What’s a kickass album without kickass artwork? If you’re like me, you love your Death Metal and Death Metal bands are known for their violent and brutal album covers, so I just made a Top 10 for most brutal album covers.
Make the jump for this week’s Friday Top 10. You can view the Top 10 even if you’re at work. Click the pictures to view the full artwork.
Six Feet Under – Maximum Violence
‘Maximum Violence’ is not just a great description for the album at hand — which features some of Six Feet Under’s heaviest work, including ‘No Warning Shot,’ ‘Hacked To Pieces’ and ‘Feasting On The Blood Of The Insane’ — it also features SFU’s most brutal album cover to date.
Mortician – Hacked Up For Barbecue
I love Mortician. They’re so dumbed down, it’s just mindless fun. Musically, ‘Hacked Up For Barbecue’ isn’t my favorite Mortician album — ‘Zombie Apocalypse’ takes that cake — but the artwork of this album, is my favorite one because it just looks like what this band sounds like.
Bloodbath – The Fathomless Mastery
There’s something about this album artwork that is just cruel and brutal as hell. And it fits perfectly with this album, which is Bloodbath’s heaviest yet. An album with songs like ‘Hades Rising,’ ‘Slaughtering The Will To Live’ and ‘At The Behest Of Their Death’ just deserves a brutal artwork and Dusty Peterson surely delivered.
Brujeria – Matando Güeros
At first look, this artwork doesn’t look that brutal but the severed head is real. This is not a drawing or a Photoshop job, this is a real picture. The head, named by the band “Coco Loco”, serves as Brujeria’s logo to this very day.
Torture Killer – Swarm!
The infamous Torture Killer album with Six Feet Under’s Chris Barnes. Personally, not only do I love the artwork but also the content of this album. The artwork depicts a visualization of the first track on this album, ‘Swarm.’
Debauchery – Torture Pit
Debauchery’s finest album and finest artwork to date. This album perfectly shows what I imagine a torture pit, which is the subject of the titletrack, looks like. “Disembowel in the torture pit” indeed.
Slayer – Christ Illusion
What? A non Death Metal album in a Top 10 of most brutal album covers? Indeed. Slayer’s ‘Christ Illusion’ is not only one of my personal favorite album covers of all time, it’s also brutal as hell. Jesus depicted as junkie? Check. Mother Teresa’s head floating around in a sea of blood? Check. Brutal as fuck? Check.
Dismember – Indecent And Obscene
‘Indecent and Obscene’ is not only a great album, it also has a pretty brutal and graphic album cover. The guts don’t really look real but this album is from 1993, so give these guys a break. It looks pretty nifty to me.
Jack Slater – Metzgore
‘Metzgore’ is probably Jack Slater’s last real Brutal Death Metal album, which shows on the album cover. Some guy using a meat grinder on himself, that’s a pretty cool, even if it’s not really doable in reality.
Cannibal Corpse – Tomb Of The Mutilated
One of the greatest Death Metal albums of all time and the third album with Chris Barnes on vocals on this list. The album was banned in Germany because of its’ violent album cover. Now, if that doesn’t support the albums first place, I don’t know what does. A zombie performing cunnilingus on another zombie, with lots and lots of blood. That’s just brutal.
