Behind the Covers

heavy-metal

1 cover story in our archive

Behind the Covers' archive includes 1 album cover documented under the "heavy metal" design theme, all from the 1970s. The cover sits within the metal, rock tradition and features work by Black Sabbath. Each entry below includes the cover artwork, the designers and photographers behind it, and a short story about the visual choices that defined the release.

Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath — album cover art

Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath (1970)

A mysterious cloaked figure before a 15th-century watermill, photographed with color-inverted film that transforms a picturesque English countryside into something genuinely evil — released on Friday the 13th, the album essentially invented heavy metal.

Label
Vertigo / Warner Bros.
Photographer
Keith Macmillan
Genre
Metal, Rock
Decade
1970s
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