Album review: Moby, These Systems Are Failing

In his recent autobiography Porcelain Moby bemoaned his 1997 album, Animal Rights, as the moment his career fell apart.

He said much the same to me several year ago when I asked him about that angry, pseudo metal affair. “Nobody wanted to listen to it,” he said. “It almost ruined me.”

So it’s curious that his first release after the book would be an project that in texture and theme feels like a continuation of his biggest bomb. Guitars and snarled vocals are to the fore while Moby is mostly singing about human destruction of the planet, our slovenly overconsumption and its threaten to the eco-system.

What’s changed is that Moby is now a millionaire several times over by dint of the success of his 1999 Play record. That financial cushion has liberated him artistically, with These Systems Of Failing illuminated by a devil may care sense of freedom (the Void Pacific Choir, to whom the LP is part-credited, is Moby’s imaginary backing band). He is no longer constrained by what critics, or even the fans, think — a perspective that has shaped a raw and occasionally compelling collection.

Innovation isn’t the goal here and that’s absolutely fine, with ‘Break Doubt’ thrillingly fusing hardcore guitars and a pounding beats; and ‘I Wait For You’ asking us to contemplate a speed metal Chemical Brothers. Best of all is ‘Don’t Leave Me’, a fever dream of indie melancholy and shoe-gaze rapture.

It’s sad and uplifting in the same heartbeat — a quintessential Moby moment .

Speaking to the BBC recently Moby said he would never tour again — aged 51, he has no wish to play ever smaller venues and indulge the patience of a shrinking fanbase only interested in the hits.

That’s a shame: These Systems Are Failing is a firecracker of a record and, live, it would surely bloom.