Yes. Five-point-oh. It doesn't seem so bad does it? Exactly halfway down, or up, the scale. A better score than a lot of stuff that passes through the Central Pitchfork Braincenter, for sure. But it's misleading, that five-point-oh. It doesn't begin to describe the sheer indifference this record inspires.

Y'know, I don't think any of us here at Pitchfork pretend that we're writing for future generations. We have a simple mission, near as I can figure: people send us free CDs, we discover that they're crap, and we attempt to pass the savings on to you. Occasionally, we hear something great, and we yell and scream about it for months. But do the math: four reviews a day for more than two years adds up to a pile of music about the size of Nebraska. And most of it's about as interesting as Nebraska, a place you drive through on your way to somewhere else. What's frustrating, of course, is that anything you write about this musical ephemera becomes ephemera itself. No getting around it.

I read a little about Pope Factory on their website. According to the blurb there, these boys sound like Pavement or early Sonic Youth. Yep, they do. They also sound like Ride, Slowdive, Chapterhouse and Oasis. In fact, throwing one disc each from those six bands into my CD changer, putting them on random and letting them cycle through one song each, I was able to recreate the experience of Pope Factory's six- song EP with an eerie degree of faithfulness.

So, any reason to put that Pope Factory disc back into the changer? Uh, no. Truth be told, I've already lost track of the thing. Must have fallen into the couch. Probably find it next time I'm scrounging change for Taco Bell.

-Zach Hooker