The Factory

Everyone has one: a high school photograph that caught us at our weakest moment. Be it a fashion faux pas, bad hair day or acne-covered skin, there's something about that particular image we wish the world would forget. When it comes to punk rock'n'roll, former Obsessed/Pentagram member Vance Bockis's mid-'80s venture, the Factory, are all those combined. Calling themselves punk rock but clearly fuelled by the vein that shot off from the Stooges and New York Dolls into the world of Faster Pussycat and other more blues-based hair metal bands, there's very little about this eponymous effort that elicits thoughts of the Ramones or the Dead Boys, bands these guys used to play with regularly. Neither does it create an obvious line towards the aforementioned metal greats Bockis is more readily associated with. Instead, with its half-tempo songs puttering away under a whiny vocal delivery and saxophone solos, this is just cock rock aping the Heartbreakers. Unless you are old enough to have been of drinking age around those bands' heydays, this deserves to be put right back into the place of obscurity from whence it came.