Deliverance - The Album: What does the leaflet mean?

[Jimmy Logan]

Great album but up until now, I thought the leaflet of the Deliverance album had images of the interior of just a normal house. Up until recently, however, we discovered some shocking things we missed before:

-On the front cover there is a ghostly face in a mirror peering at the bed.
-On the back there is a shadow. (Easy to spot)
-Leaves are blowing about throughout the house
-In the closer view of the empty bed there is another mirror reflecting the bed. there are two legs.
-In the middle there is an old looking woman lying in a chair. (Is she dead?)

Several of the pages are pictures of the same room but from different angles. (The bedroom and a living room)

Can you find anything else as this is one of the most creepy things I have seen! Is this meant to mean something? Does it have any connection with the song lyrics? We want your theories>

 

[Post_Scriptum]

I knew the first 3 ones...
I'll check out the other ones
4th : Woah!
5th : Can't see it

Definately, they wanted to make the heaviest album they did, so the booklet adds up to the darkness of the whole thing.

 

[estimate]

Look in the mirror at the Deliverance-page. You can see the old woman again. That's creepy.

BTW: In the lyrics of Masters Apprentices, you can read the line: "For absent friends" between the lines: "There is a freedom I'm depending on" and "There is a pain that's never ending".

 

[Torenstain]

I think Mikeal asked Travis Smith (who designed the booklet) to make the booklet look like an abandonded house were an old couple used to live... untill they died.

I like you signature estimate

 

[Post_Scriptum]

BTW: In the lyrics of Masters Apprentices, you can read the line: "For absent friends" between the lines: "There is a freedom I'm depending on" and "There is a pain that's never ending".

Yeah I found that out the other day

 

[greatapoc]

BTW: In the lyrics of Masters Apprentices, you can read the line: "For absent friends" between the lines: "There is a freedom I'm depending on" and "There is a pain that's never ending".

What do you mean? I don't get it.

 

[jaykeegan]

Mikael has stated that all the lyrics for the ''Deliverance'' album are meant to have really fucked up disturbing meanings. I'm assuming that he wanted the ''Deliverance'' booklet to be the same way & this was clearly achieved.

 

[osse87]

I honestly believe that Mike doesn't just say he wants it like an old house or something park-lide. He must give more detailed orders. Otherwise, the various art wouldn't be that good!! No one can make art fit the music like that on such "open" explinations.

 

[Nico]

Just ask Travis Smith. He has his own forum on UM. Alternatively, you could ask him to post here.

 

[dorian gray]

smiths artwork is incredible. i doubt mike has the capacity as a visual artist that smith does. by this i mean its doubtful mike took smith to an abandoned house and showed him what to photograph and what, exactly, he wanted the photos to convey. i may be wrong here, but usually musicians pick a visual artist because of their style and use their work on successive albums. not to say the cover art isnt mikes general idea. i just dont think he has the same capacity. otherwise, why wouldnt he just take the pictures himself (a la Adam from Tool)?
for this train of thought, see rush's discography.

 

[deliverance]

look on the page that has BTPISIO lyrics, in the mirror it looks like a reflection of candles that are lit. i could be wrong.

 

[estimate]

What do you mean? I don't get it.

It's really hard to find, even when you know where it is. I had to look for it for a while to find out which lines they were between, even though I have seen it before several times. Look closely.

 

[greatapoc]

It's really hard to find, even when you know where it is. I had to look for it for a while to find out which lines they were between, even though I have seen it before several times. Look closely.

My god. How in the hell did you find that? I had to look at it under like 5 lights and even then I could only just read 'friends'. Nice spotting.

 

[Demoke]

Concerning the booklet artwork, what I had realised before reading this thread was the common point of frames being there sort of everywhere. It could be frames for windows, pictures (paintings) or mirrors.
I hadn't realised the ghostly reflections on those mirrors especially but now that I think about the idea of the frames, I once read an article about their importance in that they are a boundary between reality and the thing that is depicted (that in the case of paintings). In mirrors, we don't see reality itself but just a reflection, an image, which is not the thing itself.
Now, I'm a kind of fan of Gothic literature, and in one of the short stories I once read there was someting really scary going on inside mirrors and somehow they had an effect on reality (like ghostly beings or something like that -I read this long ago-).
In this booklet we see dead people reflected, which are not there outside the mirrors, so it matches with this sort of contrast.
We also have the child on the cover and the Wreath lyrics: the child is in bed, crying probably because it's having a nightmare (which is not reality itself) but sometimes the images in nightmares are very vivid, and this is what makes it even more scary.
The main elements in this artwork are those:
1) frames
2) reality vs fiction/ imagination (the latter being especially vivid or "alive")
3) death: for this one we've got the dead people, ghosts, the dead flying leaves...

All of them, together with the greyish colours, contribute to create this sort of dark, frightening atmosphere.

it would be now interesting to discuss whether you guys think that the woman in the master's apprentices page is sleeping, she's dead, she's not there- she's just a ghost!

 

[osse87]

Oh my god, Demoke. You rule with that interpretating über-brain of yours!

Anyway, Demoke kind of "proves" my point. If what Demoke says here is true then I "suspect" Mikael of telling Travis Smith abouot the frame-thing. That he wanted it in the artwork.

A old woman's hand, most probably that woman's hand, is found in the Damnation-booklet too.

 

[estimate]

My god. How in the hell did you find that? I had to look at it under like 5 lights and even then I could only just read 'friends'. Nice spotting.

Well, I'm sorry to say that I cannot take credit for it. It was someone else at this forum, can't remember who. But hey, it was nice spotted by him, that's for sure!

 

[Post_Scriptum]

I know I made a thread about it... that's when I started to be gay...

 

[Torenstain]

I honestly believe that Mike doesn't just say he wants it like an old house or something park-lide. He must give more detailed orders. Otherwise, the various art wouldn't be that good!! No one can make art fit the music like that on such "open" explinations.

I believe he heard the music before he heard the music, so therby he could make the artwork fit the music

 

[Jimmy Logan]

If anyone's interested we found sumthing else u mite not know about.
At the end of the last track "By the pain I see in others" there are 2 events of silence followed by some wierd sounds that sound like Mikael doing cryptic singing.
But if anyone wants to record the last bit and play it backwards you'll find its actually a flipped and synthesised version of the "Master's apprentices" chorus.
The album just gets even more creepier.

 

[osse87]

I believe he heard the music before he heard the music, so therby he could make the artwork fit the music

How is that possible?