Review Summary: Moby’s 1996 half-excursion into punk, Animal Rights, is an untouched, bloody portrait of a broken, beaten man that somehow manages to discover heartbreaking beauty in absolute pain – and then amplify it to its fullest extent.
I honestly don’t know how to start this review rather than stating that Moby’s
Animal Rights has just about nothing to do with the fact that Moby is vegan, something that he’s arguably become more famous for than his music. Nor is
Animal Rights entirely a rock album, nor is it entirely electronic. It’s a melding of two disparate genres, worlds separate from one another, an album that revels in its messiness and everything’s incompatibility with one another. It’s almost impossible to really review this album, to truly put to words how this album feels, but in lieu, I may be able to describe what this album sounds like.
The first couple of songs, besides the ambient, atmospheric opener “Dead Sun”, are hard hitting punk tracks, unlike what Moby became known for in the early 1990s with techno singles such as the incredibly popular, Twin Peaks-sampling “Go”. Quite a few of the people who picked
Animal Rights up back in 1996, who would have expected a safe follow-up to his somewhat commercially successful 1995 album
Everything Is Wrong, probably would have just thrown the album out of their CD players just as Moby started to scream on “Someone to Love”, the song featuring hard hitting, distorted guitars and electronic drums that pervade through the more punk and alternative rock influenced tracks off
Animal Rights. “Now I Let It Go” breaks the mood with a soft violin and a lone electric guitar, while most of the other songs on the first half have a very noticeable punk influence.
It’s a good thing, then, that Moby does punk very well. His voice may not be the most distinctive, the production value may not be absolutely perfect, but my God, the emotion this album exudes is mind-blowing. It feels just so
real, so pure… like a perfect document of how it feels to not want to feel anymore. It’s an understatement to say that
Animal Rights is difficult, with two genres flawlessly yet uncomfortably mashed together, sometimes right next to each other – but it makes the album feel that much more personal. “Alone” and “Face It” are a one-two punch, both upwards of 10 minutes long, “Alone” being a deep, soothing, spacious ambient track that builds and builds and applies itself as a breather, a respite from all the painful emotion that you’d felt beforehand throughout the record – yet it’s a false hope. “Face It” is the entire
Animal Rights album in just upwards of ten minutes, incredibly broken yet somehow absolutely beautiful, Moby’s guitar throughout sounding so aching yet so
free. If I had to compare it to anything, even though it’s probably not even entirely accurate… the song sounds like the equivalent to keeping all of your deepest, saddest feelings in that you’ve never been able to tell anyone for so long… and then finally setting them free and not caring one single bit about what anyone else has to say about it.
After “Face It”, comes, finally, some real source of redemption. “Old” is a haunting, heartbreakingly beautiful song based simply off Moby’s piano. If “Face It” was Moby finally letting all his emotions free, “Old” is him finally having to deal with the effects of it whichever way possible. “Living” sounds like he’s finally been able to accept it. His undistorted electric guitar perfectly complements the piano and the light synthesizers that start to grow and grow, it all becoming more epic and massive in scale but always sounding like it’s remaining at peace. Everything… might actually be okay. The last two songs are tattered remnants of everything the album was in the beginning. Slow, quiet… peaceful. It’s as though, maybe, even though everything may be “okay”, it’s as though it doesn’t even matter anymore. It’s as though nothing even matters at all.
Animal Rights is torn, ripped, beaten, bruised, and it’s not afraid to show it to you. It’s darker than dark, yet glimmers of light still manage to shine through. It manages to find beauty in unspeakable and unexplainable pain. It’s emotional, dark, yet spectacularly beautiful. It may make you feel uncomfortable, but you know you’ll be rushing back to it when you’re at your lowest. If you’ve ever wished you’ve never had emotions, if you don’t feel good enough to anyone else, if you’ve masked yourself so many times to everyone else in the world that you don’t even know who you are anymore… to be honest, fine. I’m not going to make any more assumptions. Judge
Animal Rights for yourself.
