Usually, I’m a pretty discerning with the money that I spend on records. I have a limited budget, so I want to make sure I get my money’s worth. Very rarely do I go into a purchase without being assured that I already love the music on it.

But on a recent trip to my local record store, I was enraptured by the stern portrait on the cover. A quick google search didn’t turn up much information at all, but it was only $6, so I decided to take the gamble.

Digging deeper, I’m still not entirely sure what to make of this album. From what I can gather, Moon Casale is a fictional character created by The Shivers’ frontman Keith Zarriello. The Bandcamp page still lists it as a Shivers album, but includes a biography of Casale: a New Mexico-based mystic who found freedom from drugs in music and Jesus Christ, and has now moved to New York City to change the way the world thought about Contemporary Christian Music.

So then the question is this: how much of this is played with sincerity, and how much of it is a joke? Is this a parody, or a Chris Gaines-esque alter ego adopted for creative freedom? Is this a Shivers record or is it something else? It’s almost impossible to discern.

The songwriting seems earnest enough—spending most of the album in a hushed, finger-picked jazz folk that’s somewhere between Bob Dylan and Burl Ives. There is the occasional organ or piano, and the occasional noise outburst. A man screams in the background. One track is augmented by howling coyotes (Cosale’s wilderness companions, apparently).

Whether it’s meant honestly or ironically, the record is pleasant enough. Nothing too remarkable, and nothing too offensive—except the screaming dude in the background. Not like…musical screams—just straight up wailing. That part’s awful.

But, you get what you pay for. And for $6, the closing moments of the last track (of the vinyl, which skips the last track), “I Don’t Care” is worth it on its own.