Goddammit. I couldn't resist. Too many people texting me--including members of the band--telling me about how hard everyone's shitting on my cover, so I caved and broke my "Never look at Vinyl Collective" rule.
A few things. The artwork is comprised of photographs I took myself while traveling in Iceland. Before my trip, I convened with the band and we all agreed it would be awesome to use photos from the trip for the record. IE: "Iron Glacier" especially fits with the glacial subject matter. The cover image is actually a photo of an iceberg field, and there's another photo from this same location inside the packaging. You can see Metal Blade used some of these photos on the teaser video. I see a lot of complaining about the typography: which is actually blind-embossed on the gatefold jacket. We wanted the type fancy die-cut, but it was actually rejected from the pressing plant for being too intricate. So instead I got everyone on board for the type on the cover to be invisible, just embossed into the paper stock. There'll also be a sticker on the shrink-wrap/poly-bag, but that's a minuscule detail not worth mentioning. As for the "deluxe'ness" of the packaging, you get an embossed Gatefold jacket that's printed on a sturdy uncoated stock. Two inner sleeves that are actually printed wth metallic inks with a glossy finish, and an etching on the d-side.
Oh, and the USA and EUR versions have different d-side etchings. I hand-drew the illustrations for the etchings, based on photos from the rest of the packaging. I was thinking about possible hosting a giveaway online to giveaway one of these original drawings. Though the general attitude in this thread makes me think no one gives a shit about the art. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That's all I can take for now. Time to try and be productive after having all winds taken outta my sails.