John Dyer Baizley - Album Cover of Meir, by Kvelertak (2013)

Tonight Norwegian power rock band Kvelertak play Webster Hall along with Georgia stoner hardcore metallers Black Tusk. (Canadian punks Cancer Bats open, as well.)

Besides loudness and shouted vocals (in very different languages), what do Kvelertak and Black Tusk have in common? That would be the artist who created their album artwork: John Dyer Baizley, better known as the guitarist of sludge metal band Baroness, also from Georgia.

See also: What Makes NYC Metal?

Baizley's art is easily recognizable for its primal beauty, and he's been commissioned to create covers for quite a few bands--not all of them metal, and, as in the case of Kvelertak, not all of them from the Savannah, GA, sludge scene.

We're not visual art critics, so we're not going to rank the covers. And we're not going to rank these bands, either. Just think of this as a greatest hits list of the best music with Baizley artwork.

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After their much-anticipated 2010 reunion at Matador Records' 21st birthday party in Las Vegas, lo-fi rockers Guided by Voices buckled up and went on a two-year bender of tour dates and recent album releases. Now, with an art exhibition called The Big Hat & Toy Show, frontmen Robert Pollard and Tobin Sprout showcase their visual art. The exhibit, which is described as a "menagerie of installations," can be seen at the headquarters of Brooklyn band the Library is On Fire.

TLIOF frontman Steve Five (who is a GbV fan and fellow Ohioan) presents the two-day "interactive conceptual installation" in Bushwick where he has curated other events with his band at this performance space.

Pollard and Sprout aren't strangers to exhibiting their visual work. So why is their latest offering presented at a DIY space, as opposed to a trendy Chelsea gallery? We caught up with Five to discuss the art show, and what fans/art lovers can expect from tonight's art opening. Apparently, Pollard likes the "non traditional environment that a space like this provides" and "It's a lot more fun." Read on.More »

Jesus Frankenchrist, here we go again! Sacramento cacopho-rap outfit Death Grips--whose music roughly approximates the sensation of ramming your head through a plaster wall while on bath salts and blue meth, then flailing around for 45 minutes (but with bassbeats!)--put a big hairy boner on the cover of their new LP, NO LOVE DEEP WEB. Which, y'know, we totally get: How the hell are you supposed to read an album title scrawled in Sharpie across the top of a dude-piston if the words are buried within flaccid folds? You have to admire the practicality of it. If not the complete ridiculousness. We hear their label, Epic Records, was superfuckingpleased with the Mapplethorpian splendor of it all.

Problem is, Death Grips' meat popsicle didn't really entice us to explore the album's aural terror-pleasures. Instead, it pushed us off into the dim recesses of our sullied brain to think of some of the other graphic/explicit/whoa-did-they-really-do-that? album covers we've encountered over the years, then over toward the skeeziest corners of the interwebs for visual reminders. Here's a few that came to mind right away (not necessarily our "favorites," but some of the more memorable ones, anyway), a few of which definitely put Death Grips' fleshy shock-puppet to shame. NSFW after the jump.

See Also:
- The 15 Most Ridiculous Band Promo Photos

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Curiosity led us early Tuesday evening toward Fred Torres Gallery in Chelsea. Courtney Love, visual artist? That sort of makes sense. Given Love's unpredictable reputation, we were not expecting to see her at the press preview for her debut art show, "And She's Not Even Pretty," let alone have a sit-down conversation with her.

Inside the gallery, we encountered what seems like a show consisting entirely of self-portraits—just about every work has a big-eyed blonde in it—done with colored pencils, watercolors, ink, and pastels on paper. Pain, sex, violence, drugs, and celebrities (including a portrait of Gwyneth Paltrow holding her infant son) feature prominently in the approximately 45 works on display. Handwriting is scrawled on every piece, but it's often anyone's guess what exactly Love has written. A few lines we could make out: "It takes sleeping with a snake like you to rip apart my soul"; "Let you bleed all over me." Ouch.

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