Look, I get that metal album covers are supposed to be freaky and weird and scary. That's fine. Frequently, they're also hilarious, like the cover of Cattle Decapitation's 2004 album, Humanure.
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See, the band's called Cattle Decapitation, the album is titled Humanure, the album cover is a cow pooping out human remains. It works on so many levels! Well, one, at least.
So yeah, that's all well and good. But sometimes things get out of hand, like the debut album from The Modern Age Slavery, Damned to Blindness.
DO. NOT. WANT.
What's even going on here, anyway? Clearly it's some sort of torture porn motif a la Hostel or Saw, but taken to an absurdly over the top level. Alright, the dude is bloody. Yes, definitely. Of course. Gotta have that. He's blinded, and there's lots of blood over that, so maybe his eyes have been gouged out. Alright, fine, sure. I'm on board.
But what's being stuck into his mouth? Wires? Cables? Is that a tweezer in the middle there? Are they the same cables coming out of the top of his head? So the gauze at the top of the dude's head is to suggest his head's been ripped open? A little much, no?
How is this fellow even still alive? Who is doing this to him? Why is this happening? How about the hooks digging into his flesh, drawing very fake looking blood? Whereas the Cattle Decapitation cover was elegant in its simplicity, this is like a painting with one brushstroke too many. Or one thousand, maybe.
I understand that the band wants to be noticed, and a flashy (or, um, gross) album cover is a way of doing that. What's really disturbing is the person at a record store who's going to walk by this, and be like, “jackpot!” I don't think I could hang with that guy (and let's be realistic, it would be a guy).
Now, Iron Maiden, they knew how to do it.
Future zombies with laser guns are way cooler than some jerk with tubes up his mouth.
