Heavy metal albums usually have some awesomely terrifying artwork (when they're not busy being totally awful), but they're not the only albums capable of creeping you out with their covers. Here are seven of the creepiest album covers from indie rock artists.
1. The Bats - Daddy's Highway (1987)
There's no way anyone can look at the doll on the cover of the Bats' Daddy's Highway and feel anything other than a crippling chill down their spine. The doll itself is terrifying enough, but the weird, hazy way it was photographed makes it seem like it was moving while the photo was taken, which is the last thing I want dolls to do.
2. Devendra Banhart - The Black Babies (2003)
This early EP from Devendra Banhart contains some of his eeriest, darkest music, which should be plainly obvious when looking at the image on the front cover, a crudely yet intricately drawn dog or cat (or Batman) swallowing a snake.
3. Godspeed You! Black Emperor - F♯ A♯ ∞ (1997)
The music of Godspeed You! Black Emperor can most accurately be described as "apocalyptic," and the extremely grainy cover photo for the band's debut album F♯ A♯ ∞ looks like it was taken at the end of the world somewhere up in Canada.
.4. Jay Reatard - Blood Visions (2006)
While the cover photos for Daddy's Highway and F♯ A♯ ∞ seem so eerie because of their grainy definition, the crystal clear photography for the cover of Jay Reatard's Blood Visions is what makes it so unsettling. It looks like a still image from The Shining, but one of those single-frame shots that's meant to subliminally get inside your head, instead of consciously seen.
5. My Bloody Valentine - You Made Me Realise (1988)
My Bloody Valentine never really explores the "bloody" part of its name, neither in the band's music nor artwork, but the closest it came was the cover to its classic You Made Me Realise EP, a black-and-white photograph of what is (probably) a dead girl.
6. Palace Brothers - Days in the Wake (1994)
The cover photo of Days in the Wake looks like it was taken sometime in the '50s, but had been stashed away in the attic of an abandoned house until it was found 40 years later. It's probably Will Oldham on the cover, but since 65 percent of the photograph is complete darkness, it could really be anybody.
7. Ty Segall - Melted (2010)
I can't tell if this is a painting, a photograph, or some sort of cut and paste collage, but however this album cover was created, it's going to haunt my dreams. Just the color palette alone feels like a psychedelic nightmare, like the stop-motion climax of the first Evil Dead movie.
