Reviewed by John Irvine

Following on from the successful 1995 mainstream release 'Everything Is Wrong' and the anonymous release earlier this year 'The End Of Everything' we have Moby's new mainstream album. The words "commercial suicide" spring to mind... If you've heard 'Everything Is Wrong' you'll be familiar with the two grunge tracks "What Love" and "All That I Need". Now imagine a whole album like this, high octane screaming electric guitars, thundering drums, screaming vocals and you'll begin to see just how far Moby has distanced himself from his previous dance-guru releases. There are some great songs here - "Come On Baby" is a great thrash number, "When I Reach For My Revolver" has had limited success as a single, "Say It's All Mine" would be a great single, and so on; but one can't help wondering what this would have sounded like if synthesizers rather than guitars had been used... As with previous releases there is an unresolved tension between Moby's professed love for Christ on the sleeve notes and the subject matter and lyrical content of the songs. For those of you who like to play the "is he/isn't he" game, try counting the number of times Moby uses the F-word on this album. 50 minutes of grunge relieved only by three laid back instrumentals is a bit wearing, but the main shock to the system is pure culture shock - where are the dance beats! Perhaps Moby should be congratulated for his courage in breaking out from his potential stereotype as a techno/ambient dancefloor hero. Perhaps this reviewer is too good at pigeonholing artists, but I'm not so sure if Moby the thrash merchant will catch on as well as DJ Moby. I think that there are going to be a lot of disappointed fans out there.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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