The don't pick me up factor

Every so often a CD comes along with a cover design so breathtakingly repellent that you want to stop and wonder whether anyone in a major record company ever gives a thought to the subject of packaging. The new Stereophonics album "Pull The Pin" is guilty of the usual sins: the attempt to visualise a song title which itself enshrines a cliché, insufficient thought given to whether the idea behind that cliché is itself an attractive one, all delivered via the kind of retro graphics which only designers are nostalgic for and topped off with a really rotten logo which is surprisingly difficult to decipher. Without listening to a note of music you know that the appeal of this record will not travel one inch beyond the Stereophonics' core.