Mastodon are known for having fantastic cover art on their equally excellent records, and Emperor Of Sand is no exception. We were fortunate enough to get some time on the phone with drummer and all round visionary – Brann Dailor – about the concept behind the striking art and design behind the band's latest album. This is what he had to say about the art of designer : Al Brown. 

"I guess it’s one of my jobs in the band to find an artist. I love visual art, everyone in the band does as well but I just get ideas for concepts and tell the guys what I’m thinking and they say either yes or put their ideas in there as well and I get them all compiled and go to an artist : somebody I think would suit the project. I was getting a really strong vibe from our boy Al Brown (medusa wolf) and he did a really amazing job. I mean it’s a daunting task to have to paint ‘cancer’. If you were to put some kind of a face to this horrible disease that’s claimed so many over the centuries what does that look like? I really didn’t give him that much to go on, just the desert landscape with the remnants of a lost civilisation behind it. I wanted the skull to be part animal, because it’s killing to survive almost like an animal. There’s no sport no malice. You can kind of imagine approaching it and it would be complete silence…maybe a little bit of desert wind coming through, moving his garments but that dead stare. You get close to it and then you don’t know if you should touch it or not – which you probably shouldn’t – but I like that visual. It’s a powerful image and when I saw it for the first time  it really hit me, I had an emotional reaction to it, which has only happened a couple of times from paintings that I’ve seen. I think he did a really phenomenal job.”

You can check out more of Al Brown's work at _medusawolf_ on Instagram!

Emperor Of Sand is out 31 March, 2017. Get your copy here.