Album Art that was Better than the Actual Music, Ep. 4

Beherit - The Oath of Black Blood (1991)

Black Metal is a genre that prides itself on raw production. This trend began when pioneering acts like Mayhem, Burzum and Bathory cut costs on production values due to budget constraints, but underproduction has since become arguably essential to the Black Metal ethos (Dimmu Borgir and Dark Funeral notwithstanding). Yet it is possible to have too much of a good thing (good, in this case, being a highly subjective quality).

Finland's Beherit was one of the lesser-known pioneering acts in the so-called Second Wave of Black Metal, and their obscurity is plain to hear--the production on this album is godawful (though some might consider that a compliment). The mix is horribly uneven, with the vocals overwhelming the instruments, the guitars so distorted as to sound like squealing breaks on a freight train and the drums often times inaudible. I can tolerate bad production, having listened to (and enjoyed!) my fair share of bootlegged Mayhem tracks in my day, but when the music is almost as poor as the production, even I can't think of the glass as half full.

The story behind this album is more interesting than the actual product--Beherit was granted a respectable--at least by underground standards--amount of money to record The Oath of Black Blood. Rather than do anything productive, the band instead opted to spend their budget on booze and drugs. Not all that shocking; indeed, this is the sort of things that rock bands have been doing at least since the 1960s. Without anything to show for their money, the record label opted to release a compilation of some of Beherit's old demo tracks, along with tracks from the band's earlier 7" EP (entitled Dawn of Satan's Millenium). The end result was The Oath of Black Blood, which has now come to be widely renowned and loved in the Black Metal milieu.

As unspectacular as the music might be, the album art is nevertheless suitably grim--it's hard to go wrong with skeletons in perverted ecclesiastical garb, after all. The artwork (as well as Beherit's logo) was done by Chris Moyen, who has provided artwork for quite a number of Black and Death Metal bands. I highly recommend you visit his website and have a look at his impressive body of work, which includes a hinger-quality version of the artwork featured above.

As for Beherit, they would thankfully improve. The Oath of Black Blood was succeeded by 1993's Drawing Down the Moon, a much better produced and much more interesting album. The band parted ways in 1996, after attempting a more ritualistic, ambient approach with their later work.

Candlemass and Thomas Cole

Thomas Cole was an American painter during the long-ago days of the 19th century. His work is rather impressive and is quite in keeping with the taste of the Romantic movement which was sweeping the western world at the time. But what does that have to do with anything I've discussed here?

Among Cole's curriculum vitae is a tetralogy of serial paintings entitled The Voyage of Life. As you might imagine, each painting represents a stage of life--childhood, youth, adulthood and old age, respectively. The Swedish Doom Metal band Candlemass adopted two of these for use as album artwork.

Candlemass adapted Cole's Old Age for use as the cover art for Nightfall, their second studio album. Several songs on the album deal with death, in particular the song "Samaritan," in which the narrator is confronted by angels on his deathbed who will guide him to heaven in reward for his good deeds in life.

Cole's Youth was used as the cover art for the album Ancient Dreams, and it too was certainly an appropriate choice. The ethereal castle in the painting represents the aspirations of man--the dreams, if you will--which, tragically, the voyager will not achieve. The titular song on the album reflects this idea in its lyrics:

Chase the horizons, catch the illusion
Remember the child within
There's no tomorrow just sadness and sorrow
Hold on to the Ancient Dreams

Candlemass considered using another Cole painting--Manhood, from the same tetralogy--for the cover of their next album, Tales of Creation, but bassist Leif Eidling opted instead to use a modified version of Gustave Dore's The Creation of Light, which he remembered seeing in his old family Bible. But when the band did use Cole's artwork, they clearly made wise decisions.

Album Art that was better than the actual Music, Ep. 3

Dark Funeral - The Secrets of the Black Arts (1996)

Sweden's Dark Funeral is one of the most popular Black Metal bands in the world. Whereas many bands in the Black Metal milieu cling to their underground status as though obscurity were some sort of guarantor of musical aptitude, Dark Funeral have taken the opposite route, hesitating not the least bit about using the internet to promote themselves--they were among the first high-profile Black Metal bands to establish not only a MySpace profile, but a YouTube account, as well. Not that the band's popularity is disproportionate to the quality of their music, mind you.

Yet if all one had to go on was the band's debut album, one wouldn't think much of Dark Funeral. Despite having some of the best cover art around, The Secrets of the Black Arts is, from beginning to end, a textbook example of what Black Metal astutes call norsecore--endless blastbeats, forgettable riffs and lyrics that are incomprehensible (save, that is, for the obligatory screech of "Satan!" which occurs far more often than is probably necessary.) Though the band has thankfully gone on to produce far more interesting material in recent years, The Secrets of the Black Arts stands as the bands less-than intriguing first offering.

Album art that was better than the actual Music, Ep. 2

Manowar - Gods of War (2007)


Manowar has been a mainstay of traditional Heavy Metal since their debut in 1981. This fact is certainly not lost on the band, since they've taken the liberty of crowning themselves the kings of metal, an office which they take very, very seriously. Sure it's campy as all hell, but so long as Manowar kept cranking out solid releases fans were willing to play along. Their latest opus, Gods of War, oozes with Heavy Metal cliches--warriors rippling with muscle, buxom women, swords and dragons. Sadly, the music isn't nearly as exciting. From beginning to end, Gods of War is full of the blustery hoopla we've come to expect from Manowar, only this time around it's just a wee bit too much--and at just under and hour and a quarter, it's much longer than it ought to be. But on the plus side, the album is dedicated entirely to Odin, and "King of Kings" is truly a solid song.

Album Art that was better than the actual Music, Ep. 1

Oftentimes, there will come along an album that looks great on the outside. Then one gets around to actually listening to the music, and one realizes that the album art was better than the actual music. In this series I'll be sampling of just a few albums that fall into that category.

Dimmu Borgir - In Sorte Diaboli (2007)


One could probably cite any of Dimmu Borgir's work from the past decade, but the dichotomy between the quality of the art and the music is most stark on Demon Burger's latest effort. In Sorte Diaboli showcased some of the best graphic design of any album in the past year, featuring a nifty rendition of the ever-popular Baphomet, but in the end it's just more of the same overblown, strident shtick that they've been pulling since Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia. At the very least, Dimmu Borgir have finally moved away from the whole "throw three random words together to make an album title" thing they were doing for years.