Top 10 Non-Extreme Metal Album Covers of 2018

I think the cover was inspired by a song on the album, The Bee, because the cover is a reference to bees, queen bee in particular. The Bee is my favorite song from this album.

What you see in the center of the cover looks like both a bee and a human skull.
I like the colors of this cover and the "honeycomb" pattern.
It's one of the most beautiful covers I've ever seen. I also think the pattern is kinda hypnotic, if you stare at the cover a bit longer.

Genre: Power metal
Black color always looks classy.

A type of cover many metal fans would like.

The album disappointed me but I still like the cover.

Genre: Power metal
This cover simply speaks "power metal".

Genre: Symphonic/Operatic Metal
The album polarized the metal community but the cover is decent.

Genre: traditional metal / heavy metal; hard rock.
My only criticism is that lightning bolt became such a cliche in rock and metal. But this band is an old band and bears the aesthetics of the 70s-80s. I guess their die hard fans still like that aesthetics so it makes sense to keep it.

Genre: folk metal
This cover goes very well with folk metal.

Genre: Neo-classical metal; Power metal.
I don't like album covers with photos (this is guitarist Gus G) but I wanna praise this cover for avoiding a cliche: the guitar isn't surrounded by lightning bolts or/and flames! Although this guy's guitar playing is on fire!
I also like the color.
Again, not a fan of photos but I can understand why a photo was somewhat necessary: Gus G is a guitarist in a lesser known band (Firewind) and this is his solo album, so people maybe need some visual impression of him.