Moby’s last album, 18, bore the marks of a record weighed down by expectation and record company pressures. Up until that tiresome 2002 release, he had made a succession of wonderfully diverse records. From the full on techno of 1991’s Go through to the ambient chill-out of Play, each had been a progression from the previous. Thankfully his latest, Hotel, sees a return to that sort of eclectic creativity.
Breaking into new wave, funk, electro-disco, and big stadium anthems, Moby has brought his assorted musical tastes to bare on each track. Remarkably Hotel is sample free. Past works have seen a heavy reliance on vocal sampling, though on this occasion it is his slow drawl, which pervades for the most part. On a number of tracks he also enlists the vocal talents of close friend, Laura Dawn.
In scope, this is a grandiose hotel. There are a myriad of huge singles screaming for release. From the big chorus stadium anthems of ‘Raining Again’, ‘Slipping Away’, ‘Beautiful’ and ‘Spiders’, through the tribal chant of ‘Lift Me Up’, to the soft-core ballad of ‘Forever’, and the sublime Cure-like ‘Where You End’.
‘Where You End’ is the song New Order never wrote. Fittingly, Moby pays homage to his beloved Mancunians with a delicate cover of ‘Temptation’. Dawn handles vocal duties this time, the stripped down version highlighting the tenderness of Bernard Sumner’s words.
It’s not all great. The skip button on the stereo remote comes into its own on ‘Very’ and the laid back funk of ‘I Like It’, which only serve to delay the beautiful ‘Love Should’. For the most part, though, there’s something different and easily accessible on each floor of Moby’s Hotel. It’s a record, which grows with each listen, full of big moments. Most importantly of all, it sustains constant returns.