Moby tones it down

Moby's music has been used on many TV commercials

By Nigel Packer BBC News Online

You can never have too much of a good thing, they say - but then whoever coined the phrase probably reckoned without Moby's Play album.

Over the past three years his inspired take on the blues has gained levels of exposure that would make Kylie Minogue blush.

Commercials, films, TV documentaries - all have plundered the multi-million selling album for ideas and inspiration, transforming the former punk-turned-techno guru from cult figure to king of the jingles.

Perhaps inevitably, the impact of some very fine music has been blunted by familiarity, which makes the arrival of some new material all the more timely.

Moby: brings "warmth and soul" to dance music

After the spiritual fervour of Play, new album 18 is a more sober and subdued affair - although it does work its way stealthily under the skin over the course of a few listens.

Like its predecessor, it draws on a wide range of styles and sounds for sustenance - but once again it is the blues and gospel-inspired moments which stick around to haunt you after the album has finished.

By taking vintage vocal samples and grafting them onto restrained, oddly old-fashioned arrangements, Moby has created something far more powerful and cathartic than the lobe-jangling beats and technical trickery favoured by some of his peers.

He has also brought some much-needed warmth and soul to the sometimes chilly world of dance music.

Melancholy

In This World and In My Heart are prime, if slightly formulaic, new examples - an absorbing mixture of soulful samples and percussive piano.

But neither can match the exquisite Sunday (The Day Before My Birthday), featuring a glorious sample from 70s singer Sylvia Robinson.

Elsewhere, Moby gets to warm up his own distinctive vocal chords on the futuristic glam rocker We Are All Made Of Stars, before offering a fair impression of a Dalek on tranquilisers on the melancholy Signs Of Love.

Oddly enough the title track is among the album's weaker moments. An ambient instrumental commissioned for the Olympics, it feels more like a Jean-Michel Jarre doodle than a fully-fledged idea.

Haunting

The biggest disappointment of all is the doom-laden Harbour. With Sinead O'Connor on vocals, it is a collaboration rich in promise which somehow fails to deliver.

The eerie Sleep Alone is one of several tracks which resonate with the traumas of 11 September, while redemptive album closer I'm Not Worried At All is a beautifully simple blues miniature that packs a world of meaning into a couple of lines.

Anyone who records a hugely successful album risks spending the rest of their career living in its shadow, and in truth most of 18 lacks the urgency and emotional fire which made the last album so compelling.

If it is unlikely to achieve the same omnipresent status, however, there is enough here to keep fans - and advertising executives - interested.

18 is released on Mute Records on Monday 13 May.