What matters to you when assessing album covers?

Ben
Ben
The Fallen The Horde The North The Pit
First Post February 04, 2025 02:56 AM

Having recently rated every single 2024 release cover over a couple of weeks, it got me thinking about whether others use similar criteria to me. I know not everyone here is interested in rating covers, but as a lifelong lover of art, I think I value it more than many other metal fans. Below is a list of things that I love / hate, with so many of the ratings I give to covers being influenced by these aspects. I thought I'd provide some examples of each as well, just for fun.

As always, it's fine if you disagree with my assessments or processes. There is no wrong answer when assessing art, despite our tendency as humans to feel otherwise. And yes, I generally overthink everything in life.


1. Genre appropriate art will always rate higher

It's true that a good album cover is a good album cover, but it can be off-putting when, as an example, a doom metal album has a cover that would be more appropriate on a thrash metal album. I think thrash metal is a pretty good genre to showcase this. Would the latest Evildead cover be good for a gothic metal release? No, it would be weird. But it screams thrash metal, with a mixture of fun silliness and the political / environmental themes so prevalent in the genre while still being an attractive piece of art. There are themes that pop up for all the clans and when a cover jumps out as "feeling" wrong for the genre, I can't help but rate it accordingly.


2. Logos should be present, appropriate and positioned well

No matter how good the artwork is, I will always lower scores when a logo is not present on a cover. It's an album cover! If it doesn't have a logo, it's just a piece of art. Logos should also be appropriate for the material. I don't want to see an ineligible jagged black metal logo on a heavy metal release, nor do I want to see a pink fluffy logo on a brutal death metal release. Finally, logos can have a massively positive impact on a cover when they are positioned well. Often that means centre top, but other times they're better placed elsewhere to allow the artwork to have more impact. It's not a science, with symmetry and "feel" coming into play. Below (Thron's Pilgrim) is a good example of a pretty cool logo (that itself has great symmetry) for which it's positioning improves the overall impact of the art. The only question I had was whether it was ever so slightly interfered by overlapping with the face, but then that somehow seems fitting given the torturous position of the subject. Yes, these are the things that I think about!


3. No degrading or real life images of trauma / death / excrement

In a way I'm almost grateful for bands that put horrific real-life images of crushed heads, the results of suicide, and people shitting in the mouths of others. It allows me to ignore those releases entirely. I have zero respect for any artist that thinks it's cool to adorn their art with disgustingly offensive or blatantly inappropriate real world imagery, no matter how good their music is. It's just another reason why outsiders look upon metal fans with such disdain. That said, while I'm still not always a big fan of it, I have less hostility towards non-photo representations of violence. Violence very obviously has a place in metal, and many of my favourite album covers have an element of destruction, evil and death. There's a big difference between a painted image of a serial killer surrounded by butchered cadavers and an actual photo of a raped, decapitated body.