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CURSED IMAGERY: The Month(s) in Album Art (June/July 2025)

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Well, hello! It’s been a minute. July was about two weeks gone before I realized, “oh shit, I didn’t do a Cursed Imagery post for June!” (Gotta love having the most committed bloggers on board in the face of the, just… utter disintegration of the Internet we used to love, amirite?)

In any case, we’re back with a mammoth, two-month recap. My friends, it gives me great pleasure — or, alternately, none at all — to inform you: the bands have been making some choices with their album artwork this summer. If you were hoping for an overloaded double-post to make amends for last month’s absence, well… the bands have absolutely delivered for you. We’re gonna do twelve picks from each month, because we just have that many — and then some! — from which to choose. (Seriously, it’s been a stacked summer.)

So, why don’t we jump in? Here are the best/worst pieces of album artwork from June and July 2025:

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CURSED IMAGERY: The Month in Album Art (May 2025)

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Welcome back, friends! Another month (nearly) gone, and… wait a minute… “(nearly)”? Your boy’s actually ahead of schedule with a post? Get the fuck out. Wow. Miracles do happen!

Anyway, it’s Cursed Imagery time once more, and holy hell did bad album art have a month. May 2025 was, once again, completely stacked. By my count, this month’s “shortlist” was 18 albums, and the long list was some 30-strong — out of roughly 600 albums to have been released this month. (Ya want more mathage? Five percent of the May’s albums had crap-enough album covers to have been considered for our list at one point or another. That’s nuts!)

But, as per uzh, we’ve whittled even the shortlist down to just nine final selections, and boy, are they some good/bad ones. So let’s not waste any more time, shall we? Hit the jump and have a peek…

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CURSED IMAGERY: The Month in Album Art (April 2025)

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Welcome back, friends! It’s May, and as of this post dropping, I’m on vacation! Not a long one. Just a weekend trip. But still, a vacation! In any case, May brings many things: flowers, the end of the European football season, and – of course – bad album art from April. And, oh boy, was there a smorgasbord of bad album art to choose from last month.

This is the first instance of Cursed Imagery so far this year that had me genuinely at a loss when it came time to picking a “Best/Worst Nine.” According to Encyclopedia Metallum, there were a total of 613 full-length albums released this month — four pages’ worth in their listings! — and I’d already accumulated a dozen or so serious-contender picks before I’d finished looking through the first page. Like, bands? You really brought your F-games this month. I salute y’all.

In the end, I didn’t pick a “Best/Worst Nine.” You guys get a bonus this month! We’ll have an even ten for you. That’s just the kind of generous guy I am. Anyway, enough dilly-dallying. Hit the jump below and let’s check ’em out.

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CURSED IMAGERY: The Month in Album Art (March 2025)

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Welcome back, friends! It’s the end of yet another month, and that means it’s time for yet another edition of Cursed Imagery.

Unfortunately, I’ve picked a bad month to decide to actually be on time with this post, as the pickings in March were, uh… quite slim. How slim? Well, the nine albums you’re about to see below represent the only nine albums that could truly be called Cursed-worthy. In all, there were some 553 full-lengths released this month from all across the spectrum: death metal, prog metal, even basement-dweller-taking-a-break-from-jacking-off-to-pictures-of-Hitler-to-make metal. And yet! Only nine among them were even remotely good/bad enough to make our column. That’s a hit rate of just 1.6 percent. What the fuck, March.

Anyway, we might as well dig into them. Hit the link below and peep the best/worst album covers March 2025 had to offer!

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CURSED IMAGERY: The Month(s) in Album Art (January/February 2025)

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cursed imagery

Oh hey! It’s been a minute. I blame [gestures broadly at everything]. Between the existential dread, a short trip out of the country, and the near-constant pondering / getting-hopeful-ball-rolling-on a permanent trip out of the country, I’ve fallen behind on the album art since the start of the year. And that’s a damn shame, because the good/bad cover pickings have been tremendous so far in 2025.

You’ll probably know the drill on this, because it’s happened a few times before. But in case you don’t: when I miss a month, you get two of ’em back to back the next month. And that’s what we’ve got here — the nine best/worst album covers from January, followed immediately by the nine best/worst from February. It’ll be quite a bit to get through, so let’s not waste any more time. Hit the jump and let’s get started!

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CURSED IMAGERY: The YEAR in Album Art (2024)

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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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