Metal is many different things, but lighthearted and jovial it is not. In fact, metal is incredibly image-conscious, having deeply defined aesthetics for each of its respective subgenres. It’s easy to tell the font of a black-metal band from that of a death-metal band, and if you’re a blackened death-metal band just, I don’t know, figure something out. No place is metal more serious than on its album covers, where images vary among brutal, more brutal, and even more brutal, and it’s why the recently discovered Tumblr Metal Albums With Googly Eyes works so effectively.
It’s a delightfully simple premise: Take a metal album and slap some googly eyes on it. Take, for example, the cover of Sabaton’s Heroes, which features an angry eagle statue, a couple lions, a helicopter, and some fire.