Exodus-Force of habit

Exodus never had any real great album covers, but they were normally okay. The cover of their 1992 release "Force of habit" just looks like graffiti done by art school drop-out. Maybe because this came out when metal was falling out favor that they decided to go in another direction for their cover. I don't know about the method, but it sure looks like madness in a rather cornball, down scaled sort of way.

Pigface - Gub

Busy beyond words, this industrial classic featuring members of Ministry, Skinny Puppy, KMFDM and Trent Reznor is as looney tunes as the nihilstic cover. In some ways it reminds me of old 1800's sketches and pieces of paintings you'd find in history textbooks. It also looks like images from a lost sketchpad of Heironymous Bosch. Mondo bizarro...

Warhorse-Red Sea

When bassist Nick Simper was out of Deep Purple he went and formed this band. They sound a little like early Deep Purple here on their sophomore effort plus the cover reminds me of Deep Purples' Fireball. Although this one might even be creepier as they thought it would be a great idea to slap their heads on the front of a ship.

Dream Theater, Train of Thought

For Dream Theater fans preferring the band’s metal side to its keyboard extravagance, 2003’s Train of Thought was manna from heaven.

From the start, the music featured the some of the hardest of DT’s music to date, reminding fans what a potent heavy metal combination guitarist John Petrucci, bassist John Myung, and drummer Mike Portnoy could be.

The cover also showed a darker side of the band. Featuring the art of noted photographer Jerry Uelsmann, it skillfully used black-and-white imagery to reflect the eerie nature of much of the lyrical content.

But that damn eye is ALWAYS looking at me. Somebody make it stop.

Beck - Modern Guilt

I'd never even seen this cover until Ash at the other record cover site wrote it up. Usually, I see Ash as an infinite trough of rockalicious wisdom, but this time... well, let's just say my first reaction to the Sleevage write-up was "ARE YOU ******* BLIND, YOU *********** ***** KOALA-EATING *** ***** CRAZY ************* FORD PINTO ******* BACKWARDS-TOILET-FLUSHING ******* HATERS?" (Bob doesn't like cursing on his blogs. To paraphrase a pre-"Let's sell our company to the Belgians and see if they are as successful with St. Louis as they were with Rwanda" Budweiser slogan, this asterisk's for you, Bob.)

Where was I? Oh, right. Beck.

I hate Beck. I think he's built a career on being clever, and I think his career's been supported by a bunch of clever, Gen-X twats. (Or *****, if 'twats' is a bad word.)

But this cover is awesome. It reaches back to the classic cool jazz covers from Blue Note and Atlantic and Verve and all the other great jazz labels that put out some of the best album covers in history, bar none.

Lots of rock bands have tried to do that, but Beck is one of the very, very few who pulled it off. The black & white tones are incredibly rich, the colors of the text are gorgeously understated, and the photo is abstract in all the right ways.

So Ash, you may have the better web site, and you may have all the cool alternate designs for the cover, and you may be cuter than I am, but ******, I'm right about this one and you're wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Opposite of right, wrong.

Yeah, and don't throw that "it's all opinion" nonsense at me. WRONG!

(Seriously, go to the Sleevage link if you haven't yet. It's a good write-up.)

Angry Samoans-Yesterday started tomorrow

Southern California band the Angry Samoans had been churning out high powered punk rock for nearly a decade when they changed directions in 1986 with this release. It's far more of a garage rock sound, but it's really good and the rough vocals and simple approach just add to the charm of it.
Now the cover has always had me curious because the dude is wearing a pig mask on his head and he has his cereal with him, but I guess in a public place. A library? A bus station? I don't know and I am not sure if it matters or not.

Am I commiting a crime by mentioning cereal on two consecutive posts? Maybe I need to go eat breakfast.