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Bad metal album art

The genre of heavy metal, particularly its extremes, is not known for good taste. For me, this has always been part of its appeal. Still, there are album covers that make even me cringe. Here are a few of the worst metal album covers I’ve seen lately.

Warcry – Revenge In Blood
The above image accompanying this post is by German band Warcry. What’s going on here? A zombie with badly done fake boobs? The horsemen also seem really mellow, like they’re waiting for the zombie to stop screaming to tell her something. It actually might have been better if the artist hand drew it, at least it would look endearingly retarded – the computerized, Photoshop quality of it is the toilet-paper cherry on top of a poop sundae.

Acheron – Rebirth – Metamorphosing Into Godhood
Acheron often has boobs on their album covers, so I won’t rag on this one for that, and the image of a woman birthing some kind of zombie or monster is a common one in metal, but this is one of the worst instances of it. The devil baby looks like a Garbage Pale Kid, and the gruesomeness of the image is offset by it’s goofiness. I guess the misogyny of the image is fine – if you wear this cover as a back patch, there is absolutely no way any woman is coming near you, so don’t worry.

Enochian – Night Monumental Evil
Ok, I actually love this cover, even though it’s universally and rightfully mocked. First off, they look like a band of merry prankster mimes from the ’60s. There is nothing evil about it. I appreciate how the boobs in this picture are there incidentally, and not overtly meant to objectify. She’s part of the band, and she’s just one of the guys, so why wouldn’t she take her shirt off along with the rest of them? They look like they’re all having a grand old time. The Czech band’s music is equally goofy in all the best ways, sort of like Troll 2.

Borborygmus – Diarrhea of Anne Frank
I was looking for more info about this record and band, but I kept coming across a Chicago band of the same name whose front woman (more female-fronted grindcore please!) happens to be a dwarf. So for this I thank them. This album cover, aside from being kind of crappy, is just wrong in all possible ways.

Atrocious Abnormality – Echoes of the Rotting
The zombie on the bottom right looks like he’s embarrassed to be on this album cover. Why do I get the feeling the feeling the person behind this atrocious abnormality has never seen a naked woman before?

Heaps of Dead – Deceased Dismembered and Left To Decay
What’s striking about this cover, besides the fact that it was craptastically done on a computer, is how un-gruesome it is. For a horrorgrind band obsessed with zombies and murder, you would think they’d put something bloodier or scarier. Instead, this looks like a bunch of geriatrics fell off those stairs and are struggling to get back up. Let’s not even talk about that retarded castle structure.

Hypocrisy – Abducted
Hypocrisy are one of the most iconic Swedish death metal bands, but they have unfailingly horrible album covers. This one, for their 1996 album Abducted looks like it could be a Stone Temple Pilots cover. It’s so painfully ’90s.

Tagged: Acheron, Atrocious Abnormality, best, Borborygmus, Enochian, fresh15, Heaps of Dead, heavy metal album covers, Warcry