Supermarkets confirm Manics censorship

Four leading UK supermarket chains have confirmed that they will censor the sleeve of the new Manic Street Preachers album when it is released next week.

Sainsbury's, Tesco, Asda and Morrisons will all cover up the album in a specially-provided slipcase, BBC 6 Music reports.

The front cover of Journal For Plague Lovers includes a painting, Stare, by renowned artist Jenny Saville, whose work the band also used on their 1994 LP The Holy Bible.

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

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

Frontman James Dean Bradfield denied suggestions that the painting depicted a bloodied face.

He said: "It is her brushwork. If you're familiar with her work, there's a lot of ochres and browns and reds and browns, and perhaps people are looking for us to be more provocative than we are being.

"You can have lovely shiny buttocks and guns everywhere in the supermarket on covers of magazines and CDs, but you show a piece of art and people just freak out."