Hounds

The US heavy metal outfit known as the Hounds produced music so formulaic that its intellectual shortcomings were eclipsed by the sheer ineptitude of the group’s album artwork. Their Columbia Records debut, Unleashed, arrived in 1978 and featured John Hunter on vocals and keyboards alongside guitarists Jim Orkis and Glen Rupp, bassist Joe Cuttone, and drummer John Horvath; the cover depicted the five musicians striking unpleasant macho poses in front of salivating dogs held by chains. Inside the sleeve the songs lunged forward with blunt force yet offered scant depth, while the words provoked at least one round of laughter from reviewers who encountered them. Follow-up effort Puttin’ On The Dog adhered to the identical approach, by which point Columbia’s early faith in the band had largely evaporated. Although Spinal Tap have credited the real-life antics of Uriah Heep as the model for their heavy-metal parody, the sleeves created by the Hounds would have served equally well as source material.