A snake appears in the lower-right artwork on Metallica’s 1991 album, commonly called The Black Album.
The cover is deliberately restrained: the band’s black logo appears near the upper-left, while a coiled snake is placed subtly against the dark background in the lower-right. The image is easy to miss, especially in small digital thumbnails, which is one reason the artwork is often remembered simply as an almost entirely black cover.
The snake connects the album visually with “Don’t Tread on Me,” whose title and imagery draw on the Gadsden flag and its warning message. The design was created by Stephen Gorman, based on a concept associated with James Hetfield. The cover’s minimalism helped establish the nickname “The Black Album,” although that phrase is not the record’s official title.
The artwork is not a photograph of a separate band mascot or a depiction of a wolf. The animal is a snake, and its small placement is an intentional part of the cover’s understated design.