Ghost Cult continues our “2021 End of Year Guest Post Extravaganza” with a slew of posts from bands, industry, PR pros, and more! We’ll be sharing lists, memories, and other shenanigans from our favorite bands, partners, music industry peers, and other folks we respect across the globe. In this edition Andy from Beyond Grace shares his favorite album artwork of 2021 Support the band via their Bandcamp page! https://beyondgrace.bandcamp.com/album/our-kingdom-undone
For those of you who don’t know me – which I’m going to guess is most of you – I don’t just yell angry/angsty/anti-social lyrics over some very loud music, I also spend a lot of my time writing about other people’s music over at NoCleanSinging as well, and every year I like to round things off with a week-long smorgasbord of lists culminating in my “Critical” and “Personal” top tens.
However, while I really wanted to contribute something to Ghost Cult this year – if only as a “thank you” for all their support – there was no way I was just going to lazily (or disloyally) just copy and paste something I’d written for another site like that.
As luck would have it, however, the good folks at Heaviest of Art just dropped their list of “The Top 30 Album Covers of 2021” (and, yes, we’re on it!) which got me thinking about the importance of artwork as part of the total experience of an album.
So rather than a traditional run-down of my ten “favourite” releases, what you’re getting instead is a list of ten of my favourite album covers of the year, plus a few words about why I think they’re so great.
Sound good?
Where to start with this one? Obviously the stunning level of detail and complexity is impressive enough on its own, and must have been a truly painstaking process for artist Raffaele Salzillo. But it’s the more subtle touches, such as the slightly rough line-work here and there which makes it seem like the whole piece was only finished moments ago, and the striking but simple colour scheme, that really elevates this particular piece.
By contrast it’s the stark simplicity of Micheal Kulick’s art – the spattered ink, the swirling, chaotic brush strokes, the sense of something not quite fully formed but simply spat out of the mind’s eye onto the page – which makes it stand out to me. In fact, if anything, the lack of detail only increases the disturbing power of the image. Like some demonic Rorschach test we all see something different in the darkness.
One criteria I used to try and whittle down my initial shortlist was whether or not the artwork is what made me check out the band in the first place, and this vibrantly-hued cover by Maciej Kamuda definitely fits that bill, as without it I probably never would have discovered the band. From its eye-catching colour-scheme to its evocative use of light and shade, to the overall composition itself which makes me want to know who these people are, where they’re going, and what is going to happen next, this one captured my imagination straight away.
Sometimes a piece of art just works. And this one, by a Russian digital artist going by the name Warmtail, is definitely one of them. Not only is it an arresting image – a brilliant contrast between bold colours and brooding shadows – but its relative simplicity, both in terms of its singular subject and its limited colour palette, actual disguises a wealth of subtle details and nuances that become more apparent the longer you stare at it. Interestingly enough I’ve looked at the artist’s current catalogue, and while there’s some good stuff there, none of them come close to this one, which is clearly their best work.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – never underestimate the importance of your album art. After all, without this dark, apocalyptic piece by Ivan Stan I might never have stumbled across the debut album from Blackened Death destroyers Disillumination, which would have been a real shame as it’s one of my favourite discoveries of the year. The artwork itself, of course, is no joke either, and deserves to be appreciated entirely on its own terms too, as there’s a truly nightmarish quality to it that reveals more and more half-hidden horrors the deeper you stare into it.
I’m not really one for “gore” covers, to be honest. Don’t get me wrong, they don’t bother me, and occasionally I’ll see one that’s actually pretty cool. But they rarely impress me. There’s an abstract, artsy quality to this one though – the odd hues and organic texture of the paintwork, the strange sense of frozen motion – that makes it more than meets the eye. It’s not a pleasant image, by any means (and I don’t think either the band or the artist, Dusty Ray, particularly intended it to be) but it’s one that, once seen, won’t easily be forgotten in a hurry.
Look, the reason I like this one so much is… because it’s Metal as fuck (if you’ll pardon my language). I mean, just look at it. Giant ancient gods passing judgement on hordes of the ravenous undead. Fire. Brimstone. Explosions. Weird tentacles. It’s basically got it all. Of course it helps that it’s extremely well drawn – artist Diablo Macabre has a real eye for detail and a gift for gruesome execution that actually reminds me of some of the classic 2000AD stuff – but it’s the unashamedly uber-Metal vibe of this one that really puts this one over the top for me.
Adam Burke (Nightjar Illustration) is probably the most well-known artist on this entire list, but this is probably one of his least well-known pieces, considering I’ve seen/heard very few people talking about Colorado Black Metal duo Vile Aesthetic this year. Which is a shame, as not only is their debut album, To Bloom and Flourish From Utter Rot, really good, but the artwork which adorns it is absolutely gorgeous, showcasing a juxtaposition of life and death, beauty and decay, so vibrant that it feels as though if I touched it my fingers would come back still wet with paint.
To really appreciate just how good this particular cover (by Manuel Tinnemans, aka Comaworx) actually is you need to take a look at the fully expanded, three-panel layout. It’s just full of so much rich, occasionally revolting, detail that you can practically get lost in it. Not only that but the art is also a near-perfect metaphorical representation of the music contained within – blurring the lines between the organic and the digital, seemingly chaotic but actually carefully controlled and calculated to the nth degree.
One thing I do often like is when bands go for artwork that isn’t obviously Metal… or is at least atypical for their particular style (that’s what we did, after all). And this particular piece – courtesy of Costin Chioreanu (the other most well-known name on this list) – is a perfect example of that, a sort of Cubist/Futurist take on revolutionary propaganda poster art that not only gives the album a distinct aesthetic quite different from anything else you’re likely to encounter this year but also stamps itself into your memory the very first time you see it. Hell, I liked it so much I didn’t just buy the album, I bought the t-shirt too!
So there we have it. I’m not necessarily saying these are the “best” album covers of the year (that’s an objective term I don’t have any authority to claim) but they’re definitely the ones which have stood out to me the most. Or, at least, some of the ones which have really stood out to me, as if you were to ask me to re-do this list again tomorrow I might make entirely different choices!
Anyway, thank you to everyone who has made it this far in the article, and thanks to everyone at Ghost Cult for hosting it. Feel free to check out our new album if you’re curious. It might just change your life…
https://beyondgrace.bandcamp.com/album/our-kingdom-undone