Given the kaleidoscope nature to Moby’s recording career, guessing what he would produce next, makes predicting the lottery look easy. Never one to sit on his laurels and always looking to push his own boundaries, it perhaps comes as a surprise to find Moby looking back at old ground but simultaneously finding new avenues to explore there for new album ‘Innocents’.

This is Moby’s most collaborative album to date and the first with an outside producer, namely Spike Stent.  This influence is most obvious on Saints which sounds like Massive Attack’s’ Unfinished Sympathy’ in parts and is no coincidence as Stent worked previously with Massive Attack on ‘Protection’.

The cooperative process differed from artist to artist on ‘Innocents’. For instance, Cold Specks’ Al Spx was given free rein to create the vocal and lyrics and the level trust shown by Moby was paid off in dividends. Amongst Moby’s career both A Case For Shame and Tell Me, rank side by side of any of his best work. Damien Jurado delivers an almost Bon Ivor-esque vocal on Almost Home that is at once haunting and warming while The Perfect Life featuring The Flaming Lips Wayne Coyne could be the best song The Polyphonic Spree never made.

Singer songwriter Skylar Grey’s organic vocals blend seamlessly with sampled electro on The Last Day and it sounds better than anything on Grey’s own recent ‘Don’t Look Down’ album and she could do worse than hire Moby as producer for her next record. The last two guest spots deviate slightly in style with mixed results. Don’t Love Me’s pseudo swing beat never really convinces it’s worthy of repeat play and Mark Lanegan intriguingly provides a suitably rustic tone to go along with sombre music of The Lonely Night.

The rest of the album is padded out with semi – instrumental tracks speckled with vocal snippets that were the staple of what made ‘Play’ such a massive hit. Of them, A Long Time and Everything That Rises standout .

Given the alienating, downbeat nature of Moby’s preceding albums ‘Destroyed’ and ‘Wait For Me’, the more reflective, pastoral tone of ‘Innocents’ is a welcome shift in tone. While it’s not a career best, it’s certainly an accomplished return to form for Moby.