Hackneyed, ‘Burn After Reaping’ — Album Art of the Week

Hackneyed enlisted photographic illustration master Björn Goosses from Killustrations for their newest album on Nuclear Blast. A lot of times there's a neat anecdote or a deep philosophical theme relating the album art to the album title, but not this time around."The Hackneyed guys simply wanted a brutal and gory piece that fits their style," Goosses told Noisecreep.

The cover depicts a rather unlucky individual standing amongs some flames and with some nasty cuts and bruises - not the least of which left him with an exposed brain. Goosses told us his favorite aspects: "What I especially like about this piece is the extreme contrast of the dark dungeon and the bright flames as well as the depth created by the various sized chains/hooks, some of them being blurred to make the depth more intense."

The design, though, was almost never meant to be - at least for Hackneyed. "Actually it was a lucky coincidence that this piece finally made it for Hackneyed," Goosses admitted, "Because originally I designed it for another band, yet still lacking the flames back then. So I pimped it a bit with more gore and some fire."