While it’s not particularly shocking compared to most Cannibal Corpse covers, in 1986 this image from German thrash band Kreator’s second album was pretty graphic.
Created by Phil Lawrence, who also designed the band’s Terrible Certainty album as well as Celtic Frost’s Morbid Tales/Emperor’s Return, the art for Pleasure to Kill sets a violent, vicious tone that perfectly matches the speed and brutality of the album. The horned demon, who bears resemblance to something from a Frank Frazetta painting (or a Jesse Helms nightmare), isn’t just killing the weapon-wielding skeletons, he’s dismembering them one after another and climbing atop the pile of shattered bones to continue the battle.
Even today, it doesn’t get much more metal than that.
As for the album, Pleasure to Kill is the Reign in Blood of German thrash metal, and holds up against pretty much any modern death or black metal discs in terms of ferocity and aggression.
Now, here’s a video for the far more commercial cut, “Chosen Few”:
