the concept
Considering Black Metal's dark routes—and sometimes terrifying history—I wanted to take this in a direction that read almost like a Book of the Dead (The Necronomicon, for the true horror fans). As a huge Evil Dead fan, it was my way of bringing in some subtle fun to an otherwise aesthetically-serious project. To achieve that vibe, we used a matte-coated 4-panel digipak with 3 inks—black, metallic gold, and a spot UV. The texture was taken from an old family sketchbook of mine (think 1890s) and worked into the cover design using only the spot varnish. The result was a simple, kind-of-elegant (if you can ignore the Satan stuff) package for a record of really dark and macabre tunes.
