Reviews
March: 18 albums you need to hear this month
Daniel Avery, Moby, D Double E and more
Moby 'Everything Was Beautiful, And Nothing Hurt' (Little Idiot)
It’s been 23 years since the emotional trip-hoppery of Moby’s ‘Everything Is Wrong’ garnered him global acclaim. Given that he’s touted his new LP as a return to that old aesthetic, its title is surely no coincidence. Moby teased it with a Spotify playlist that included gems by Gil Scott-Heron and Simple Minds, but it’s difficult to see where it translates here. Too often – as on ‘The Last Of Goodbyes’, with its limp rap and doleful Burialisms – it sounds like Moby pastiching his old self. On the flip side, ‘Welcome To Hard Times’, a sunny Balearic soul shuffle, is lovely, and the ghostly piano haunting ‘The Tired And The Hurt’ contains the muscle memory of his masterpiece ‘Porcelain’, but they’re isolated sparkles. Stephen Worthy
6/10
