Heavy Metal Thunder: Kick-Ass Cover Art from Kick-Ass Albums

by James Sherry

Revile it if you will, laugh it off but heavy metal's influence and audience just keep on growing. And nowhere is its brash outrageousness better expressed than on its album covers. This chunky compendium is a dungeonful of metal overload, complete with leather- and spandex-panted, huge-haired rockers, drooling beasts, and plenty of skulls. Charting a visual course of the genre, Heavy Metal Thunder shows the best album art from its youthful incarnation in the late '70s through the MTV era, when glam and hair metal ruled; to the punk-inflected revolutions of thrash and Nu Metal (with a grunge side trip); to the gory contemporary genres of grindcore, black metal, and doom. Page after page of aggressive and excessive album graphics makes this the perfect gift for both current metalheads and nostalgic (if embarrassed), thirty-and forty-somethings with headbanging memories.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Art

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Vicky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Only Metal Heads can truly judge a book by its cover

[Judson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honestly, giving a collection of reproduced heavy metal LP covers five stars is pretty silly. Honestly, the text inside this book was pretty silly. Honestly, the album covers inside this book are mostly pretty silly. Honestly, the people who perform the best heavy metal ever recorded tend to be pretty silly. Honestly, the entire genre called "heavy metal" is pretty silly. Honestly, I bought this book half-off at an Uncle Dan's Outdoor Gear store's sidewalk sale, which was not held on the sidewalk but inside the store. Honestly, I also bought some shoes there.

[maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great collection of album covers. Perfect for those interested in design.

[Nihils · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eines vorweg: Wer heuer noch der Meinung ist, Heavy Metal sei nach wie vor in irgendeiner Weise anti-establishment, shocking oder per se etwas Besonderes, hat den Schuss nicht gehört. Metal ist genauso Mainstream wie Hip Hop, Techno oder Schlager - allerspätestens seit den frühen 2000ern. Alles ist kommerziell verwertbar und wird früher oder später verscherbelt. Wer sich einbildet, die eigene Individuation mittels einer Szenezugehörigkeit aufwerten zu können, macht sich selbst fragwürdig.

Ein Buch wie Heavy Metal Thunder: Album Covers That Rocked the World ist da nur symptomatisch. Genauer betrachtet aber auch nur Effekthascherei. Aldis's und Sherry's freilich reich bebilderter Band kann eigentlich auch nur zwei Gruppen empfohlen werden: 1. Kids, die sich inspirieren lassen wollen, oder 2. zumeist alten Säcken, die sich ihre letzten paar Märker für solchen Quatsch aus dem Kreuz leiern lassen, weil sie nicht akzeptieren wollen, dass ihre Jugend längst vorbei ist (also so jemand wie ich).

Als nützlichen, journalistischen Beitrag über die Geschichte des Heavy Metal kann man Heavy Metal Thunder also nicht verstehen (vgl. Black Metal: Evolution of the Cult von Dayal Patterson). Wirkliche Informationen sind rar und auch manche Covers sind, wenn auch grundsätzlich viele an der Zahl, teils fraglich gewählt. Ikonische Artworks gibt's en masse, viele davon findet man hier jedoch nicht. Zudem wird man dem mutigen Untertitel des Buchs mancherorts schlicht nicht gerecht. Wann bitte sollen kotzhässliche Designverbrechen wie Satyricon's "Dark Medieval Times", Disturbed's "Believe" oder Sledgehammer's "Blood on their Hands" die World gerockt haben? Ja, Geschmack, blabla, egal.

Wie auch immer, zum Zeitvertreib kann man sich Heavy Metal Thunder gewiss geben. Immerhin sind die Textparts gut geschrieben und die Covers seiner Lieblingsplatten guckt man sich sowieso immer gerne an, völlig Wurscht auf welche Weise. Die Frage bleibt, wozu man ein solches Werk zusammenstellt, wo doch wirklich jeder, der halbwegs was mit Heavy Metal zu tun hat, ohnehin 80% der hier abgebildeten Artworks kennt? Eine Buchreihe, die (kunst-?) historischer und detaillierter an z.B. Covergestaltung innerhalb verschiedener Metal-Subgenres herangeht, hätte ggf. mehr Sinn gemacht.

[Carlos Vázquez · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Heavy metal is beer music. Beer and metal go together like Jack Daniels and Coke. Heaven and Hell. Or meat and potatoes. The perfect mix, one complementing the other".
Revisión en portadas de metal, muy completo y nos brinda un panorama de la evolución también de un genero musical al que siempre ira ligado el arte visual como la música que lo acompañe.

[Kenny Bird · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did enjoy this book because it was interesting looking at different album covers and gives me different bands to listen to but some of the text had errors and wasn’t very well written.

[Justin · Rating 5 out of 5]

James Sherry and Neil Aldis have come up with a metal must-have with Heavy Metal Thunder, a collection of amazing cover artwork from some amazing metal albums. Since this is a collection of artwork and not a self-described "encyclopedia" there isn't any need to include everything, though Sherry and Aldis definitely cover the basics. From Sabbath to the NWOBHM to the hair metal era to thrash, death, black and even nu metal, Heavy Metal Thunder looks at classic imagery spanning decades, crossing national borders and covering just about every sub-genre metal has to offer (progressive and power metal are conspicuously absent). The covers included here also range from the iconic (Maiden, Priest) to the obscure (Acid Reign, Excel) to the grotesque (Cannibal Corpse, Fleshcrawl).

My only complaint - and it's more of a wish than a complaint - is that a large format version isn't available. I'd love to have seen a 13x15 hardcover book that would be a true "coffee table". This paperback is more of an "end table" book.

I'd absolutely recommend Heavy Metal Thunder to any metal fan, whether casual or utterly committed. It's just a great way to appreciate some of metal's most memorable covers.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a cool book, especially if you were a metal head in the 80's & 90's. It covers all the sub genres including Glam, Thrash, Grunge, Black Metal & even Nu metal. The text is not bad, mostly as you would expect dealing with the album art & not going too much into the music. As with most books of this type, there are some silly mistakes eg songs by Iron Maiden include Running Wild ?! But you can forgive that just to gaze at some of the best (& worst)album covers ever. Time to dig out some of my Manowar vinyl!!

[Johnny · Rating 5 out of 5]

You could paper your entire bedroom walls with pages from this book...if it was 1986 and you were 13. AWESOME!!! I have made a gazillion flyers from scans of pages.

[Jenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perfect gift for the metalhead enthusiast!

[Mateo DeVries · Rating 5 out of 5]

Killer Heavy Metal art work of some great albums!!