The Best Album Covers of 2012

You’ve seen the worst album covers, now Kerrang! Radio presents The 20 Best Album Covers of 2012! Featuring Slipknot, The Smashing Pumpkins, Enter Shikari, Muse, Turbonegro, Future Of The Left and more.

! 20. The Hives ‘Lex Hives’ A simple yet effective cover of The Hives looking dapper in full penguin suit tuxedos casting a shadow of their band moniker. A great sleeve from a criminally underrated band.

! 19. The Smashing Pumpkins: ‘Oceania’ Shot by Richard Shay, the stunning photo that adorns the cover of The Smashing Pumpkins’ ninth long-player depicts the North Shore Sanitary District Tower in Illinois.

! 18. Soundgarden ‘King Animal’ One of three atmospheric forests on our list (hey, what’s not to like about them?!), this time we get a pile of animal skulls amidst the snow-covered eerie landscape.

! 17. The Temper Trap ‘The Temper Trap’ Wax? Fabric? Lava lamp? Whatever this billowing form is, it makes for an aesthetically stunning album sleeve.

! 16. Slipknot ‘Antennas To Hell’ For their greatest hits compendium, the masked Iowan metallers drafted in their cherished chum Satan to appear on the cover. Well, naturally.

! 15. Katatonia ‘Dead End Kings’ Birds of ill omen have adorned a number of Katatonia album covers over the decades. This time we get a skeletal crow spewing plumes of dust under a blackened sun. Ominous stuff.

! 14. Clock Opera ‘Ways To Forget’ What initially looks like a watercolour blob is actually a vibrant layered montage of a group of people. A gorgeous album cover.

! 13. Brendon Small ‘Brendon Small’s Galaktikon’ The creator and star of heavy metal themed animated TV show Metalocalypse was always going to have pretty badass artwork for his debut solo album wasn’t he?! Thankfully Galaktikon far from disappoints.

! 12. Turbonegro ‘Sexual Harassment’ If there’s one image that sums up the music and tongue-in-cheek ethos of Turbonegro then it’s this sleazy neon sign incarnation of their logo.

! 11. Unsane: ‘Wreck’ Arguably the most hard-hitting covers of the year, the ominous image keeps up Unsane’s macabre theme of having blood on all their album sleeves. Thought provoking is an understatement.

! 10. Enter Shikari ‘A Flash Flood of Colour’ The now trademark Enter Shikari triangle in bright neon lights set against a fog-shrouded forest made for a highly memorable sleeve. The vinyl edition sleeve is also visually striking but this version just about edges it.

! 9. Sigh: ‘In Somniphobia’ Created by acclaimed German artist Eliran Kantor (who’s previously concocted iconic sleeves for Testament, GWAR, Atheist and more), there’s so much going on in this unsettling and controversial mock-classical painting you could stare at it for hours.

! 8. Muse ‘The 2nd Law’ Taken from the Human Connectome Project (a five year Neuroscience Study being carried out in America), the brilliant cover depicts a map of the human brain’s pathways through fluorescent coloured wires.

! 7. Future of the Left ‘The Plot Against Common Sense’ The shadowy figures standing in the apocalyptic, barren landscape staring at the exploding sun initially look like father and son. On closer inspection, the figure on the right is actually a penguin!

! 6. Swans ‘The Seer’ Created by Simon Henwood (the man behind the artwork on Rihanna’s ‘Rated R’ album campaign), the teeth on the shadowy, furry creature are actually modelled on Swans lynchpin Michael Gira’s gnashers. Impressive attention to detail.

! 5. Sleigh Bells ‘Reign Of Terror’ The pair of shoes and the blood that has stained them actually belong to front woman Alexis Krauss. During a live show, her bandmate Derek E. Miller accidentally hit her with his guitar causing her to bleed over her shoes. It makes for a truly awesome sleeve.

! 4. Baroness ‘Yellow and Green’ The Georgia metallers issued two sleeves to represent each of the titular colours – each is as bizarre yet visually striking as each other. Clearly these two women have a vendetta against swans…

! 3. Crystal Castles ‘III’ Album covers don’t get much more hard-hitting and potent than this haunting image. It features a photograph by Samuel Aranda of a woman called Fatima al-Qaws holding her son, Zayed, who was exposed to tear gas during a street demonstration in Sana'a, Yemen in October 2011.

! 2. Ty Segall ‘Slaughterhouse’ A truly unforgettable album sleeve, the pencil sketch of the demonic figure draws you in with its black eyes, swirling lines and proper horrorshow scream.

! 1. Young Guns ‘Bones’ Not just one of the finest albums of the past 12 months ‘Bones’ also has seminal artwork. The ethereal and almost ghost-like image of a levitating woman is beguiling and brilliant.