categorising her sound, M.I.A. explained, "Influences are crossing over into each other's puddles. I just accept where I'm at, I accept where the world is at and I accept how we receive and digest information. I get that somebody in Tokyo is on the internet instant messaging, and someone in the favelas is on the internet. Everybody seems to know a little bit about everything and that's how we process information now. This just reflects that." Artwork M.I.A. and Steve Loveridge created all the album's artwork, using what Spin writer Lorraine Ali called a "guerrilla" style. The CD booklet features motifs of tanks, bombs and machine guns, and depictions of tigers, which writers connected with the Tamil Tigers. Village Voice critic Robert Christgau connected the album's imagery with the artist's "obsession" with the organisation, but claimed that its use was purely artistic and not propaganda. In his view, the images were considered controversial only because "rock and roll fans are assumed to be stupid" and would not be expected to ascertain their true significance. Similarly, PopMatters writer Robert Wheaton observed that tiger imagery "does predominate M.I.A.'s vision of the world", but noted that the tiger is more widely associated with Tamil nationalism and that the singer's use of such imagery did not necessarily indicate her support for the Tamil Tigers. Joshua Chambers-Letson determined that the imagery was perhaps "a means of negotiating the violence necessary" and described the controversy as "an attempt to disengage" from the performative intervention that M.I.A.'s album's made, through what he called "the complicated negotiation" of M.I.A.'s own autobiographical trauma, violence, and loss, as well as the geopolitical trauma, violence, and loss that her audience are engaged in from different subject positions. Release Arular was to be released in September 2004, but was delayed. M.I.A.'s record label stated that the delay was caused by problems obtaining permission to use an unspecified sample. Revised release dates of December 2004 and February 2005 were publicised, but the album remained unreleased; at one point, Pitchfork announced that it had been shelved indefinitely. It was eventually released on 22 March 2005, when XL Recordings made it available in the US, albeit with the track "U.R.A.Q.T." omitted as the issues with a sample had not been resolved. The UK edition was released the following month with the track included, and this edition was released in the US by Interscope Records on