Gonna keep it 100 : I absolutely judge an album by its cover. Does it have a sick wizard? A most-pleasing font and color combination? An impossible and-or nightmarish fantasia? When I scroll through Bandcamp, on the hunt for hidden corners of punk, metal and outer sounds, the first sense is always sight. Maybe a killer band name will catch my eye, or a trusted record label, but amid a bloated glut of music, image is queen. Take, for instance, Goblinsmoker’s A Throne in Haze, A World Ablaze . You and I both know what’s going on here: With a name like Goblinsmoker, this could only be a stoner-metal band. The riffs? Why, they are slow and dank. The distortion? Scattered, smothered and covered to oblivion. The vocals? Scraped from the gutter. But it’s Adam C Design ‘s grubby illustration, featuring a stoned and possessed Toad King surrounded by dead toad soldiers and goblin sentry, that instantly communicates, “This is loud; this is silly; this feedback will melt your skull.” ESP Mayhem’s
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