If clans were about cover art rather than the music...

...which do you think would be your three?

Note that I'm not actually suggesting anything like this, I just thought it'd be interesting to ask about. I haven't gone through and counted or anything, but I feel like I really tend to love death metal, black metal and power metal album covers the most, which departs from my musical side a fair bit. So for me it'd probably be The Horde, The North and The Guardians. Maybe The Fallen as a potential 4th.

I agree with you Tymell. The Guardians definitely have the most consistently awesome covers, but The Horde and The North are totally my bag.

You might notice that whenever I'm adding new releases, I always try to end up with a quality cover for each clan. Ideally that cover will be representative of the clan overall as well.

The Guardians is always super easy, as about 75% of their album covers are fantasy.

The Revolution is the most difficult as the covers for its genres often don't follow any sort of representing themes. All the Deathcore albums have Horde-like imagery, but the Metalcore ones defy any sort of common theme.

I spend the most time trying to find a great cover for a Fallen release, as that's the first thing people see when they log in.

Yes, I spend way too much time thinking about this stuff. 

Here are the types of cover arts I've observed and think fit best in each clan:

The Fallen - Dark, specifically goth (gothic and doom metal), emo (NOT the music) (the more depressing doom like funeral doom), creepy/scary/horror (Fallen bands that take on a bit of horror theme, such as The Vision Bleak and Theatres des Vampires)

The Gateway - Not sure exactly what themes they have, but some Gateway bands rely on humorous cover arts, so we'll go with humor.

The Guardians - Fantasy (common in power, symphonic, and neoclassical metal, plus some heavy metal bands like Saxon), plus dark fantasy for bands with darker themes.

The Horde - Violence/blood/gore (all death metal subgenres (plus deathcore) except melodeath and the more progressive side of tech-death)

The Infinite - Abstract and sci-fi (both common in progressive metal and djent, and a bit of avant-garde metal, rarely post-metal), plus sci-fi fantasy for bands with fantasy themes and/or are also in The Guardians (Symphony X)

The North - Viking fantasy (Viking and folk metal), dark fantasy (the more fantasy-like symphonic black metal like Bal-Sagoth), anti-religious/blasphemous/satanic (common in many black metal bands)

The Pit - For some thrash metal bands, the violence of The Horde toned down some and mixed with the humor of The Gateway.

The Revolution - Like Ben said, this is difficult because its covers don't follow any representing themes. There are different styles like rebellion, fantasy, dark, emo, violence, abstract, humor, heartbreak, and a girl in lingerie (Atreyu).

The Sphere - Abstract and sci-fi (similar to The Infinite) but more futuristic.

Since most of my descriptions here seem to very accurately suit the respective clans that I'm in, I think my clans would be the same, except I'm never really a fan of creepy/scary/horror. And with all the violence/blood/gore in The Horde, I'm glad to be out of that clan. I'm not sure if the clans can really be based on cover art, but it's interesting to imagine what this concept would be like...

PS: There's only less than a week left before Daniel closes the playlist suggestions for this month, please don't miss out!

I'd suggest that The Horde, The North & The Fallen are where my strongest affiliations lie as far as cover artwork goes. Yes... that's right.... I'm a miserable old bastard.

Unlike about 90% of metal fans (it seems) I'm not really keen on fantasy art, although I do love good sci-fi artwork, so probably The Infinite would be one. Natural landscapes are also a big favourite, especially mountains, snow, forests and water, so The North obviously. The melancholic aspect of a lot of The Fallen artwork also has much appeal, so I would make that my third. Also any clan that has Mariusz Lewandowski artwork!

Unlike about 90% of metal fans (it seems) I'm not really keen on fantasy art, although I do love good sci-fi artwork, so probably The Infinite would be one. Natural landscapes are also a big favourite, especially mountains, snow, forests and water, so The North obviously. The melancholic aspect of a lot of The Fallen artwork also has much appeal, so I would make that my third. Also any clan that has Mariusz Lewandowski artwork!

I do love Mariusz's work (A LOT), but I think he needs to find a new colour palette at some point. It's all starting to look a bit samey.