Moby: Destroyed

Moby
Destroyed
Rating: Meh

Moby always gets a bad rap, accused of being too mainstream by most of the electronic music community, and not being mainstream enough by the pop music lovers. And ever since Play, he has been trying over and over to please everyone, and also recreate the success of that album. It wasn't until 2009's Wait For Me, that Moby stopped making music for other people, and made an album he wanted to make (influenced by a conversation he had with David Lynch). It was a stunningly personal record, and was one of my top albums of the year. Based on that record, I thought Moby had gotten back on track. The follow up, Destroyed, is, unfortunately, not much more that a combination of Play and Wait For Me, without the cohesiveness of either record. In his words, the album is "broken down melodic electronic music for empty cities at 2 a.m." There is a loneliness and dreaminess to the record, and it gets off to a promising start, but halfway through it loses focus completely, with Moby resorting to his old bag of tricks, that was old enough 10 years ago.

Destroyed is made up primarily of ambient instrumentals, a couple of mid tempo pieces, and the rest his usual mix of dreamy electronic tracks coupled with samples or female vocals. The best of the instrumental pieces are forlorn and echoing, really capturing the feeling of moving through silent city streets. "The Broken Places" opens the album feeling like a ride in a cab to a hotel, the streetlights flashing coldly through the windows.



"Rockets" utilizes dreamy synth strings coupled with snippets of female vocals.



"Stella Maris" evokes most of the great moments from Wait For Me, pairing haunting, dark synths with gorgeous, semi-operatic vocals.



Other highlights of the album are the slow building "Be The One" that starts creepily with Moby's treated voice droning over ambient electronics, methodically building over drums and guitars.



"Sevastopol" is another great upbeat instrumental track that Moby can do in his sleep.



Moby is still good at picking out the right, dreamy female vocalist to pair with his songs. "The Low Hum" is perfect in its moodiness.



But aside from these standouts, the rest of the album just sounds uninspired and, quite frankly, lazy. You can pretty much pick any remaining track and pull it from some other Moby era. There are the standard Moby sung tracks, like "The Day" and "Blue Moon" that borrow from other acts, like Bowie and New Order, and come across as mere parroting.





And there are far too many lazy songs and instrumentals that sound more like background music for a trendy boutique. "The Right Thing" could be Play by numbers.



The final three tracks are all so bland as to be almost silent. The tracks are all pretty, but lack any sort of bite, texture, or interest to make them anything more. "The Violent Bear It Away" and "When You Are Old" are particularly generic, sounding like incidental music to a bad art film.





I had high hopes for Destroyed after the return to form of Wait For Me, and perhaps I judged this album too harshly on that basis alone. If Destroyed had ventured a little more outside of Moby's comfort zone, it would have probably worked much more effectively. Instead, we are left with a just ok Moby album, which, based on his best work, is just not good enough anymore.

Rating Guide

Chilfos: masterpiece; coolest thing I've heard in ages.

Woof Daddy: excellent; just a hair away from being a masterpiece.

Grrrr: very good; will definitely be considered for my top releases of the year.

Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It: good; definitely invites further listens and peaks one's interest for more material.

Meh: not horrible, but certainly not great; could have either been polished, trimmed, or re-thought.

Jeez Lady: what the hell happened? Just plain bad. They should hang their heads in shame and be forced to listen to Lady Gaga ad nauseam as penance.

Tragicistani: so bad, armed villagers with pitchforks and torches should run the artist out of the country for inflicting this abomination on the human race.