Vengeance Rising’s De-Awesomed Artwork

Related to one of my recent posts about art inside the church, I came across this gem posted in a Facebook group. While not really single-church related it bears out the attitude of gatekeeper Christians needing to sanitize expression.

Here we have Vengeance Rising’s Destruction Comes, released in 1991, with the cover as it should be on the left, and the bowdlerized cover (looks like a cassette) on the right. As you can see the art on the left, in the style of thrash bands of the day, has a clear, thematic meaning to it. The art on the right just looks like a children’s book from the bargain bin.

Some backstory from nolifetilmetal.com:

The original CD pressing of “Destruction Comes” featured a cool package with a sticker of a body builder on the jewel case covering a partially disemboweled body builder on the cover. The sticker was obviously intended to hide the “offending” cover art so that conservative stores wouldn’t refuse to carry the CD. In 2011, Intense Millennium Record re-released the album with the original cover art. They included a sticker reproduction of the original sticker from the original pressing.

….

3. The original cover on “Destruction Comes” was censored so that you could not see the partially decaying body builder. On the outside of the jewel case there was a sticker placed of the same body builder with all his parts in tact. See photo above.

The sticker was on top of the wrapping but not on the actual inserts themselves. So there’s some saving grace.

Fun side fact: vocalist/guitarist Roger Martinez became an atheist/Satanist while some past members formed a band called Die Happy.