Moby: Everything Was Beautiful, and Nothing Hurt review – fragile beauty

Everything Was Beautiful, and Nothing Hurt is Moby's 15th album, will not only make you wonder where you were for at least 50 per cent of his releases but its fragility will stop you in your tracks. Lead single Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child, featuring Raquel Rodriguez, is a reworking of a spiritual song associated with slave-era America. Distraught, vulnerable and haunting, this song, along with almost all of the album, is a deep examination of the human condition and the awfulness that that can inflict.

Unlike his his remake 1997 remake of the James Bond theme, which shows a different kind of awfulness that the human condition can inflict, this is Moby’s most personal album yet.

Layering Bristolian levels of trip-hop, gospel choirs, delicate instrumentation, whispered verses of poetry and song titles like The Sorrow Tree, A Dark Cloud is Coming and Welcome to Hard Times, this album is an endless journey of loss, despair and self discovery. While Everything Was Beautiful, and Nothing Hurt is not exactly a lark in the park, Moby has tragically captured the unique sadness that both drives and restricts us.

[ moby.com ]