Moby-Animal Rights (Elektra)

The suits at the record companies are all throwing up their hands saying both grunge and rap are dead and wondering what to replace it with. 

Most of them seem to think the next big thing will be techno-house music.  So it seems kind of ironic that now that he's finally in vogue, arguably the most respected name in the genre would make a complete 360 and release a straight-ahead punk disk. 

Moby fools us at first with the long church organ intro "Dead Sun," but soon he's flailing away hard and fast at life's petty injustices of love, war, sex and musical pigeonholing. 

It's good to see Moby is willing to stretch his boundaries, even though in the long run he's not as original a punk as he is in techno.  After a while the album does get a little repressive in its anger and it's a little over-polished for a punk disk, but it does have enough interesting rants to suggest giving it a spin.  (3/97)