What’s the deal, England? We used to think you were pretty cool with all your awesome DJs and strong currency, but lately you’ve shown signs of slipping up. First the government publicly silenced rogue drug consultant David Nutt for his calls for substance de-stigmatization and then there’s all that trouble with online downloading. To make things even more rocky, news has now emerged that officials from the London Underground have banned promotional artwork for the new Massive Attack album because, of course, it looks like graffiti.

As reported by Data Transmission, Massive Attack and their record label, EMI, have had to withdraw their planned ads for Heliogoland – which featured the album artwork as designed by the group – and edit them to appear less ‘street’.

“They won’t allow anything on the Tube that looks like street art,” said Massive Attack mainstay 3D, clearly incensed by the bureaucratic red tape. “They want us to remove all drips and fuzz. It’s the most absurd censorship I’ve ever seen.”

This isn’t the first instance that we’ve seen the London Underground exert their Draconian leanings, you may indeed remember a similar story last year in which posters for Ministry of Sound’s NYE party were turfed by the Tube authority for resembling, you guessed it, graffiti. Won’t somebody please think of the children?