Behind The Artworks: Brain Stem - Nullified (2025)

The story behind our album cover is a pretty special one. Truth is, we’ve had the artwork for years now. Back when we were only two or three songs into writing Nullified, we started throwing around ideas about what we wanted the cover to look like and which artists we’d like to work with. There were a couple of contenders we considered, but nothing ever felt quite right. Every time we thought about reaching out to someone, we’d second-guess it, realizing it didn’t quite reflect who we are as Brain Stem.

 

I had been a fan of Remy Cooper from Headsplit Design for years at that point. His intricate line work always stood out to me, and I was especially drawn to the pieces he did for Cryptopsy’s EPs. One day, while scrolling through his recent work, I stumbled across this wicked piece of art and thought, "Man, that’s sick." But I didn’t want to jump the gun, so I sent his website over to the guys, suggesting they check out his style.

 

Not even an hour later, our drummer Alex messaged me, saying he found an insane piece that he thought would be perfect for us. He sent a screenshot, and — no joke — it was the exact same artwork I’d been obsessing over. That was all we needed. We immediately started talking to the rest of the band, and even though we weren’t planning on buying anything that early in the writing process, we knew we couldn’t pass this up. We reached out to Remy right away, and the rest is history. In all fairness, I think having the artwork kinda helped shaping the album to what it is now & had we not have this piece of artwork, I don't think the album would of ended up being the same. It felt like fate, and now that the album is done & we couldn’t imagine Nullified with anything else on the cover.