Full of Hell and Nothing’s When No Birds Sang Has Hidden 9/11 References in its Packaging

You gotta love when a hidden artistic detail or “Easter egg” (though I’m iffy on calling something with this much gravity that) gets revealed on the internet and this past Saturday, a doozy was dropped by Nothing. In a post on their Twitter account, they revealed that those unassuming clouds on the cover of the collaboration they released last year with Full of Hell titled When No Birds Sang was actually taken from a photo of the Manhattan skyline on September 11 after both Twin Towers fell.

Though the band didn’t elaborate on it further, Jackson Green revealed some hidden details that people seemingly hadn’t found yet. Green designed the artwork and packaging for the album, so he’d be the person to spill the beans on this sort of thing and that the cover art was just scratching the surface. In fact, “virtually every single part of the project is referential to 9/11 in some way.”

For example, if you have the album on vinyl, you now know why A-side and B-sided are labeled North and South, since those were the designations of the two towers (North and South Tower). That also explains the squares on the labels, as they’re supposed to be able to sit directly on a map of New York City where the towers stood.

Back to the cover art, the image is cut up into three sections to represent both towers and building 7. Green said he also did that to look like the windows that featured so prominently in the Windows On The World restaurant atop of the North Tower. Even the barcode on the back is made to look like the New York City skyline with the Twin Towers still standing.

Now, it should be stated that Green said that the work they did wasn’t meant to up the shock value or to make light of the tragic events that occurred on September 11, 2001. Knowing they were dealing with such heavy material, they said the work was “intentional, considered, and ultimately respectful” of the subject matter.

Ultimately, Green said he hopes more people will notice other things hidden in the packaging.

Now that the details are out, this all makes sense. Nothing’s Dominic Palermo has said in the past that the album was at least partially inspired by that devastating photo “The Falling Man” that showed an office worker falling to their death on the day of the attack. Google that if you want, but it’s a heavy photo. Not to mention the video for “Like Stars In The Firmament” has footage from that day.

I don’t know about you, but I’m going to have to grab me a physical copy of this now. You can get yours today.