DNRC071 | LP | 2010 | DELETED
Having released their self-titled debut in early 1900, Inspirational Magnets took just one hundred and ten years to record the follow-up and boy, was the wait worth it. “Pop and Lock” updates the band’s original manifesto for a new century, stopping off at various moments in C20 history along the way (the invention of electricity, the invention of music, the invention of the band). Brimming with new ideas and old shoes, this album defies easy categorisation, shifting midway between east and west coast sounds, transferring between three distinct subway lines, getting lost on the New Guernsey turnpike and finally turning up in the bargain basement bin in the Chadstone food court. Although hailed by critics as a major clue to an unsolved English murder mystery, lead singer Poppy Lock sheds all pretence of actual vocalisation on this release, refusing to even count in the band on opening number and astonishing nose-bleeder “Where We’ve Been”. Three rapid-fire sonic assults later, the album shifts into overdrive, with the unspeakably evil bassline of “Sizzler” giving lie to the argument that nothing in the American suburban dreamscape is worth writing or singing about any more, despite the afore-mentioned lack of vocals or music on the track. While most things tend to roll downhill, “Pop and Lock” ends up at a complete shambolic standstill on its closing track, the movie-length “Trailer Trail” which proved to be the final coffin-nail in the band’s already over-fileld ashtray, also sending the DNRC budget below ground level (not for the first time). The sad fact remains that this deleted spawn of bog-genius will forever remain unknown to all but the most rugged of Creed fans, most of whom have already denied owning it.
