Dream Theater, Train of Thought

For Dream Theater fans preferring the band’s metal side to its keyboard extravagance, 2003’s Train of Thought was manna from heaven.

From the start, the music featured the some of the hardest of DT’s music to date, reminding fans what a potent heavy metal combination guitarist John Petrucci, bassist John Myung, and drummer Mike Portnoy could be.

The cover also showed a darker side of the band. Featuring the art of noted photographer Jerry Uelsmann, it skillfully used black-and-white imagery to reflect the eerie nature of much of the lyrical content.

But that damn eye is ALWAYS looking at me. Somebody make it stop.

Beck - Modern Guilt

I'd never even seen this cover until Ash at the other record cover site wrote it up. Usually, I see Ash as an infinite trough of rockalicious wisdom, but this time... well, let's just say my first reaction to the Sleevage write-up was "ARE YOU ******* BLIND, YOU *********** ***** KOALA-EATING *** ***** CRAZY ************* FORD PINTO ******* BACKWARDS-TOILET-FLUSHING ******* HATERS?" (Bob doesn't like cursing on his blogs. To paraphrase a pre-"Let's sell our company to the Belgians and see if they are as successful with St. Louis as they were with Rwanda" Budweiser slogan, this asterisk's for you, Bob.)

Where was I? Oh, right. Beck.

I hate Beck. I think he's built a career on being clever, and I think his career's been supported by a bunch of clever, Gen-X twats. (Or *****, if 'twats' is a bad word.)

But this cover is awesome. It reaches back to the classic cool jazz covers from Blue Note and Atlantic and Verve and all the other great jazz labels that put out some of the best album covers in history, bar none.

Lots of rock bands have tried to do that, but Beck is one of the very, very few who pulled it off. The black & white tones are incredibly rich, the colors of the text are gorgeously understated, and the photo is abstract in all the right ways.

So Ash, you may have the better web site, and you may have all the cool alternate designs for the cover, and you may be cuter than I am, but ******, I'm right about this one and you're wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Opposite of right, wrong.

Yeah, and don't throw that "it's all opinion" nonsense at me. WRONG!

(Seriously, go to the Sleevage link if you haven't yet. It's a good write-up.)

Angry Samoans-Yesterday started tomorrow

Southern California band the Angry Samoans had been churning out high powered punk rock for nearly a decade when they changed directions in 1986 with this release. It's far more of a garage rock sound, but it's really good and the rough vocals and simple approach just add to the charm of it.
Now the cover has always had me curious because the dude is wearing a pig mask on his head and he has his cereal with him, but I guess in a public place. A library? A bus station? I don't know and I am not sure if it matters or not.

Am I commiting a crime by mentioning cereal on two consecutive posts? Maybe I need to go eat breakfast.

Gama Bomb-Citizen Brain

A couple of thoughts went through my head as I gazed intently at the cover of the latest album from Ireland's Gama Bomb. Such as....

"Is this a commentary on our Presidential Election?"

"Could one of the candidates really be a brain controlling a robotic mechanism with razor arms hiding in a human skin suit?"

"Am I out of Boo Berry cereal?"

"How stupid is Brett Favre?"

"Why am I looking at this hooey anyway?"

Shame Club - Come on

Much like the music contained on this 2008 release from St. Louis, Missouri's Shame Club, the cover is also a throwback to another time. A fairly simple drawing that has one at first thinking of covers from the late 1960's to the early 1970's. Sure, it's basic but something about the lack of color and the intensity of the fire and the movement of the steamboat appeals to me.