home back to coverstories	Contagion June 2003
	In the Nolan/Wyatt interview you could already read about some of the details in the sleeve design for Contagion. Clive and David (Wyatt) gave us a inside view in the ‘making of Contagion – the cover.’ Of course I took lots of interesting pieces of information from that, but nevertheless I would hereby like to give you some of my own vision on the cover. My first thoughts, phantasms and discoveries. I had the advantage of having several images in digital versions on my PC (thanks David!), so I could freely zoom in. The first thought that came to me when I saw the cover of Contagion for the first time was: WOW! And I will gladly admit that I consider this to be the best cover artwork of all Arena CDs! Of course The Visitor is a fine piece as well, in all its simplicity, but after Immortal? I think this is a huge step forwards. And commercially speaking it’s a very good cover as well, in my humble opinion; it will certainly stand out in the CD bins because of the use of colours. The front cover The feeling that arises is of a man that is searching. But torches mark the path he ‘treads’. The virus is represented by mist or smoke that seems to originate partially from the man himself. He himself is of course the source of the contamination (see: Follow the Signs). For me, the bandages symbolise some sort of deliverance, although I can’t really put that in place in the context of the story. The song that seems to fit best with the cover is Salamander (Blue fire, spreading across, from my finger tips a powerful chaos… etc.). I also really like the connection to the final drawing in the booklet; I think the man is heading for the City of Lanterns, which seems to be his ultimate destination. The same torches lead you inside. In the rubble on the floor I can distinguish only two clear things, a suitcase and a compass (which reappears on the page with the lyrics for Bitter Harvest). Maybe I’m seeking too much into this and should instead listen to David who said that he just photographed some stuff in his garden... The digipack To those who do not have the digipack of Contagion, I’d like to say ‘get it before they are gone’. The image of the cover is many times better than on the jewel case version. The poster, which was available during the tour, is a nice piece as well. The details of the cover can also be discerned very well on that poster. And if you only have the jewel case, then you are missing the large foldout drawing of the so-called ‘screaming man’, which decorates the inside of the digipack.  Not a lot of details to be found here, unless you’d like to seek it in the mouths, which scatter here. One of them is David’s own... but I cannot recognise any of the others myself (I tend to focus on eye more). The image does however radiate the same mood as The Visitor: use of colours and of course the clear hint of a bicycle in the water. Here Contagion clearly refers to The Visitor. The three other ‘flaps’ of the digipack are wonderful, atmospheric find-the-hidden-clues puzzles. We clearly see a number of elements, which we saw earlier in artwork that David had sent us for the cover of The Cage (among which the key, the lock and the person behind the window). Something that returns multiple times in the artwork is a car wreck. Parts of the wreck (inside and outside) reappear al least five times. In all honesty, I haven’t been able to find a link between the story and the car wreck yet. It might be a track of the girl the protagonist is searching for (since there is a doll in the car). Other parts of the puzzle are the written lyrics (Mea Culpa), the playing card, (with the image of the tattoo from the Painted Man – ‘a living tattoo on my hand’) and the typewriter with just the letters of the word Contagion on it. The booklet The inside of the booklet is composed very carefully; here and there bits and pieces of the album cover are used, but every page is a feast for the eye and very appropriate for the lyrics concerned. My personal favourites are the pages for Salamander and Mea Culpa, but the real icing on the cake is the one for Bitter Harvest. Once again lots of details that refer to the lyrics directly and indirectly. And the PC on the right page reflects the words ‘powerless technology’ very literally… Mick has mentioned earlier that the drawing for Cutting The Cards is his personal favourite. It certainly wouldn’t have done bad as an album cover either, as far as I’m concerned. The whole symbolism of time, which it seems to contain, is something that appears more often in artwork by David Wyatt. Clive himself has also mentioned the element of time before in earlier columns of Cover Stories. And than the closing piece: Ascension with the image of The City of Lanterns… for many of us the best image in this story. Or maybe it’s the combination of the closing track with this picture. The feeling the song gives you (rising up) does indeed fit very well with the mood of the image. The whole feels a bit oriental, especially the building in the landscape. It all asks for another article in which we will combine lyrics and images! In the meantime I have received some new artwork for Contagious, but that will have to wait until the next episode of Cover Stories... By: Marcel Kolenbrander