Moby releases surprise new album amid 'apocalypse'
Moby, the master of bleak electronica and vociferous critic of US President Donald Trump, on Monday returned with a surprise new album set in an "apocalypse."
The rocker and DJ made available for free download "More Fast Songs About the Apocalypse," his second album with his project Moby and the Void Pacific Choir.
The act, which put out its first album in October, has crafted a digital hardcore sound with punk rock guitar and dominant keyboards driven by Moby's signature minor chord progressions.
Moby announced the album with a sarcastic press release in the name John Miller, a pseudonym Trump would use when the property tycoon disguised himself as his imaginary spokesman to speak to journalists on the telephone.
The press release, full of typographical errors, described Moby as "old and sad" and said the music was "very noisy."
"It's like they hate america and think it's NOT GREAT AGAIN," the release said.
"More Fast Songs About the Apocalypse" itself is not overtly political, with Moby instead returning to his favorite themes of more general ecological destruction and personal despair.
"A Softer War," one of the more guitar-driven tracks, keeps up a lyrical motif of last year's album "These Systems Are Failing" as Moby relates an overpowering sense of being lost.
"There's Nothing Wrong with the World There's Something Wrong with Me" -- one of the most powerful songs on the new album, led by steadily building guitar and keyboard riffs -- reflects on decay as Moby concludes, "Save me from this person I've become."
The album ends with the ironically titled "A Happy Song" as Moby pushes back into the punk rock of his early career.
The 51-year-old New York native had his start in the 1980s in the city's hardcore punk scene but found mainstream success starting in the early 1990s as a DJ.
Several of his infectious dance tunes became club hits, while his albums remained full of dark undertones.
Moby has long been outspoken on animal rights and promotes a vegan diet, running a restaurant in his adopted home of Los Angeles.
He has been a relentless critic of Trump, describing him when he was elected in November as a "racist and a misogynist" who "will be the worst president our country has ever, ever seen."