The new Manic Street Preachers album is being shipped to supermarkets in a plain slipcase because its artwork has been deemed "inappropriate".

新包装的Manic Street Preachers专辑正在被运送到超市，因为之前的作品被认为“不适当”。

The cover was painted by artist Jenny Saville

Concerns have been raised that the cover for Journal For Plague Lovers, a portrait（肖像，画像） by artist Jenny Saville, looks like it is splattered（飞溅） with blood.

Singer James Dean Bradfield called the situation "utterly¹ bizarre".

"We just thought it was a beautiful painting. We were all in total agreement," he told BBC 6 Music.

The frontman disagreed that Saatchi favourite Saville, who also painted the cover for the band's 1994 album The Holy Bible, had intended to depict²（描述） a bloody³ face.

"It is her brushwork（绘画，笔法）," he said.

"If you're familiar with her work, there's a lot of ochres（赭石） and browns and reds and browns and perhaps people are looking for us to be more provocative⁴（挑拨的，刺激的） than we are being.

"We just saw a much more modern version of Lucian Freud-esque brushstrokes. That's all we saw."

Bradfield added that the band were frustrated⁵ by supermarkets' attitudes.

"You can have lovely shiny（发光的，辉煌的） buttocks（臀部） and guns everywhere in the supermarket on covers of magazines and CDs, but you show a piece of art and people just freak out," he said.

Journal For Plague Lovers is Manic Street Preachers' ninth studio album

Supermarkets' word

Four of the main supermarket chains - Sainsburys, Tesco, Asda and Morrisons - are among the shops using the slip cover.

Asda told 6 Music they wanted to be extra cautious in case the artwork upset some of its customers.

Meanwhile Nicola Williamson, Sainsbury's music buyer, said: "We felt that some customers might consider this particular album cover to be inappropriate if it were prominently（显著地） displayed on the shelf.

"As such, the album will be sold in a sleeve provided by the publisher."

Journal For Plague Lovers, the Welsh band's ninth studio album, sees them set the lyrics⁶ of former band member Richey Edwards to music, 14 years after the 27-year-old disappeared from the Embassy Hotel in London's Bayswater.

Bradfield says that the artwork was an integral part（主要部分） of the project and, for that reason, the band had never considered revising it.

"It's the first time ever that we actually feel controlled by the idea, which basically stemmed from Richey's words," he explained.

"So we're not going to censor⁷（检查） it or anything, because it is what it is.

"It is bizarre（奇异的） that supermarkets actually think that that's going to impinge on（冲击） anyone's psyche（灵魂，精神）."

Journal For Plague Lovers is released in the UK on Monday.