 31, 2011 2:02 pm
Posts: 201
Location: United Kingdom
PostPosted: Thu Mar 20, 2014 11:27 pm 
 

What's the deal with the Illuminati 'all seeing eye' popping up in Metal these days? if its a case of musicians giving the nod to conspiritards by saying they acknowledge something is going on too, then fair enough. But it's practically seen in every video and album artwork which comes out.
FFS if you're wanting to be original then go your own path, rather than seeking validation from conspiracy theorists who only get the wrong idea about things anyway,

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~Guest 98976
Metal Pounder

Joined: Fri Feb 23, 2007 2:08 pm
Posts: 8000
PostPosted: Mon Mar 31, 2014 3:45 pm 
 

I'm going to second everybody else and say Mob Rules does indeed have an awesome cover. I've always like stuff like Slaughter Of The Soul and Reign In Blood with their more "compilation" -type scenes. Also, Nothing Exceeds Like Excess! is probably my favorite since it's so hilarious.

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_MFMGW_
Metalhead

Joined: Thu Feb 10, 2011 11:24 am
Posts: 430
Location: A pub somewhere in Lancashire, UK
PostPosted: Fri Apr 04, 2014 5:50 am 
 

Nothing to contribute other than - One of my favourite album covers ever. (and possibly my favourite album ever)
Dark and grim as fuck.

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KriegdemKriege
Mallcore Kid

Joined: Fri Oct 11, 2013 6:28 pm
Posts: 13
Location: United States
PostPosted: Fri Apr 04, 2014 4:15 pm 
 

It's just a cool album cover, and the meaning seems pretty straightforward. The Berlin Wall idea is interesting, but I doubt it's what the artist had in mind.

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Oxenkiller
Veteran

Joined: Sat Feb 09, 2008 3:42 am
Posts: 3613
Location: United States
PostPosted: Fri Apr 04, 2014 7:56 pm 
 

On the "Somewhere in Time" cover, I've always loved that album cover, but every time I look at it, I notice more stuff. For instance until recently, I never noticed the TARDIS, the Ancient Mariner Seafood Restaurant, or the West Ham-Arsenal results. And if you look carefully in the window, the words "Boring Painting" are reflected backwards. Its like you see more stuff every time, that makes it fun to look at.

I think "Kefir" is a type of Russian yogurt, but I'm not an expert on Russian cuisine.

I remember there was some dude- and I wish I could be more specific and remember what band he was in, it was some U.S. black metal band I think- that would design these album covers full of weird symbols, and in his interviews, would go into lengthy magical mumbo-jumbo explanation as to which Sumerian deities and other occult phenomenon the symbols on the album cover were supposed to represent.

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Poisonfume
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Jul 18, 2011 7:26 pm
Posts: 1227
Location: Greece
PostPosted: Mon Apr 07, 2014 8:39 pm 
 

FasterDisaster wrote:
I'm going to second everybody else and say Mob Rules does indeed have an awesome cover. I've always like stuff like Slaughter Of The Soul and Reign In Blood with their more "compilation" -type scenes. Also, Nothing Exceeds Like Excess! is probably my favorite since it's so hilarious.


Speaking of Reign in Blood, I will never unsee the hidden image of hitler in the album cover, you guys can call me as crazy as you like.
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tomcat_ha
Minister of Boiling Water

Joined: Fri Oct 27, 2006 8:05 am
Posts: 5570
Location: Netherlands
PostPosted: Mon Apr 07, 2014 10:05 pm 
 

Kefir is a fermented(slightly alcoholic) milk drink. It originates from the Caucasus and is quite popular in eastern europe but also in Turkey for example.

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