Pope Factory
Pope Factory
Buffalo Fire Records

The debut self-titled EP from Welland, Ontario's Pope Factory shows lots of potential. The emerging quartet plays everything from straight up rock to spacey, psychedelic songs over the course of the album's thirty five minutes.

The seven track album (six listed, one hidden track) begins with Underrating the Recluse. Musically the song is alright but the vocals on it are just plain bad. They manage to ruin any potential the song has to be good. This however, is the only downfall of the album. From the spacey swirling guitars of Channeling Ringo to the upbeat, short instrumental that ends the album this is a strong record. Luckily for music fans the boys in Pope Factory start weak but are very strong finishers. Standout tracks include Smug and the ten minute The Wait which manages to shift between psychedelic and hard rock sounds beautifully.

Oh yeah, and for the record, Pope Factory's EP contains some of the coolest and most original album packaging I have ever seen.

With a little fine tuning Pope Factory should be able to make a name for themselves. Keep an eye out for these guys in the new millennium.

Copyright © 1999 Shawn Despres