Smoking Popes - The Party's Over

That wacky Jesus - he always seems to be up to something. In this case, breaking up the Smoking Popes, the quirkily rocking Chicago combo who came to an end when lead singer and primary songwriter Josh Carterer "found religion." At that moment, Josh found the Popes' beautifully miserable odes to lost love a smidge too secular for him to croon anymore; yet before embarking on a brief stint of only performing acoustic gospel rock, he and the band got together and recorded the eclectic batch of covers that make up The Party's Over. From country songs to showtunes, the album definitely skews left of the dial (I could only imagine the look on Capitol Records execs’ faces on the day this bad boy was turned in), but isn’t a complete change of pace. Judy Garland’s “Zing! Went the Strings of my Heart” and Willie Nelson’s “Angel Flying Too Close To The Ground” don’t sound radically different from Popes’ originals, all amped-up guitars and Carterer’s old-school croon. Yet Kris Kristopherson’s “Why Me?” and Rogers and Hammerstein’s “You'll Never Walk Alone" (from Carousel) take a completely different track, plodding along with none of the innovative melodic smarts that characterized the Smoking Popes’ other work; as a result, the disc is uneven and forced at points, it’s flaws almost overshadowing the few high points. While the Popes two major-label efforts were forgotten classics in the alternative explosion of the 1990s, The Party’s Over is an underwhelming coda fit for SP obsessives only. The Smoking Popes’ previous discs may have zipped along vigorously, but this one only gets by on a wing and a prayer. [www.doublezerorecords.com]