These Systems Are Failing

Ever mutable, always evolving, never anything but relentlessly restless.

Stripped of all excess, These Systems Are Failing delivers like very few others do in Moby’s discography. It will no doubt divide a part of his fan base like Animal Rights did, however, it won’t be as shocking as in 1996.

Taken individually, the tracks from These Systems Are Failing are refreshingly vibrant for the 51-year-old Moby, who, even after 12 studio albums and countless other releases under his belt, continues to reinvent himself.

It’s dark, unrelenting. ‘Almost Loved’ showcases the fictional Void Pacific Choir chanting like an Omen soundtrack, a song of regret becoming a pounding mantra. The “perfect lie” of ‘And It Hurts’, the “dying sun” of the Killers synth-pop of ‘Are You Lost In The World Like Me?’, the falling sky of ‘Don’t Leave Me’ – Moby’s worldview feels unremittingly bleak. It's not all spit and thunder, not quite.

Moby isn't letting the ills of the world get him down though; instead, they serve as the driving force behind These Systems Are Failing, an album both powerful and political that plays through without coming off the least bit preachy.

Fully energized and tightly concentrated, the producer's first studio album in three years is a concise and infrequently relenting set of nine songs that rail against those who have caused emotional and planetary harm.

It doesn’t take many tracks to blunt the impact of Moby’s relentless goosestepping drum programmes and shouty slogans.

Moby has already said he doesn’t expect anybody to buy this album. Yet it’s likely it will shift a few units due to its high energy and low filler count, though the shouting does get wearing near the end. Once again he has confounded expectations, and the result is an album fiercely relevant to its time.

The nine songs blur together over the 36 minutes, and they offer few surprises once you enter their heavy-handed world. [No. 138, p.58]

While it’s refreshing to hear Moby refuse to succumb to complacency, the shallow, steely sound of These Systems Are Failing contradicts and undoes much of its rawness, making for a set that is more alienating than rousing.

While a curious, if somewhat jarring, departure from 2013's serene Innocents, this distortion-laden album too often blurs into cacophony and muddled by passive-aggressive calls for anarchy.

Rather than feel cathartic or caustic, it’s oddly cold and rote.