Pestilence announced their career retrospective album Levels Of Perception last week and immediately received loads of criticism over the AI artwork. Which all by itself was bad enough, but then the band chose to defend the decision by making some not-quite-comparable comparisons.
Now Pestilence frontman Patrick Mameli has taken to Instagram to announce the album's new, not-AI artwork and… well, not really back down from the band's original AI artwork. So I guess we'll have this same conversation again whenever Pestilence decides to release something else.
"First off, let me be absolutely clear about the fact that both band and record company still love [the AI] cover," wrote Mameli. "Also, the artist that created this art, did not let the computer generate this picture. He used multiple methods to come to this result. So it's not just A.I. in the real sense.
"But the point I'm getting at, is this: I will not risk all the work we have put into this release, just to push the cover. We care a lot about our fans and we do not want this product not to be a success just because we want to push our ideas regarding A.I. We have always stood at the forefront of game changing events within the d.m. scene, whether it's music or in this case, a cover.
"Maybe the timing is not right just now, so we chose the middle way. This should make people more open to this monster of a release we have planned for y'all."
