Gustave Doré was known for illustrating such adventure novels as Paradise Lost, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, The Divine Comedy and The Bible. The artwork in question today is from that latter book, The Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones:
So by now most of you would recognize this as the cover for Merciless debut record "The Awakening" from '90. Some of you might even know where we are going next with this post.
So to the left we have Merciless, to the right we have Sacred Crucifix demo from '89, the year "The Awakening" was recorded but yet not released. On the demo we see the watching man on the hill, which is obscured on "The Awakening" due to crop issues. But what I think is so fantastic about these two covers beyond the usage of the same picture is the name on Sacred Crucifix's demo: Realms of Darkness. Sounds familiar? It should as Merciless demo from '89 was entitled "Realm of the Dark". I mean, isn't that two great coincidences?
So, pushing forward. We have these beauties as well:
First the reissue of "The Awakening" on which they had the brilliant idea to mirror the cover and put some color on it. I mean, that's makes it a totally different cover right? I guess they knew about these other releases and wanted their album to stand out on this second coming.
The second is Monastery's EP from '92 "The Process: Church of the Final Judgement" which isn't just a cool title they made up, but actually was a cult worshiping both Jesus and Satan under the sign of a Swastika like symbol. What's funny about this one is that the Bassist and one of two Vocalists was Lars Rosenberg, mostly known for Carbonized and his time in Entombed (Crawl, Clandestine, Hollowman & Wolverine Blues) - pictured below:
Monastery was a band from the Netherlands with two members from Sinister plus Lars, the Swede. I think it's fair to assume that Lars knew who Merciless was and had heard or possible even owned their first album, so the question here is; why did they use the same album cover with Monastery?
Third we have Cat Rapes Dog, which is a brilliant band name and a Swedish Electropunk band. Pictured above is their first EP (not first release thou) from '89!!! Freaky.
Ah.. And I almost forgot that this atrocity also exists:
Jacob's Dream an american heavy metal band which released this album in 2000 through Metal Blade Records on CD, cover pictured to the left. Later on it got a vinyl treatment through No Remorse Record with an updated and possibly even uglier version of the cover art.
Strange how such respected labels do agree to this stupidity. At least they haven't copied the original right off but cut out just a part and added some other stolen (?) art... I guess..
The key here is "no internet". Checkups were harder 1989. Also for example Lars might not be interested in art work att all and this might have passed. And don't forget! Åt the time these albums that the "youth" of today consider cult were just ordinary new records. As an example the iconic MAYHEM album cover de mysteriis.. was just a record with a church on.
SvaraRaderaNo one of us attending to the scene att the time though that any of this would servive and be "cult" in the future. We all borrowed from each other because with out internet - who would notice? And who would care? /Vengeance
Of course that's the case. But even with internet today, people still use Gustave Doré art as covers. Frankly I think most don't give a rats ass, and that's why I will not cover such stories, but I thought this one had a few cool coincidences worth mentioning. Plus the last cover which is kind of a collage-thingy that fit quite well on this blog.
RaderaThanks for the input! /J