Altsounds - Paul Steel - Moon Rock [Album]

This album makes me feel like I just tripped over a bag of dead kittens. The real problem is, now the only thing I want to do is poke their poor, lifeless corpses with a stick. I will do my best to insert some real journalism into this review, but the truth is, I just listened to Paul Steel's debut LP Moon Rock all the way through, and it makes me want to knock children down on the sidewalk.

Or shove blind people into traffic.

Just to share the agony with someone.

Apparently, Paul Steel was briefly signed to Fascination Records, but was dropped after his single, 'Your Loss' (an appropriate title if ever there was one), failed to chart. The copy Altsounds sent me (by the way, thanks a lot, guys) is labeled as a Raygun Records release. Steel owns Raygun, so presumably he's released the album himself, steaming pile of foetid, vomitous gack that it is.

If Brain Wilson had no taste and marginal talent, he would have made Moon Rock. The really awful thing about this album is that occasionally there's a taste or glimmer of a really great, totally inspired idea here. The execution of each idea, however, makes the whole experience somehow worse than if it were a totally vanilla effort. This is worse than bland--it's gasoline mixed with cat piss and two-week-old curried goat. There's nothing subtle about it.

There are thick, Beach Boys-esque harmonies and counterpoints to be had, but they're so simultaneously derivative, repetitive and soulless that I won't be able to put Smile on again for a month without shuddering. The production is solid, if safe, and the guy has good pitch... but the tone of Steel's voice is just... yeesh. By the sixth track, a veritable dirge titled 'The Way You Are,' I was grinding my teeth and thinking that every word of every song sounded like my wife's cat when it's hungry.

Again, there are times when Steel comes so close to true genius, only to lead a promising vocal line back into the realm of cardboard cutout pop, or to make exactly the wrong chord change, that I hurt for him. This guy could be Harry Nilsson if he'd get his head out of his poopshoot. Apparently his first EP, April & I, was critically acclaimed. Moon Rock is acclaimed by some dude on Popdose dot com who admits that he hasn't bought a copy of it. There has been so much negative publicity for this album since its release... whenever that was, since no two sources around list the same date... that I totally feel like a guy beating a dead horse.

Or poking a dead kitten with a stick.

There's one track here I might consider actually copying to the laptop hard drive. It's a sicky-sticky-sweet little ditty called 'Hole in Your Heart,' and if they get a hold of it, the thick instrumentation and absurdly catchy hook of 'Hole in Your Heart' will probably secure it as a theme song for some new sitcom on the NBC Thursday night canned-laughter lineup. Something with a trendy girl's name with too many Ys in the title.

I don't like giving negative reviews. I wish I had something good to say about Moon Rock. If not for the fear that Chris and the good folks at Altsounds wouldn't send me more CDs if I failed to write something about this, I would simply have tossed it after track 3.