I’d be inviting curses upon my house if I didn’t mention Echo Echo first. A visual artist and musician from Portugal, she did the cover art for Trve Cvlt and, my god – she absolutely knocked it out of the park, and I’m not sure I’ll ever recover from how bonkers it is. And that’s everything she does. Echo Echo has a knack for creating weird and unsettling architecture within her art. Whether it’s castles or abandoned farmhouses, her buildings feel alive. Doors and windows double as mouths and eyes. Bones and scales cover the roofs like shingles. Everything she creates exudes heavy metal motifs—sometimes leaning more on the occult, doom, and psychedelic, sometimes more nature-themed folk horror, or classically covered in pentagrams and skulls. Black and white or full color, Echo understands the assignment better than anyone I’ve seen. Find her on Instagram @echoechoillustrations.

If you’ve ever seen one of his pieces, you’ll likely never forget it. Yorgis takes a unique approach to creating his mixed-media pieces, combining painting, sculptural elements, and photography. I recently saw an in-progress piece that incorporated screws as part of the sculptural elements. All art is DIY at its core, but Yorgis takes this idea, flips it on its head, and then turns it inside out. His subject matter is subjective, of course, but seems to focus on creatures and monsters of…well, of a kind I’ve never seen before. They’re nightmare inducing, incorporating both animalistic and human-like features. Grisly depictions of otherworldly beings. Interdimensional roadkill. Regardless of how you interpret Yorgis’s work, there’s no doubt it’s metal as hell. Find him on Twitter @KordonisART.

Another favorite of mine, and if you’ve been following Tenebrous Press, you’re likely no stranger to their artwork, as they’ve done both interior and cover art for various titles; including Crom Cruach, in which my T-shirt bearing their design is always mistaken for a band shirt. While they do work in color sometimes, when I think of La Mantia, I think of the wildly detailed black and white pieces. Their line work is meticulous, depicting intricately designed horrors. Every time I look at a piece of La Mantia’s art, I find something new each time. A new eyeball here, a face there. Their subject matter often portrays cosmic horror beasts and unspeakable horrors—which is fine, sometimes it’s best to let the art speak for you. Find La Mantia on Twitter @JLcomics.

I’m going with a classic artist next. Even if you don’t know the name, if you’re a metalhead, you’ve probably seen his work on any number of album covers. Seriously, Dan Seagrave is to death metal what Roger Dean is to prog-rock. Seagrave is a self-taught British painter with dozens of album covers under his belt including work for: Suffocation, Morbid Angel, Gorguts, Xibalba, Pestilence, and many others. Did I mention he’s self-taught? What’s more metal than that? His work often depicts hellish and apocalyptic landscapes in great detail. Every twisted realm and pit of hell. Every brick and crooked spire and mountain of doom. The dystopian skies and rivers of lava. Every crack and crevice of dried out ruins. Everything about Seagrave’s work is metal. Find him on Instagram @seagraveart.

Hailing from Detroit, Michigan, Ulrich’s illustrations embody heavy metal, often portraying occult themes, magic, and esoterism. I know him most from his major arcana tarot deck and his zodiac themed pieces. His linework is precise, typically black and white, but often uses vibrant red to pull attention to various parts of his pieces, like blood, halos, or the sun. Ulrich has this style about him too, so when you see his work in the wild, you know it’s his. Find him on Instagram @micah_ulrich.

Last but not least, an artist who is relatively new to me—Maegan LeMay, a tattooist and illustrator out of Cranston, Rhode Island. Her work reminds me of the kind of art you’d see scrawled in the notebooks of every all-black-wearing ghoul in school…except, you know, with the talent and focus of an artist. Often depicting gruesome, dark, and macabre themes, LeMay’s work is something to be marveled at. Her art has a roundness to it, I think. An appeal that reminds me of horror-pulps. It’s grimy, not gritty; but that doesn’t mean it lacks an edge. From caverns, to crypts, death metal diners and skeletons galore—LeMay is an artist whose work screams metal. Find her on Instagram @m.lemay.art.