Hotel

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; melancholic torch-songs indebted to electro-pop, gospel, and David Bowie's "Heroes." That vibe is typified on Hotel 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?" and relies instead on his own understated, faintly awestruck vocals--and, indeed, those of guest vocalist Laura Dawn, 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