Hello, and welcome to our second ever round-up of our favourite album art of the year! At a time when art is under attack from the unrelenting churn of AI slop, we feel it’s important to recognise the real artists that musicians collaborate with. And so, to that effect, our writers have voted for their favourite album covers that adorned new releases in 2025 which we now collect here. Originally, we were going to make this a Top 10 list, but we decided that each of these pieces was unique and striking in its own right, and that it would be a shame to pit them against one another as if they’re competitors. Instead, we’ve jettisoned the ranked order and present them here alphabetically by artist. 

To qualify for inclusion in this post, we first needed to have reviewed the album itself, but the art also needed to be an original work by a contemporary artist (sorry, public domain trawlers!), and it needed to have a credited artist. Sometimes we come across an album with really cool art and no artist credited. Please, people, credit your artists! And, of course, AI was strictly forbidden. So without any further ado, here are our 10 favourite artworks of the year (plus a bonus pick)! Please don’t touch the exhibits.  

---

Benjamin König (Hexvessel – Nocturne)

I love it when a band and an artist strike up a relationship, which was the case back in 2023 when Hexvessel first teamed up with Benjamin König. Polar Veil came adorned with a soft pastel piece by König in which a snow-covered hamlet sees the empyrean revealed by a mystical shade-like form dragging the stars behind it. Nocturne, Hexvessel’s follow-up, is emblazoned by a companion piece. This time, a skull-fronted snowcloud encroaches upon an outpost in the inky blackness dropping a benevolent snow flurry over them. Despite the sinister nature of the monochrome composition—the deathly skull, and the vulnerable little cluster of homes—the piece nevertheless feels homely, which is clearest in the full piece (which splays over the front and back covers of the physical edition). The playful sprinkling of the skullcloud, the way the hamlet is lit up like a haven in the darkness, the sensible distance from the desolation of the impenetrable forest beyond… it all adds up to a work which is evocative, inhabitable, and—in its own gothic, Germanic way—oddly comforting. 

Artist links: Instagram | Facebook | Official Site 
Write-up by: Christopher

---

Brvyja XIII (Kalaveraztekah – Nikan Axkan)

As great as it is to pontificate on the semiotics of an art piece and dive deep into its context, it’s equally as fun to look at something and just talk about how fucking sick it is. And what better cover to do that with than Brvja XIII’s work for Kalaveraztekah’s Nikan Axkan, a piece that—by any reasonable measure—is fucking sick. The stark contrast between the skeletal giant, the smoke wafting off the teocalli, and the starry night sky? Sick. The intricate linework of the subject’s melting body? Sick. The fact that the subject is holding the god damn Sun? SICK. The piece magnificently sets the stage for Nikan Axkan’s exploration of pre-Hispanic cosmogony, evoking a world of mythology and wonder. Undoubtedly there is symbolism woven into Brvja XIII’s evocative ink work: an air of greed is betrayed by the subject as they hold the most powerful object in the heavens, so imposing and so hot that they melt in an Icarian blaze of glory. But also? It’s just fucking sick.

Artist links: Facebook | Instagram
Write-up by: Dave

---

Christian Degen Peterson (Carian – Saranhedra)

Looking through the list of top album artworks of the last year, it’s clear that much like the style itself, progressive metal’s art is not a monolith; it can be colourful, monochromatic, simple, complex, weird, conventional, and all manner of adjective superlatives. The cover of Carian’s Saranhedra, however, is a monolith. Or it depicts one, anyway. The enormous and enigmatic figure surrounded by rocky mountain outcrops and a vast, endless desert landscape makes for an imposing sight, echoing perfectly the reverberant lead guitars, low fuzzy riffage, and massive, pounding drums that define the sonic landscape of this release. The artist uses extreme detail in the landscape which contrasts sharply with the pure black used to fill in the lines of the standing stone, portraying its surface with only the slightest hint of dimension and leaving its composition otherwise nebulous and undefined. In the background, a lone celestial body hangs in the sky in waxing gibbous. You feel the sense of grandeur and magnificence intended by the artist, and the esoteric nature of the figures represented in this piece leaves much to interpretation, inspiring the eye to ask the ear for answers that may only be found within the album itself.

Artist links: Instagram | Official Site
Write-up by: Francesco

---

Dmitry Rogatnev (ByoNoiseGenerator – Subnormal Dives)

They say never to judge a book—or in this case, album—by its cover, but the moment I laid eyes on Dmitry Rogatnev’s artwork for Subnormal Dives, I’d already made up my mind. Deep sea fish-men in diving suits packing sci-fi guns that would make X-Men’s Bishop leave the timeline out of jealousy? That’s absolutely an album I want to listen to, no questions asked. Rogatnev’s linework is crisp, and the characters full of motion. And that’s to say nothing of the composition, which, thanks to an effective layout, visual clarity, and color hierarchy, hooks the eye across the Z-Line like a seasoned fisherman hauling a juicy catch. Bonus points for the band’s logo nestling perfectly in the image’s negative space, contributing as opposed to crippling the design. I loved the album art so much, I even bought the shirt.

Artist links: Facebook
Write-up by: Vince

---

Eliran Kantor (Abigail Williams – A Void Within Existence)

A Void Within Existence’s cover art is brutal, devastating, and macabre. A man hangs suspended in death, while painters surround him, brushes poised, but no brush has yet broken the white slates before them. Have the painters learned nothing? Has their observance of this finality conferred any understanding at all? The image captures a moment of paralysis—observation without interpretation, suffering without resolution. The same tension echoes through the album’s sound, where brutality and restraint exist in uneasy balance. There is no catharsis here; meaning is not inherent, and the canvases are still blank. Instead, the artwork implicates the viewer. We, fellow listeners, are the painters. Eliran Kantor asks us to witness an act of suffering, and we are left to decide what, if anything, it signifies. What are you going to paint?

Artist links: Instagram | Facebook | Official Site 
Write-up by: Daniel

---

Niklas Sundin (Aephanemer – Utopie)

One of the crimes of aging is losing our childlike sense of wonder. The thinnest book could unlock an entire world of imagination; a sparkly pebble could hold a kingdom of wealth. Although those days of endless intrigue are far behind us, the gorgeous, evocative cover adorning Aephanemer’s Utopie sparks an ephemeral trip back to a time when the pictured staircase could lead to a battle with any one of a thousand mythical beasts. Niklas Sundin’s flowing lines carry us on a surreal journey from the prehistoric to a dystopian future, and it’s all too easy to imagine a young, wooden-sword-wielding protagonist traversing time and space with the world at stake. The stunning colors immediately captivate, and two peculiarly stylized clouds provide just the right amount of quirkiness. And if Sundin’s work weren’t compelling enough on its own, it fits Utopie’s adventurous, majestic brand of melodeath like the jewel in a sword’s hilt. 

Artist links: Instagram | Facebook | Official Site 
Write-up by: Cory

---

Paschalis Zervas (Ulver – Neverland)

Season 2 of HBO’s The White Lotus opens on a beach in Sicily, where the idyll of the Instagram-ready sands and cresting waves is soon rent by the discovery of a dead body drifting in the Ionian Sea. It’s a thesis statement for the season to come, painting paradise not as escape, but as a façade. This same tension is exactly what Paschalis Zervas evokes in the cover art for Ulver’s Neverland. At first glance, the scene is inviting. With its sunlit surf, lush foliage, and warm colours, it practically invites you to step barefoot onto the beach. But the longer you look, the more a subtle disquietude begins to emerge. The soft-edged texture of the scenery is suspiciously pristine, like a memory that’s been airbrushed into something too perfect to trust. The sun blazes overhead just a little too bright, as if it’s watching over you, where you stand between the arching trees, shadowed cliffs, and verdantly blooming flowers. It’s perfect; it’s vibrant; it’s sinister.

Artist links: Instagram | Facebook | Official Site
Write-up by: Claire

---

Reuben Bhattacharya (Mario Infantes – Bitácora)

I’ve always had a certain fascination with geography, how the contours of coastlines, rivers, and mountains bend into unusual shapes and, in turn, form the human borders of nations and settlements that drive our history. Evidently, artist Reuben “Visual Amnesia” Bhattacharya shares this fascination, taking inspiration from vintage cartographers to craft a stunningly intricate vellum rendering of Mario Infantes‘ face, reimagined as a map of a vast and dramatic island landscape that bears a certain resemblance to Infantes’ newfound home of Iceland. It’s an apropos representation of the avant-garde music within—wildly diverse, jam-packed with labyrinthine detail, and seemingly set apart from the rest of the musical world. Yet the album’s title, Bitácora, the Spanish term for a sailor’s log, pushes back on that sense of isolation, comparing the many interconnected influences and collaborations that formed the album’s sound to the numerous shipping routes that historically connected Iceland to the world at large despite its lack of land borders. No man is an island, after all.

Artist links: Instagram | Facebook | Official Site 
Write-up by: Ian

---

Toby Driver (Kayo Dot – Every Rock, Every Half-Truth Under Reason)

Toby Driver has consistently embraced the surreal, the occult, and the pagan, in both his visual art and in his music. The cover for Every Rock, Every Half-Truth Under Reason continues this tradition, echoing the dark liminality of the music of Kayo Dot through its palette and overall composition: largely monochrome and gloomy, with no scenic grounding. The viewer is suspended in a sombre nothingness, observing the subject. Dark and light streaks drip down the canvas, seemingly produced by splashes of water applied after the fact, rather than by an overapplication of the medium itself (whether gouache or acrylics), reminiscent of tears dripping onto a printed page and causing the ink to run. Driver has expressed in past interviews his artistic worldview that, while the common man may look to the artist for explanation and comfort, the artist is himself a frontiersman, forever in search of new ways of expressing what the common man cannot, or ought not. In the same way, the subject—the gryphon, traditionally a protector of priceless possessions, sheltering the artist from the boundless funereal storm of their universe—looks to the right, to the future, while the artist himself looks within. The artist’s pose is introspective, outwardly melancholic. But he is looking toward the single spot of radical beauty in his universe, the only splash of colour, the inspiration needed to continue his exploration of the frontier.

Artist links: Instagram | Facebook | Official Site 
Write-up by: Ishmael 

---

Valnoir Mortasonge / Metastazis (In Mourning – The Immortal)

With densely layered art, visual clarity often falls to the wayside. On The Immortal, French art studio Metastazis shows us how you can have both. At first, there is just a majestic red-crowned crane grabbing the crescent moon in an otherwise largely monochrome image. Then, clockwork with golden ornamentation and Roman numerals catch the eye. Finally, the rest of the details come flooding in: churning gears, lines spiraling inwards, feather-like shapes circling around the composition, and a golden chain on the crane’s neck as a finishing touch. Geometry, clever use of layering, a carefully selected color palette, and simple yet effective shading create a striking sense of depth and dynamism in the piece. Circles, gears, and lines curving inwards dominate the composition, yet symmetry is often disrupted. Besides the clock itself, the circles and gears vary in size and alignment, and though the lines spiral inwards, they all come with that same unexpected bend outwards as they approach the edge of the clock. These shapes are deliberately left unfinished or partially covered in a way that invites the viewer to mentally fill in the blanks. This organic irregularity in composition offsets the rigidity of perfection that these geometrical shapes suggest, giving the impression that though immortality may seem flawless, life itself remains unpredictable.

Artist links: Instagram | Facebook | Official Site 
Write-up by: Sam

---

Bonus Pick:

Brynn Metheney (Object Unto Earth – The Grim Village)

While Brynn Metheney’s fighting frog just missed out on the “top ten” that comprises our favourites, we’d have been remiss not to shout out the work of art that got talked about the most among our writers this year. Metheney’s determined little frog in his fighting stance, cape flowing behind him, became something of a mascot for us. The fact that I gave the charming salientian the absolute brain rot nickname “forg in cap” might be part of that, but look at the personality on the little guy: the sheen on his moist skin, the dynamism in his limbs, his velvety cape… we would die for forg in cap. 

Artist links: Official Site
Write-up by: Christopher