Top 10 Goriest Metal Album Covers

As I am making this list, I start to wonder if the Top Tens staff who review it will censor these covers if the list is published. I, for one, am hoping they don't. It would be a great way to showcase just how gruesome the artwork is, and it would be convenient to display here so you can judge for yourself and vote.

However, if this artwork gets censored (or if any is displayed at all), I can assure you that a simple Google Images search will reveal the most disgusting creations from deep inside the minds of a death metal band. I will also include a description with each item.

And a quick note: If you plan on adding to this list, try not to flood it with those underground goregrind albums. Those are mostly just silly.

The Top Ten

  1. Mayhem - Dawn Of The Black Hearts

    It was hard to not put this at number one. Mayhem's original vocalist "Dead" committed suicide via shotgun through the mouth. His brain was "literally found lying in his lap."

    The remaining band members took a picture of their dead vocalist's gruesome corpse and used it for the cover of this live album. Cannibal Corpse may have graphic drawings, but this is a real picture of a real suicide.

    This should be number one. All the other ones are depictions of violence, but this is a picture of a real guy who slit his wrists, slit his throat, and shot himself in the face with a shotgun.

  2. Cannibal Corpse - Butchered At Birth

    Two zombie butchers performing a nasty abortion on a mutilated woman's corpse, and dead infants are hung from the ceiling behind them.

    I think Cannibal Corpse owns this list!

  3. Cannibal Corpse - Tomb Of The Mutilated

    Cadaveric oral sex in a bloody tomb, with the atmospheric skulls and candles. Look closely, and you'll see some sort of severed human organ impaled with a dagger.

  4. Exhumed - Gore Metal

    Exhumed is an American death metal band from San Jose, California. The band is currently signed to Relapse Records. They are known for their gore-themed lyrics and energetic blend of death metal and grindcore influences.

    Looks like someone's making an interesting dinner in this kitchen.

  5. Aborted - The Purity Of Perversion

    This looks very real. A bloody, mutilated corpse of a young blonde woman lays in a pool of her own blood. It also seems her chest has been ripped open, Ridley Scott-style.

  6. Cattle Decapitation - Human Jerky

    Despite the name "Human Jerky", this is a cow's severed head, laid very carefully on a mess of bloody flesh.

  7. Cattle Decapitation - Humanure

    When I first saw this cover, I thought it was a more gory version of Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother.

    A cow defecates the remains of a human. The figure of the man's face is seen in the waste.

  8. Carcass - Reek Of Putrefaction

    This should be number two. These are real dead bodies from a medical dictionary compiled into one album cover. This is how goregrind got its name.

  9. Cannibal Corpse - The Wretched Spawn

    A nude woman gives birth to two baby demons - one crawls out through her crotch, the other bursting out of her abdomen. Blood splatters everywhere. The demonic doctors standing by don't seem to be doing much to lessen her pain.

  10. Bring Me The Horizon - Suicide Season

    Normally, we don't think of metalcore as violent, especially BMTH. But the cover for their sophomore release features a young girl in a black dress holding a pile of intestines. Her hands and forearms are practically painted with blood.

    The only setback was the remix version - the red was changed to green, making it a lot more comical.

    11. The Newcomers
  11. ?

    Ingested - Surpassing the Boundaries of Human Suffering

  12. ?

    Severed Survival - Autopsy

    13. The Contenders

  13. Hemdale - In the Name of Gore

  14. Cannibal Corpse - Gallery of Suicide

  15. Retch - Ben-Wa Baby Heads

  16. Cannibal Corpse - Eaten Back to Life

  17. Torture Killer - For Maggots to Devour

  18. Cannibal Corpse - Gore Obsessed

  19. Torture Killer - Sewers

  20. Impaled - The Dead Shall Dead Remain

    They count because they're half death metal.

  21. Cattle Decapitation - to Serve Man

  22. Bloodbath - Nightmares Made Flesh

  23. Gorgasm - Masticate to Dominate

  24. XXX Maniak - Harvesting the C*NT Nectar

  25. Severe Torture - Misanthropic Carnage

  26. Katalepsy - Musick Brings Injuries

  27. Grotesque Formation - Basement Decompositions

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