Release Day Roundup: 7/9/25

Top Pick?

Eternal idol – Behind a Vision (melodic/symphonic/pop metal)

Eternal Idol are an Italian band, formed by now-departed ex-Rhapsody and Angra vocalist Fabio Lione, who is here replaced by Induction’s Gabriele Gozzi, alongside (not that) Frogg’s Letizia Merlo, amid a bunch of other line-up changes and a significant shake-up in sound as well that sees them straying into Steps-metal territory. I’d love to spend the majority of this write-up telling you all about how much fun I’ve had listening to it, but I won’t, because its cover looks like this.

This isn’t the first, or even the second, time I’ve (unknowing/thinkingly) featured an album that allegedly uses AI art here before (or the third, fourth or fifth if lists like this are to be believed—although I have my doubts),* and, given the way things are going, it probably won’t be the last, unfortunately.** It’s understandable why smaller or even mid-sized bands might turn to AI art, given we all collectively decided to stop paying them for their music about two decades ago, and even a band as big as Mastodon have been bemoaning the economics of touring for just as long. Most bands at least try and hide it a bit though, or make sure it looks finished. Where to even begin with Behind a Vision though… We could talk about the way the warped cards overlap and seem to fuse into each other, about the non-eyes, or how none of the facial features are symmetrical or even line up at all, or how the crown or whatever it is blends into the hair and isn’t even attempting to look like it’s sitting on to of or even line up properly with the head below—and that’s without getting into why you’d even want your “impressive and mysterious” cover artwork to look like this anyway? (Although, given the authentic artwork for their first album looked like this, can you really blame them?)

I’ve already had to start weeding-out actual AI-generated music from these release lists and I don’t really have the knowledge, time or energy to sit here every week distinguishing every piece of lackluster-but-legitimate CG cover art from actual AI artwork (see previous link), especially in instances where it may as well have been. Yet, while I might be willing to give smaller bands a pass, this sort of thing has also begun leaking into bigger bands (which Eternal Idol are not) and the music industry at large, and we simply can’t let them get away with something this blatant and low effort.

*Killswitch Engage's Mike D'antonio has vehemently denied using AI to create his band’s artwork, and the Black Majesty one is at least credited to guitarist Clinton Bidie and I don’t really see anything overtly AI about it personally (especially given their history of sub-par album art); Helmet’s is also credited to artist Richard DeSilva, although there are a lot of odd lines and textures there that give me pause.

**I’m skeptical of a few others here as well *cough* Born of Osiris *cough*.