Indeed. Storytelling.

I seriously enjoy all this artwork 1000000x more than the music.

If you're not a black metal fan, feel free to refrain from posting in this thread

I love the other wordly vibe. Folk tale/nature black metal vibe.

Apart from the bands logo which is pretty shitty looking

Mgla's Exercices In Futily was posted already, but great album cover!



Nattens Madrigal by Ulver, yes. Amazing cover. I think I love Bergtatt's cover even more. The trees, the sky and the color contrasts are just beautiful.





I love this Paysage d'Hiver's cover. These is a kind of Nosferatu (the 1922 movie) vibe to it as well because of Wintherr's pose. Cool cover indeed!



I really like most of WITTR covers. They keep enough of the black metal tradition, but they also have their very own personnality. Love them!

Among the Darkthrone inspired covers that I like is one of Behemoth's demo covers. The one from "The Return of the Northern Moon" demo:



I'm also quite fond of Hate Forest and Ildjarn's split Those Once Mighty Fallen and it's cover. It's a great album, at least for the Hate Forest part, haha! And I've always loved that cover. Ever since I saw that record in store I wanted to buy it!



I also really like the art style of classic black metal albums like Satyricon's Dark Medieval Times and Burzum's Det som engang var

Spoiler for size:


I also like how there is a hooded character in the foreground. It gives a sense of how big the wall is.

Rotting Christ's early/mid work and reissue work has always been filled with a bizarre sense of mystical rebellion and romantic death worship. Thy Mighty's reissue has a warmth beneath the cold colors used, and the faceless but clearly human figure is shrouded but not uninviting - a spirit without malevolence (something continued on Sleep. Non Servium looks both ancient and alien in a gloriously wonderful fantastic visage. A land out of time. There's something undoubtedly evocative and subtle about the paintings, but also something equally occult and ancient.

Triarchy in particular has this mystical, romantic view of death complete with sexual iconography and an eternal sense of purpose, but due to its crudely painted cover, fits in marvelously with the music that blends harshness and beauty in such a tangible and excellent way. One of the best covers of any metal album, let alone black metal. Sleep is so dark and dreary, resembling an insane asylum or an electric chair - either way putting a metaphorical use to the word "sleep" - either one of reason or of permanence.

Urfaust's Drei Rituale Jenseits Des Kosmos:


Larger version here: http://www.music-bazaar.com/album-image ... -cover.jpg

This one captivates the atmosphere of the album so well.

Some recent artworks I've really liked:

Yeah I like that one too!

Oh hell yes! I love that album. When I stumbled across that over 10 years ago I was like, what is this?!?! I wrote an album that was completely inspired by "Autumn Aurora".

My personal favorite album art is Craft - Void. I had dream once that was just like this, I think it was before this album came out, but I was standing in a field, and an atomic bomb exploded, I stood there and watched the mushroom cloud, and saw the rush of radiation coming towards me. It went through me and I withered away to bones, then to nothing, but I was still there, conscious, watching the world crumble away. It was one of the most vivid dreams I've ever had. And all through the dream it was silence. So eerie, but so fucking cool!

fuckin love Craft and that album has one of my favorite moments in black metal - the serpentine twisted evil mid-song riff in "Serpent Soul" - truly an apocalyptic album!

Holy shit! & I thought my dreams were fucked. Your dream reminds me of a scene from Terminator 2 where the female lead is dreaming of a nuke going off which withers her away to bones, quite similar to what you mentioned. Anyways, I digress.
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Here is another recent one I really liked:

Wow! Great poster! Where did you get that?

Oh weird! Admittedly, I haven't seen that movie...shame, I know. My dreams aren't always that fucked up, but those exceptions are what makes sleep so much better than reality!



Oh yeah! The whole is just killer and I'm surprised at the reviews it received, I felt it deserved higher ratings. And I still don't believe for a second that the drums are programmed on that album. There's too many nuances for it to be a machine.

Averse Sefira- Homecoming's March

Probably my favorite drawing of all. Seemingly simple yet amazingly complicated and structured.

Decayed- Nockthurnaal

This art has a perfectly shifted color timing that conveys the eerie occult setting and emphasizes both the woman and the moon.

Moonblood- split with DSO

Another amazing color palette that probably the art would suck without. The composition and subject is interesting, but the use of blue and orange kind of goes along
with its rise in movies at the time.

Mutiilation- Remains of a Dead Cursed Ruined Soul

Sheer destruction in its simplest form.

Sargeist- Let the Devil In

100% the opposite (or at least for me) of the sonic style/quality of the album. Really makes you wonder what you're about to hear.

It came with a vinyl release of that demo. Included was a cd version, a patch with an oldschool behemoth logo and apparently a sticker too which must be around here somewhere...


Yea Moonblood has some pretty cool art, here are some of my favorites:




I like the Taste Our German Steel cover the most...
oh and one of those is the Forgotten Spell art

Aren't those kirkebåter (church boats)?

Sear Bliss - The Haunting

*Jealousy intensifies*

At a time when most black metal albums were featuring B&W Satanic imagery/symbols or forest shots, Mortuary Drape did something completely different. When I saw the cover art I knew I had to have it.

I must say Emperor - Emperor/Wrath of the tyrant.
One of the first black metal albums i bought and the one who got me hooked on the genre.
The artwork itself is very simple but effective. Gustave Dore's art always work with black metal!

My all time favorite cover. Still freezing and desolate among others.

I'm going with the debut by a really unknown band by the name of Anthropolatri



Holy Blood - The Wanderer



Rotting Christ - Non Serviam

This one is terrible

Simple, but at the same time atmospheric. It complements the music very well. There is something about the wolves, and what generally goes on in the dark, vast forests at night when no man is watching, that really is black metal to me. Can't explain any better, really. This album cover represents that.
Not sure why they needed two versions of the band logo, though.

Yes.

One of my favorites - and great music too

My eyes

NOOOOOOOOOOO can't unsee!
I always thought it was some old crone in the dead of winter, it reminded me of Theodor Kittelsen, probably my favourite artist. Now I can see it was someone doing an Abbath/Demonaz clownish poses.

That Vorde cover looks awesome.

This is my personal favorite.. Most likely the artwork was borrowed, but it is very fitting for this Polish Black Metal band.

One of my favorite album covers is actually an original by Wrest. "Tentacles of Whorror" feels like a weird, twisted and surrealist bend on an art deco picture. Almost as iconic as the music itself.

Whoa.

I like that Necromantia cover art a lot.

I personally like universe themed artworks. Very inspiring and interesting.

Several of my favorites have already been mentioned, like Nattens madrigal, Nachthymnen, Storm of the Light's Bane and of course Bathory's debut.

Some of the ones I didn't know from before I really liked the Mortualia half-half cover, and the Elysian Blaze - Blood Geometry one was cool. Nightbringer - Apocalypse Sun is also fucking gorgeous.

Here's another one of my favorites: