Album covers are more than just packaging; they’re visual gateways into the world of the music within. While some covers entice listeners with vibrant colors or artistic photography, others unsettle and disturb, leaving a lasting mark on the psyche. With Halloween vibes always just a playlist away, let’s count down the top 10 scariest album covers that haunt record bins and streaming libraries alike. Brace yourself for a dive into the macabre and grotesque, where music and imagery collide in terrifying harmony.

10. Iron Maiden – The Number of the Beast (1982)

At number 10, we start with a classic in metal iconography. Iron Maiden’s The Number of the Beast features their skeletal mascot, Eddie, manipulating the Devil as if he were a mere puppet. With a flame-lit sky and menacing expressions, this cover suggests that even Satan is at the mercy of higher powers—an unnerving visual paired with the band’s dark and apocalyptic themes. While it’s cartoonish by today’s standards, there’s no denying the sinister charm of its twisted art.

9. Marilyn Manson – Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death) (2000)

Marilyn Manson has always reveled in provoking controversy, and the cover of Holy Wood is a prime example. Manson is depicted in a crucified pose, skeletal and rotting, evoking religious martyrdom, death, and decay in a way that unsettles. The haunting, pale-eyed visage of Manson on the cover confronts the viewer, invoking discomfort and forcing contemplation of life’s darker questions. This image is less about gore and more about psychological disturbance.

8. The Beatles – Yesterday and Today (1966)

The Beatles might not seem like an obvious inclusion on a list like this, but the original “Butcher Cover” for Yesterday and Today was shocking enough to get pulled from stores. Featuring the Fab Four dressed in white coats, grinning while holding dismembered baby dolls and slabs of meat, this morbid and surreal image sent shockwaves through 1960s pop culture. While it’s not explicitly horrifying, it’s the disturbing incongruity between the band’s boy-next-door charm and the gruesome imagery that sticks in your mind.

7. Cannibal Corpse – Tomb of the Mutilated (1992)

Known for their extreme and grotesque album art, Cannibal Corpse’s Tomb of the Mutilated earns a spot for sheer graphic brutality. The cover shows a pair of zombies locked in a cannibalistic act, surrounded by blood and decay. Gore and violence aren’t new in death metal, but Cannibal Corpse’s penchant for pushing boundaries makes this one of the most unsettling covers in the genre’s history. It’s almost a challenge to look at, and for many, a challenge to stomach.

6. Slipknot – Slipknot (1999)

The masked madness of Slipknot’s debut album cover is a nightmarish vision. The nine masked members, their faces distorted and monstrous, stare down the camera like predatory animals. Each member’s mask is uniquely terrifying, adding layers of fear with their blank expressions, spikes, and scars. It feels like a scene out of a horror movie—one where you’re never quite sure who or what you’re looking at. The raw aggression of Slipknot’s music only amplifies the dread that this cover instills.

5. Mayhem – Dawn of the Black Hearts (1995)

If the Tomb of the Mutilated cover is disturbing for its art, Mayhem’s Dawn of the Black Hearts is terrifying for its reality. The bootleg live album infamously features a photo of the band’s former lead singer, Dead, shortly after his suicide. This ghastly image isn’t just gruesome—it’s a brutal confrontation with death itself, unfiltered and raw. It stands as one of the most controversial and horrifying album covers ever created, a grim testament to black metal’s infatuation with mortality and extremity.

4. Aphex Twin – Richard D. James Album (1996)

Aphex Twin’s Richard D. James Album cover isn’t bloody or violent, but it’s undeniably creepy. Richard D. James, also known as Aphex Twin, stares directly into your soul with a wide, unnerving grin, his face digitally manipulated to amplify the discomfort. It’s the uncanniness of the image—human but not quite right—that taps into a primal unease. This unsettling smile mirrors the bizarre, often chaotic nature of the music inside, making it a haunting visual companion.

3. Slayer – Hell Awaits (1985)

Slayer’s Hell Awaits cover is like a portal into a demonic underworld. The imagery of tortured souls being dragged into the inferno by ghoulish, horned creatures feels like an illustration straight from Dante’s Inferno. The chaotic, hellish landscape is one you can get lost in—and it’s the kind of place you’d never want to find yourself. Slayer’s music has always been a soundtrack to the end of days, and this cover gives a terrifying glimpse into what that might look like.

2. Death – Leprosy (1988)

The cover of Death’s Leprosy is horrifying not just for its content but for its grotesque realism. It depicts a leprous figure, cloaked and holding out a hand, his flesh visibly decaying and diseased. The depiction of human rot and suffering is almost too real, making it one of the most viscerally unsettling images in metal. Paired with the band’s groundbreaking sound in death metal, it’s a harrowing representation of the morbid themes that run throughout the album.

1. Black Sabbath – Black Sabbath (1970)

Topping the list is a cover that feels haunted in every sense of the word. The debut album by Black Sabbath sets the tone for both heavy metal and horror with its eerie, almost otherworldly image of a dark, mysterious figure standing in a desolate field. The washed-out colors, the dilapidated building, and the spectral woman in black—it all exudes an unsettling atmosphere that’s impossible to shake. The cover feels like the beginning of a horror film, where you know something terrible is lurking just beyond view. The music itself only deepens the sense of dread, making it the ultimate marriage of visual and auditory horror.