Behind The Artworks: Malefic - Impermanence (2026)

So initially, we had some art done that was going to be based on the working title “BLOOD OF THE THRONE”, but due to setbacks in the album recording process, we decided to use that to release a demo instead. Thus, we were forced to change the album title and come up with new art. Initially, we were going to use the title “OBSIDIAN EARTH” (more on that later), so the idea was the earth itself being ripped apart or some kind of extremely tragic-looking cover. We wanted people to see the album cover and just think “damn” while kinda having this sense of overwhelming dread. Then I got the idea of “what if you were standing on the planet as it was being ripped apart all around you?” How absolutely damning would that feel as everything you know, life itself, becomes ripped apart? We also knew we wanted there to be some very intense colors, kinda color themes that hadn’t really been explored, and thus the lava-like theme was born (think Mustafar in Star Wars). At one point, there were ideas of a portal being tossed around, but ultimately it morphed into this concave image of the black hole. Initially, I was going for this kind of “we caused this” kind of idea, but the black hole made it much more impersonal. It still feeds on the notion that everything is finite and aligns perfectly with this idea of IMPERMANENCE, which is excellent considering how there was no title for a very long time. I think we had the art for 4 years before we were actually able to showcase it!

I had followed this artist, Mark Erskine, for a while. He actually paints digitally, as in digital brush strokes, and he had amazing texture and color work, so we decided to go with him. Yeah, he absolutely crushed it. Definitely go check out all of his work on IG@erskine.designs.

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