Amazon.co.uk Review
This 2-disc Limited Edition version includes a bonus 'ambient music' CD. Once a roving maverick who skipped from euphoric rave to speed-metal to ambient soundscaping as if just to prove he could, recent years have seen Richard Melville Hall relax into a comfortable and yes, lucrative niche. On the surface,
Hotel follows a similarly laid-back trajectory to his last two albums,
Play and
18: a collection of melancholic torch-songs indebted to electro-pop, gospel, and David Bowie's "Heroes", it's typified by the rousing, keyboard-drenched likes of "Beautiful" and the twinkling, optimistic "Spiders". But that's not to say
Moby is stagnating, exactly: for one, he's bravely jettisoned the vocal samples that powered the likes of "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?", relying instead on his own understated, faintly awestruck vocals and, indeed, those of guest vocalist Laura Brown, whose sparse, synth-and-drum-machine cover of New Order's "Temptation" is a low-key highlight. But there's also a return to his raving roots on the pulsing, diva-led "Very", and a touch of politics on "Lift Me Up" a song that hides its contempt for the Bush Administration amid a dark carnival of sweeping strings and disco-noir rhythms.
--Louis Pattison
CD Description
Fifth album from perhaps the world's only megastar of electronic music follows 2002's massive-selling '18'. Produced once again in his home, with Moby himself playing almost all the instruments, this remains in much the same vein as 'Play'and '18', but this time features none of the vocal samples which made those records infamous - most of the vocals are his own. This special edition includes a second disc comprised of ambient instrumentals, fittingly titled 'Hotel Ambient'.