A coiled snake appears on the lower-right corner of Metallica’s 1991 album cover, commonly called The Black Album.
The snake is derived from the Gadsden flag, an American historical flag featuring a rattlesnake and the warning “Don’t Tread on Me.” That phrase also appears as the title of one of the album’s songs, creating a direct connection between the packaging and the track list.
The cover places the Metallica logo at the upper left and the snake at the lower right against a largely black background. On the original release, both emblems were embossed so subtly that they could be difficult to see. This minimal design helped inspire the album’s widely used nickname.
The cover is sometimes described simply as a black square, but the snake is an essential part of its artwork. Later editions made the logo and snake more visible with dark-gray coloring, while retaining the same basic design.