Does Richard Melville Hall ever wake up in his Manhattan loft apartment with Eminem’s cruel jibe, “you’re too old, let go, nobody listens to techno” ringing in his ears? You wonder, because since the global success of his symphonic techno-blues opus Play, he’s toned down the electronica. OK, so the 2002 follow-up 18 reassembled elements of Play using “real” vocalists, but Hotel is relatively free from techno styling.

Moby has reinvented himself before — he was a vegan punk rocker, after all — but, if anything, Hotel looks back to 1980s synth rock. The opening number Raining Again kick-starts affairs with a pounding drum beat and hungry slide guitar, and Beautiful possesses a yearning melancholy; but it’s not long before the album begins to drag along rather mournfully, sounding as if Moby’s been listening too much to Bowie’s Low (especially on the closing number Homeward Angel). His rather characterless vocals don’t help matters and when the guest singer Laura Dawn takes the mike she is handed a leaden cover of New Order’s Temptation. Finally, when Moby does raise the ghost of techno past with the ravey Very and the erotic I Like It, the mood lifts. These moments aside, Hotel is not going to rate too highly in guide books.

Mike Pattenden

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