Executioner - In the Name of Metal/Break the Silence

For both of their album covers, Executioner chose heavy metal artist extraordinaire, Michael MacKenzie. Unfortunately, it appears that MacKenzie must've been in middle school when he painted the cover for 1986's In the Name of Metal.



What a difference a year makes though. The following year it appears he may have enrolled in a high school art class in order to create the meticulous yet subtle masterpiece that appears on Break the Silence.

Seriously though, Executioner may have been the best of the forgotten speed metal bands. I really have to wonder if they might have done better had they hired a real artist to do their album art, because I've seen better stuff submitted by the readers of my kids' Highlights magazine. I guess that wasn't their only problem though. They were on that heavy metal black hole of a record label, New Renaissance.