Hotel [2-disc]

Moby

This 2-disc Limited Edition version includes a bonus 'ambient music' CD. Once a roving maverick who skipped from euphoric rave to speed-metal to ambient soundscaping as if just to prove he could, recent years have seen Richard Melville Hall relax into a comfortable - and yes, lucrative - niche. On the surface, Hotel follows a similarly laid-back trajectory to his last two albums, Play and 18: a collection of melancholic torch-songs indebted to electro-pop, gospel, and David Bowie's "Heroes", it's typified by the rousing, keyboard-drenched likes of "Beautiful" and the twinkling, optimistic "Spiders". But that's not to say Moby is stagnating, exactly: for one, he's bravely jettisoned the vocal samples that powered the likes of "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?", relying instead on his own understated, faintly awestruck vocals - and, indeed, those of guest vocalist Laura Brown, whose sparse, synth-and-drum-machine cover of New Order's "Temptation" is a low-key highlight. But there's also a return to his raving roots on the pulsing, diva-led "Very", and a touch of politics on "Lift Me Up" - a song that hides its contempt for the Bush Administration amid a dark carnival of sweeping strings and disco-noir rhythms. --Louis Pattison