What is it out there that curses the phrase “first solo album?” Logic would have it that once artists escape the stigma of being in a band — what with the necessity to compromise artistic, the inevitable disdain that festers between members and seeps into the music and the drummers always wanting to do their songs — they’d finally get it right. With few exceptions [Elliott Smith], though, they suddenly lose their abilities to sculp melodies, exercize an ounce of restraint or produce anything anyone would want to hear; most often, it’s hard to believe even they like the songs they put out. See Frank Black, Lou Reed and Paul Westerburg for some of the best, well, worst examples. Nathan Katruud, pardon, National “Nash” Kato seemed poise to buck the trend. He couldn’t do much worse: His band, Urge Overkill, was long regarded [outside of Chicago, at least, where they love ’em more than food and water ... at least I did] as one of the worst bands in rock, as it somehow had the ability to put style over substance and not turn it to gold with the addition of some Cheap Trick riffs.

Well, Debutante is worse. Essentially, it’s the follow-up to Urge Overkill’s overlooked Exit the Dragon [1995], as drummer Blackie Onassis and guitarist Nils St. Cyr [replacing founding member King Roeser, who bloated, er, bolted the band after Dragon] help out on songs Geffen didn’t repossess when it ripped up the band’s contract.

Somehow, though, it’s far lamer than anything attached to the UO imprint. Kato’s voice, a cross between Gregg Allman and Rob Tyner ... OK, it’s all Neil Diamond, once the band’s strong suit, gets little to work with here. Only “Dirty Work,” a cover of Steely Dan [and not the first time these guys have appropriated anything from Becker and Fagen], has a personality. The rest, damn, all passionless, midtempo-guitar dreck with ’80s jokes and Louise Post to boot.

- Scott Joplin