Smoking Popes

Smoking Popes
There’s an intense, unspoken connection among fans of Smoking Popes that’s not often seen outside frat houses and Freemason meetings. So when the Chicago foursome re-emerged in 2005, longtime devotees couldn’t wait to see if the band would still be relevant seven years after its demise. Fortunately, it is. A live CD and DVD — recorded at Chi-town’s infamous Metro — showcase the band’s importance in the punk vernacular, even in a genre notorious for its limited attention span. What keeps the admirers coming back? It has to be singer Josh Caterer’s lounge-act crooning. Offset by the rest of the band’s guitar-driven melodies, Caterer sounds like the bastard child of Morrissey and Tom Jones — believe it or not, that’s a good thing.