In the build-up to his 11th album, Moby blogged about loving James Blake and The Knife. He followed it up with another post calling for “S&M gymnasts” to get in touch to appear in ‘The Perfect Life’ video with Wayne Coyne. Promising. Perhaps ‘Innocents’ would be the moment the 48-year-old New Yorker cast aside the wishy-washy techno he’s been peddling since 1999’s ‘Play’? No. Despite the wizened vocals of Mark Lanegan on ‘The Lonely Night’ and Skylar Grey on ‘The Last Day’, and a co-producer called Mark Stent who’s worked with Muse and Oasis, Moby has created an album full of saccharine strings, endless loops and narcoleptic synths. The mind boggles.
Lucy Jones