Doodling with "Evil Friends"

Portugal. the Man returns next week with their newest album, Evil Friends, and to get us to ignore the arbitrarily-placed period in their name, the Alaska natives come out with an album cover that looks like someone who went dressed up to Burning Man thinking it was the Gathering of the Juggalos.

Before we plunge into Portugal.'s (do I need to place the period there when using it as a possessive noun?) newest release, let's talk about their past covers.

First we have Waiter! You Vultures – their debut album which features some cool silhouettes and phallic-like drawings.  For a band just establishing itself, no one really had any questions (especially since they're from Alaska.  No one questions people from Alaska).

Next, we have Church Mouth.  Just two dudes screaming while one looks off into the distance.  So Alaska.  Still nothing to lose your shit about though.

Then we have Censored Colors.  Now we start seeing being from Alaska ain't all about polar bears and icebergs.  Nope, it's about guys wearing gorilla masks sitting at a patio table in what looks to be some type of cave.  Ok, now we're getting somewhere.  Finally, Portugal. the Man shows us their true uncensored colors with The Satanic Satanist.

Initial reactions to this cover make us wonder if we're looking at a Max Ernst painting or someone's bad trip after drinking from some dude's water bottle on the third day of Bonnaroo.  We ask ourselves, "what are these three worm creatures with faces?  Why does one have a mustache?  Why does one have a single boob?  Whose baby is that in the lower right hand corner?  Does its parents really love it even though it has three eyes?"  For someone whose only notion of Alaska is based off the semi-biographical documentary on Sarah Palin, Who's Nailin' Paylin, I've got some reservations about these folks.  Their two subsequent releases, American Ghetto and In The Mountain In The Cloud, were nothing to pass off as being normal, yet did not look as if Dr. Seuss threw up from taking too much acid at a Dead show.

If you thought Portugal. the Man lost their ability to question your affiliation with the band judging solely on their album covers, all has been reaffirmed with their newest release, Evil Friends.  Buzz for this album began back in March when the band posted photos of defaced models in magazine advertisements.  Sure, I enjoy doodling on pictures of famous people from time to time.  But this isn't some amateur Hitler-stache-on-Jennifer-Aniston's-GQ-cover kind of doodling.  This is the big leagues.

We're talking Jimmy Page with horns and a flaming pile of shit on his head.  We're talking some blonde bombshell with a skull and crossbones under her boob and "Evil Friends" splooged all over her stomach.

The band replicated this style on the cover of their eighth studio album showing a masked man with horns, two tongues, tear-filled eyes, a third eye in the middle of his forehead, some nice decorative Aztec pattern in his mouth, crying out "Evil."  It's like a hipster's spin on an abu ghraib prisoner.  Musically, this band's sound has stayed consistent over the last  few years.  But visually, gone are the days of getting high off whipits from Cheez-Wiz cans and drawing what you see.  Hello to the coming of serious Alaska-grown magazine-doodling.

The Many Children of 'King Animal'

Soundgarden returned last fall with their first album in over 15 years – King Animal – which had fans worried if their sound would be able to age as well as Kim Thayil's beard.  Though after revealing the album art, many fans asked themselves, "what the fuck am I looking at?"  – and all concerns about Soundgarden's state were thrown in the pile of unsold copies of Chris Cornell's Timbaland-produced Scream.

Starting with Badmotorfinger (has anyone ever had a goodmotorfinger?), Soundgarden has always had a tradition of creating what-the-fuck-am-I-looking-at (WTFAILA) album covers.

With their 1991 release, fans didn't know if they were looking at a cryptic Masonic piece of art, or a failed attempt at spin-art done by a kid who got cotton candy stuck in the machine at the King County Fair.  They followed it up with their most prominent record, Superunknown (English, motherfuckers, do you speak it?) featuring a screaming Uruk-hai over a Rorcsach test image.

Going from ethnically-controversial lyrics like "All my friends are Indians/All my friends are brown and red" to the maturity level of a 14-year-old boy who just got grounded but lucky for him discovered his dad's Playboy collection with lyrics such as "Hard headed fuck you all," fans were taken aback when they saw Down On The Upside was an I-realize-what-I'm-looking-at (IRWILA) cover.

Instead, the only question that was raised was, "Kim, why are you the only one sitting down?"  And I know you're all asking yourselves, "how do you know it's Kim?"  But let's be honest.  We all know it's Kim.  

With the reveal of King Animal's cover art, fans once again began to question this WTFAILA cover.  We are uncertain as to whether we should look too much into it, or just regard it as another weird cover for a band dedicated to being weird and writing songs about dogs shitting on grass.  We again begin to question, "is this a Soundgarden cover, or is it a newly discovered Salvador Dali painting? And is that a cow skull with ram horns connected to it?  A 'ramcow'?  Will looking at this cover invoke some deep feeling or desire to become a vegetarian?"  

After the overwhelmingly positive response to Soundgarden's revival and King Animal's album art, they said to themselves, "this cover is too good to use only once – let's use it again" thus giving birth to their Record Store Day release King Animal Demos.

Here we see a similar Freudian bone sculpture under the bubblegum pink-saturated sky.  Now we ask ourselves, "is this the same sculpture as before and if so, how did it get to the top of a mountain?  Why would someone move it in the first place?  What happened to just plain, simple spin-art designs?"  

But Soundgarden couldn't stop there – oh no, this shit is just too damn good, "we have to use this cover one more time," they said, again pushing out a new King Animal fetus – King Animal Plus.

The 'Plus' denoting super, enhanced, deluxe – but you and I know it to be "weird fucking cow skull with ram antlers and – wait, are those flowers too!?  And who moved it back to its original position from on top of that mountain?  Why is there someone who has the strength and time to move something like that?"  

Soundgarden's return not only denotes their ability to continue to perform great music, but also their ability to totally fuck with your mind by showing crazy, psychologically-troubling, sexuality-questioning (What?  Who said anything about that?) album covers.  And don't be looking for any rationale because it'll be harder to find than the B-Sides to Scream.