My Top 10 Favorite Album Covers

Hello there fellow Otaku & Metalheads!

I admit that content this month is a little on the weird side. Give how freezing it’s been where I live, it’s made wanting to do thing go by slowly, Never fear, for while the cold wind blows, I will not stop making posts! They might be simpler for me, but the content will keep coming! To provide some simple content in this chilly times, I thought it would be fun to talk about some of my favorite albums covers of all time. Covering a wide variety of metal bands, they all left an impression on me in some way. So, here are my top 10 favorite album covers of all time. Enjoy!

10) Darkthrone - A Blaze In The Northern Sky

I know I’ve stated it before, but I’ll say it again: I’m not a Black Metal fan. I think the vocals are grated, the low-fi instrumentation & production are somewhat lazy, and the black & white albums covers that were highly popular in the 90s were done because it was easy. However, in recent years I’ve made a few exceptions, and high on that list is Darkthrone’s first foray into the world of Black Metal. Ironically, I talked about this album briefly back in October of last year about albums that are perfect for the month, and I put it on that list for how good it’s music was.

What I’m surprised about is that I didn’t talk about the cover to A Blaze In The Northern Sky. Though it’s not the first Black Metal cover I’ve seen, it is the first Black Metal cover that left an impression. Seeing one of the band members, decked out in black leather & having his face painted up to the nines, was actually kind of creepy. His face stared at me menacingly, and it was that staring that stayed with me as I listened to the music. If any of you felt like this when you’re looking at the cover, then it’s doing it’s job.

9) Nocturnus - The Key ***

When one thinks of Death Metal, gorgeous art is almost always not the first thing one thinks of. Drawn by Dan Seagrave, he’s known for doing mostly artwork for various Death Metal albums (Along with his own), and they’re all spectacular. My absolute favorite of his work was for Nocturnus’s starting album, The Key. It’s incredible by how me mixed Science Fiction & cybernetics, with the evil of Hell & it’s imagery. Seeing that devilish cyborg in the seat, using a pentagram to start up it’s unholy spacecraft, really paints the picture of a dark sci-fi story. Given the music that was contained on the album, I can say that the two complement each other nicely.

8) Turmion Kätilöt - Technodiktator

Out of everything that’s on this list, Turmion Kätilöt’s 2013 tribute to 90s Dance & Industrial artists is perhaps the funniest. The band has always been known for a lot of shock value in their material, but the album cover for Technodiktator comes across as quite jovial. There’s a disco dance floor in the background, wisps of colored smoke floating, two old-school boomboxes at full volume, and the technodiktator himself standing front & center. His head is that of a disco ball (With the head of a gramophone spitting out steam), and his body that of a 3rd-world dictator. Who exactly, I don’t know (I suspect Gadhafi). Regardless, the absurdity of the album cover gets me to snicker every time I look at it, but the music gets me to headbang. Weird, isn’t it?

7) Judas Priest - Defenders Of The Faith

Judas Priest has always had a bevy of great album covers. With exceedingly few exceptions, the covers of this iconic band are easily recognized by even the most casual of fans. At least for me, their most recognizable covers come from the 80s, and the most recognizable out of all of them is Defenders of the Faith. The first album I ever bought from Judas Priest’s library of records, I had always appreciated some of the music on it beforehand, but the album cover helped me appreciate it more. The monstrous Metallium (A creature thought up by the band) looks like it’s going to burst right off the paper of the booklet, it’s claws out, and it’s machineguns ready to fire. I love this cover a lot, simply due to how much Defenders of the Faith embraces it’s 80s excess nature. If you can’t smile when you look at this album, then something’s wrong.

6) Type-O Negative - October Rust

Sometimes you need an over the top album cover to get people’s attention, and other times you need something more simplistic. In the case of Type-O Negative’s 1996 classic, they’re definitely going for the latter. October Rust’s cover is really simplistic: there’s just a black background, the band name & album name in the upper right and lower left respectively, and 4 thorny rose stems are front & center. Just thinking of grabbing this album makes me feel like I’m getting pricked on my fingers! Regardless of imagined pain, the cover of October Rust takes the simple approach to get you to notice it, and I appreciate it.

5) Korn - Issues

Despite Nu Metal being buried in a long forgotten graveyard, it’s incredible that Korn is still making music & touring. Even though they put out an album as recently as 2016, it’s their time in the 90s that calls to me when I think of the band. Out of all their 90s materials, it’s Issues from 1999 that I think of the most. Not just the music, but the album cover as well. Before Issues had actually come out, there was a contest through MTV where people could come up with what the album cover was going to officially be. In the end, the winner was Alfredo Carlos with what I can only describe as the perfect representation of ruined childhood innocence. I can’t say anything more......other than good job Carlos!

4) Sabaton - The Last Stand

War is hell. We all know this. From our news, to the history books, and even some of our pop culture, warfare has shaped all of us in some way. For the Swedish titans Sabaton, they grab the history of war by the throat, and shake it for something good to sing about. I’ve already praised the music of their 2016 release twice, so now it’s time to talk about The Last Stand’s cover. Like pretty much every other cover the band has put out, there’s a great “Triumphant” aura surrounding it. In this case, it’s a group of warriors from various time frames with their back to one another, fighting off what seems like impossible odds. Give the subject matter of The Last Stand, this isn’t surprising. Regardless, the album cover is just as awesome as the band itself. Win win!

3) Septicflesh - Titan

Much like The Key at my number 9 spot, Septicflesh’s 2014 masterpiece (Not to mention my number 1 album of all time) goes for a more artistic direction with it’s album cover. Whereas Nocturnus was being all weird with the cover for The Key, Titan goes in the thinking man’s direction with it’s cover. Not in a heavy handed, shove it in your face kind of deal. More of a “Put something in front & let the viewer decide” manner of artistic cover. Sure, there’s a crow, vulture, a lamb corpse with sharpened teeth, and what seems like a spirit (Who’s skeleton you can see) walking by. You’re given this weird spectacle, and Septicflesh let’s you discern what’s going on instead of tell you something. Bravo you beautiful Greek bastard! Damn fine job!

2) Sodom - Tapping The Vein

I stated on my Top 10 albums list that while I managed to move on from Rio Grande Blood (See below for more detail), I’ve never managed to walk away from Sodom’s 1992 classic. Not the music, and not the album cover. Seeing a muscular soldier that’s armed to the teeth, in a vulnerable position thanks to tubes & a blood vial connected to his arm, is incredibly haunting. It’s especially haunting for me, since my Mother was in the hospital for a week, and she had a IV in her arm. She’s a strong person, yet she was in a incredibly compromising position. I find the parallels between the two to be too similar in my mind, and it because of that emotion that Tapping The Vein makes it to the number 2 spot on this list. 

Before we get to my number 1, I wanted to talk about some honorable mentions. Now, these album covers aren’t bad by any stretch of the imagination, but they don’t quite have as much a place in my mind as everything else on here. Regardless, I still enjoy these covers, and I don’t want to leave them hanging.

HM1) Led Zeppelin - In Through The Out Door

If the album wasn’t held in what is basically a brown paper bag, I might have actually put in Through The Out Door somewhere on the main list. I just find the bag to be lazy for some reason, which is ironic because what’s inside is rather nice. There’s a heavy melancholic vibe: from the bartender, to the guy that’s slowly enjoying his drink, and just the whole room in general. Overall, there’s something about In Through The Out Door’s cover that’s endearing, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.

HM2) Ministry - Rio Grande Blood

I stated back in my overview on Ministry that the period of 2004 to 2007 is a political time-capsule for not just the band & it’s music, but for their album covers from this time as well. Though Houses of the Molé can possibly be reused in this day & age, Rio Grande Blood’s cover has aged horribly. Seeing George W. Bush on a cross with a crown of thorns & half submerged in a barrel of oil, jets flying in the air, and a massive oil field in the back heavily reflects the public’s view of the Bush Administration at the time. In a way we’ve moved on from that, although given who we have in power now, it might still work. I guess the reason that Rio Grande Blood’s cover makes it here is because, much like the music itself, I’ve managed to move on from emotionally, but seeing it on that fateful day in 2006, I can’t deny the power it held over me.

1) Metallica - The Black Album

4 years old. That’s how old I was when I saw Enter Sandman on MTV, and that’s how old I was when I first saw the album cover of Metallica’s first album of the 90s. Being so young, the combination of the music video (Which gave me nightmares for a week), and seeing the nearly pitch black cover really left an impression on me. The band’s name, while almost invisible (On the original 1991 version), still commands a presence, and the serpent towards the bottom looks like it would strike anyone foolish enough to touch the album. Even though I’ve grown up since then, the memories of that first encounter still echo in my brain, and because of that The Black Album’s cover makes it to my number 1 spot.

So these were my top 10 favorite album covers of all time. Let me know in the comments what your favorite album covers are, and I’ll see you towards the end of this month for something wrestling themed. Till then, enjoy some art!




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If you’re interested in more of Dan Seagrave’s artwork, check out the link below:

Dan Seagrave