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.
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Book Description
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About the Author
James Sherry and Neil Aldis have both written about rock music for Metal Hammer , Indiecator , and Rock World as well as numerous other magazines. They live in London.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
THE POWER AND GLORY OF HEAVY METAL,
This review is from: Heavy Metal Thunder: Kick-Ass Cover Art from Kick-Ass Albums (Paperback)
Heavy metal music is not only defined by its look and sound, but also by the album cover art which often did as good, if not a better job, of selling the album as any other aspect. Heavy Metal Thunder from Chronicle Books takes a look at the proud and often controversial history of heavy metal album artwork. In today's world of CD's, iPods, MP3 players, and file sharing, cover art has become a relative lost art. Such was not the case twenty or twenty-five years ago as record companies and bands new the importance of producing a cover which could catch the eye of potential buyers. Having lived through the heavy metal years myself, I can truthfully admit to buying many albums based solely on the cover art, without ever having heard the band's music. Sometimes this worked out as in the cases of bands like Grim Reaper and Exciter...other times it didn't, but even if it didn't, you still had that great album cover art.Writers James Sherry and Neil Aldis trace the history of heavy metal album art from that first, foreboding cover to Black Sabbath's first album in 1969, right up to the present say's nu-metal and black metal releases. But this isn't just 250 pages of pictures; the pair also look at the music that inspired the art and how the art was a reflection of the band's music and personality. There were the hard-edged bands like Iron Maiden , Armored Saint, Manowar, and Black Sabbath that often subscribed to the swords & sorcery/gothic approach. Then there were the glam/hair metal bands who, more often than not, put themselves front and center on the cover, clearly trying to appeal to the female metal fans yet still reeling in the guys with sexually suggestive covers and scantily clad women. But these bands were labeled as poseurs by the more hardcore metal heads who turned their attention to speed and thrash bands like Metallica, Anthrax, and Megadeth, and to black metal bands like Venom and Slayer. Some of the most notorious album covers in history wait inside the pages of Heavy Metal Thunder including Twisted Sisters "Stay Hungry" showing Dee Snider munching on a bloody leg bone, Black Sabbath's gothic "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath", Carcass' disturbing "Reek of Purification" and Marilyn Manson's "Mechanical Animal". Special sections are devoted to Iron Maiden's covers depicting zombie mascot Eddie, painted by Derek Riggs. This was like taking a stroll back in time and revisiting old friends you haven't seen in a long time. If you're a metalhead, you'll enjoy paging through the book and seeing just how many of these albums that you owned, or perhaps still own. There are literally hundreds of album covers pictured here covering every sub-genre of heavy metal including grindcore and grunge. Sometimes funny, sometimes shocking, and sometimes repulsive, Heavy Metal Thunder is a book that any metal fan must have. Reviewed by Tim Janson
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A really unique and useful book!,
By Future Watch Writer (Washington, D.C. Area) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Heavy Metal Thunder: Kick-Ass Cover Art from Kick-Ass Albums (Paperback)
I don't know of any other book like this. In one place you can get some of the most creative metal album covers. For example, on page 118 there is a very interesting article on Derek Riggs who did Iron Maiden's legendary album covers. There is a definite connection between the art of some of the album covers and science fiction art. Certain aspects of heavy metal are related to ancient paganism and this is reflected in the artwork of various bands. I would highly recommend this book to both metal fans and fans of science fiction art.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Terrific, compact collection of metal's best cover artwork,
By
This review is from: Heavy Metal Thunder: Kick-Ass Cover Art from Kick-Ass Albums (Paperback)
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.
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