Moby
Everything Was Beautiful, and Nothing Hurt
First song on Moby’s new album Mere Anarchy swells with heart break and a dystopian brashness as the words “Caution of the world you said was over” haunt with a low key resonance. Everything Was Beautiful, and Nothing Hurt, Moby’s 15th album, is a dead-set drop into sorrowful melancholia.
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It’s a fascinating album that sees the producer-DJ-vocalist doing what he does best: lush synth songs that uses female vocalists to articulate the pain and suffering Moby sees in this world. Soulful vocals and big beats plunge the listener into post-apocalyptic landscape, its slow-burn arrangements methodically echoing the fallacies of being human and the lyrics serving as reminders that all isn’t what it seems.
Rapping Moby-style over the heavenly female vocals and dub beats in Like a Motherless Child, this electronic pioneer simultaneously captures an uplifting and totally devastating spirit, whereas The Last of the Goodbyes with its twitchy electronica explodes into a symphonic force.
Moby's presence throughout the album suggests the internal meanderings of a down-and-out survivor with frequent collaborator Mindy Jones adding a velvety lushness through her honeyed and emotional singing.
When the strings swell and guitars close in – and then recede through well pace electronica – it doesn’t feel like it can get any better than this. The melodies link each of the songs together and the ending of the world has never sounded so beautiful.
