Abandoned Pools may well be the ideal way to describe Tommy Walter's escape from a seemingly idyllic upbringing in the affluent L.A. community of Westlake Village. He might have "ruined his life," to paraphrase one of his song titles, but Walter has most definitely spurned a predestined future of the perfect family, a manicured backyard, a two-car garage and the pacifying comforts of the TV in the living room for something far less certain.

On his Extasy Records International debut, Humanistic, Walter takes matters into his own hands, casting a knowing eye on society's hypocrisies and deceits with a musical palette that combines some of his own unique influences. His first musical obsession was the "Star Wars" soundtrack (his publishing company is Boba Fettish Music). He also had a childhood fascination with Prince, and later on, an admiration for '80s U.K. new wave bands, indie-guitar rock and cutting-edge, sample-based electronic music.

"I wanted the listener not to know what's coming next," he says. "So that just when you think it's going in one direction, it goes in another."

Produced by the Boston-based team of Paul Q. Kolderie and Sean Slade (the duo behind both Hole's Live Through This and Radiohead's Pablo Honey), and mixed by Chris Lord -Alge (Green Day, Replacements), Humanistic is Walter's first work since leaving the influential band eels, with whom he recorded the acclaimed Beautiful Freak, the first record ever released by DreamWorks. The new album, coincidentally, the first for impressive start-up Extasy Records International, incorporates both the sturm und grind of the first single, "Mercy Kiss," which revisits adolescent humiliation with the hindsight of experience and the feverish rush of the Psychedelic Furs' "Love My Way," and the wall of sound surrounding "The Remedy, " a song which tweaks his former band's alternative radio hit with its playful refrain, "I could use a shot/ your Novocain."

There's also a kinder, gentler side to Walter, as shown on the acoustic guitar and single piano notes of "Never," from the very first demo he recorded, with the original basic tracks and vocal remaining intact. "My producers told me I wasn't na