Surprise! I’m late with one of these. Shocking, I know. In any case… welcome to the Cursed Imagery end-of-year extravaganza! It’s time to wrap up the very best/worst in good/bad album art from 2024.
If you followed this column throughout the year, you’ll remember that there was no shortage of, just… severely questionable artistic choices to behold over the last 12 months. Whittling them all down to just nine “best of” picks would have been nigh impossible. So… we didn’t!
In keeping with my approach to the rest of Best of content — heh, say “rest of Best of” five times fast — I decided to compile nine “winners” and nine “honorable mentions.” (Using both of those terms very loosely here.) In any case, we’ve arranged them down below, so hit that jump and go take a look at all our big winner/losers!
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“Winners”
Generic Doom Band Name – Acoustic Covers
I never thought Dungeons & Dragons energy would work with, what looks like a DeLorean hearse. And guess what? Generic Doom Band Name* proved me correct.
*really, guys?
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Punching Moses – Live Short and Suffer
I take issue with the ambiguous language usage here. Is “punching” meant to be a verb? If so, false. Moses is doing the punching, not getting the punching. If it’s an adjective, then, fine. But we need clarity!
The image is not at all ambiguous, and rules.
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Reverend Hound – Deal in Steel
Fucking yes. An angry, jacked-ass werewolf who’s allegedly a reverend, but he’s also a blacksmith?! I guess homie in the background (who I was today years old when I first noticed, whoopsie!) isn’t a fan, but me? Sign me the hell up.
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Serrabulho – Piss & Love
Imagine showing this thing to your family and expecting them to be proud of your hard work in the studio.
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Kaviar Kavalier – Hairy Hairy
There was just no way the stocking gimp here wasn’t gonna make the cut. One of the album covers of the year, for sure.
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Grave Dogger – Bark from the Grave
I saw a lot of awesome things in 2024. Few of them could hold a candle to this Grave Dogger cover. Aspiring bad album artists, take notes.
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Hasturizm – Kulten
Just… why? Why is any of this the way that it is?
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Panic Surfer – Dr. Panic Surfer, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love American Decline
Corpse paint and Doctor Strangelove references? Hi, yes, I’m pushing all my chips into the center of the table now.
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Nlorgpipe – The Nlorgpipe Will Take Me Away
Still haven’t figured out what a Nlorgpipe is. Still can’t make any sense of this illustration. But either way, there’s definitely a kindergartner out there who’s super proud to have had their artwork selected for this thing.
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“Honorable” Mentions
Ansia – Il tuo culo preso a calci
This being the literal first album that came up in my February 2024 album search on Metal-Archives will never not be utterly amazing to me.
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Holywar Unblack – Holy Lamb Worship
Maybe you guys could try less next time? I dunno, just a thought. Don’t mind me.
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Scarry Garry Show – Victorious
I’m just now noticing that the band name is not “scary” Gary, but “scarry.” As in, “full of scars.”
Why am I just now noticing this? Because what else is there to notice here?
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Jan Magne Garte – Give Me Five Minutes
No. No, I don’t think I will, Jan.
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Deterioration – Paranoia & Violence
Deterioration: causing seizures since April 2024.
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Yfelvald – In Goat We Trust
Seeing how uncomfortable these lumpy, misshapen wretches are still manages to make me uncomfortable — though, thankfully, not lumpy or misshapen — months later.
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Gurt – Satan, Etc.
This feels like the album art equivalent of when a kid here’s a swear word for the first time and it’s all he/she wants to say afterward. Like, we get it, guys: you’re really into the devil horns.
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Mourning Souls – Mega Pointed
More like Mega Stupid, IMO.
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Folgers – Summoning of the Folgers
Nothing says “metal” like one of the world’s bottom five coffee brands being spilled all over hardwood. These guys are real ones.
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And that’ll wrap us up! Thank you, as always, for your support of this stupid column and the even-stupider album artwork within. We’ll see you in a couple of weeks for the Best/Worst of January 2025! But until then…
Keep it heavy,
—Dan
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