Less Offensive Than Mariah Carey's Last Album Cover

I grew up buying metal albums (in cassette format and then switching to CDs around 9th grade) based on word of mouth, favorable coverage in respected metal magazines, multiple appearances on other bands "thank you" lists in liner notes and sometimes (without having heard a single note of music) simply based on how bad ass looking the cover art looked. A couple months ago I wrote about death metal and extreme metal album covers that really stuck out in my memory from my teenage/young adult years. I always thought death metal bands had the coolest looking artwork, so this morning when I received an email from Prosthetic Records announcing the artwork for Landmine Marathon's new album Sovereign Descent had been done by an artist, Dan Seagrave, who has done covers for Morbid Angel, Suffocation, Entombed and Dismember (all fine death metal bands) I was curious to check it out and I have to say it really does remind me of the classic death metal album covers from the late 80's/early 90's.

I've only heard one Landmine Marathon song on a comp somewhere along the line and remember it being brutal (in a good way) and I know that they have a female singer (as did another excellent Prosthetic band, Light This City, who are now defunct) who was featured on the cover of Revolver Magazine's latest idiotic "Hottest Chicks In Metal" issue (thanks for perpetuating the myth that all metalheads are knuckle dragging sexists fellas...please just stick to covering shit bands like Suicide Silence would ya? And, um, that being said, she is actually pretty hot...), but that's about it for my knowledge of the band. I don't seem to remember them being pure death metal (and for you non-metalheads that may read this, yes there is a HUGE difference between straight up death metal and other metal genres...Cannibal Corpse is death metal, Lamb Of God is not), but that doesn't mean they aren't allowed to have an awesome looking death metal album cover.

The record comes out March 16th and I'm thinking of reverting back to my 17 year old self and buying the album without hearing a note first simply because the artwork is killer. I'll let you know how it works out....