Hotel - Moby Album Review
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Album Review
The view from the window of Moby’s Hotel is that of a concrete jungle.A cold and imposing landscape.Flip over and you’ll find a minimalist interior-huge empty spaces.A strange reflection on what is his home town of NewYork.At ground level we all know it has a massive soul.So,if Richard Hall,aka Moby,ever thought his Hotel would get a five star rating,then he’s living in cloud cuckoo land.This twin CD release ( ambient & whatever ) needs a lift that goes upwards,not to the basement of his admiration for 80s synth-pop, e.g. Very,and Lift Me Up.’Play’ was a massive success and rightly so.Several tracks moved me,like Porcelain,Why Does My Heart Feel So Sad? Follow-up 18 never matched it.This one goes nowhere:probably stuck in the elevator shaft looking for the panic button.This is a pretty shaky structure,that may well come crashing down on his career.Liner notes explain away the album’s title ,”A variety of reasons,but here’s one of them.Hotels fascinate me in that they’re incredibly intimate spaces that are scoured every 24 hours and made to look completely anonymous.. “ Yeah, right Moby.Anyway,his familiar genre-bending is absent.His style remains simple enough:the proverbial spacey FX (Homeward Angel)and dance beats,but this time around it’s rendered dull as dish water.’Play’ gave him a baseline for exploration:it had a heart as well.This time he’s used his head,so when he’s reliant upon his own creative output,he comes out faltering like a building without a foundation.Don’t forget Moby,even the best Hotels have a soul-this one doesn’t.
Only one standout track;a belting Raining Down.
Disc 2-Ambient, protracted sound effects.
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