A while back, I shared a song to a friend, who upon seeing the video's thumbnail, immediately asked me whether the band had ripped off the cover of Jean Rabe's Red Magic (1991), the third novel in the Forgotten Realms: The Harpers books.
The song was taken from the album "Frozen Sky" (2005) by Conquest, now know as W. Angel's Conquest, a relatively unknown power metal band from Ukraine. Here's a link to the album playlist on YouTube.
When putting the two covers side-by-side, there's no denying that the wizard is the exact same one.
I have not read the book (nor do I know much about Forgotten Realms, for that matter), but I'm curious as to whether the use of that book cover was plain plagiarism or an homage.
Did the band ever comment on that, or could it be that the songs themselves refer to the book's events? Or is that wizard illustration maybe taken from somewhere else, thus being somehow right-free or something?
Research done:
- The lyrics don't strike me as matching much of what I can gather of the book, from various reviews. Although I can't figure out what the guy is saying in the intro (timestamp);
- The band's Facebook page didn't yield much for me, but it could have been commented on in Ukrainian. I haven't contacted the band;
- The Forgotten Realms wiki page for the book doesn't mention the album, as far as I know;
- Googling
"red magic" "frozen sky"
yields 95 results, this one being the only one seemingly relevant, with someone asking "Red Magic album art. Did they get permission to use it?", without a reply.