Moby's last album, Hotel, shot up the charts of
those curious mid-period albums by artists who seem to have lost all interest
in their own enterprise at the most fundamental level. That couldn't have been
what he was going for, but the glaring mess of it all certainly made the
album's glum quasi-rock songs more memorable than they might have been
otherwise.
So consider it a wise move on Moby's part to
regroup. Or rather than regroup, to return to his formative form as a DJ and
producer of what, well before 1999's Play made him a certifiable star, used to be
called rave music. Last Night's rewind approach may be too screamingly literal
for those wanting or expecting some sort of progress to be strived
for—see Grandmaster Caz rapping about "the old school taking it back" on
"I Love To Move In Here," or another song actually titled "Everyday It's
1989"—but Last Night is nonetheless an extremely warm, loving, moving
album concerned with more than just vintage sounds.
Antic tracks like "257.zero" and "Disco Lies" find
Moby revisiting the sort of functional dance beats and dramatic synthesizer
sighs that made his name. And then there are many rave-y piano vamps with
throaty divas belting songs of redemption—the kind, it turns out, that
make "Everyday It's 1989" play like a track for the ages.