Behind The Artworks: IRONRAT - Beneath It All (2025)

One thing we knew when we started recording was that we didn’t want a ‘classic’ Heavy Metal cover, but something more like Kyuss – Welcome to Sky Valley or Battalions – Forever Marching Backwards, where it’s establishing a vibe, rather than a genre. Once we’d picked the title ‘Beneath It All’ and got a theme we’d reached out to a few artists.

But nothing was really sticking, either it was brilliant art, but not really in line with the theme, or it got the theme but looked too generic. The only thing that stuck was a picture of a drummer, Gordon took of a waste container (which made it to the back cover).

Then, our friend Jim showed us this picture he’d taken of a building in Bradford that had been reworked in line with Bradford being City of Culture 2025. Not only was it a great picture, it also hit the dual theme threads we’d been hoping for. It was a part of Bradford looking like it was Los Angeles or similar, that despite Bradford’s reputation it could still deservingly be a representation of the whole of the UK’s culture. But also it was a show of glitz and glamour on a place where, whatever you feel about it, you wouldn’t let your female friends walk home alone, just like many other towns in the UK.

If you are going to love a place, you need to appreciate its strengths and also it’s weaknesses, and still love it. And that’s how we see Bradford, like many places, it has a dark underbelly lurking beneath, but at the same time it’s trying to reach higher, and deservingly so.