In my salad days as a Detroit raver, I had a friend from Toledo, Ohio, who would make the hour long trek to Motown every weekend to participate in our techno outings. His name was Mark, but most of his Ohio friends referred to him as Moby. They called Mark Moby because Mark was into techno, and Moby was the techno guy. Nevermind the fact that Mark preferred Plastikman over Play. Or that by 2000, Moby was a pop star, appearing on MTV with Gwen Stefani when not sound-tracking every commercial on all four networks. To most, Moby was the tehno guy, and Mark was stuck with the name.

On his ninth proper full-length, Moby finally seems comfortable being the techno guy after 12 years of searching for another identity. And for the first time since 1995’s Everything Is Wrong, the producer who cashes checks as Richard Melville Hall has made an album that, while not devoid of song craft, doesn’t allow the pop elements to overpower the dance floor punch. Hence the decision to release the album’s two most overtly rave choons, “Everyday is 1989″ and “The Stars” as the lead single, on 12-inch only, with zero remixes so that the original piano house bangers can get the full bass volume out of the grooves.

Of course, these tracks are the only ones that might really work on the dance floor. The rest of the time, Moby’s “return to dance” manifests itself in the head space of classic listening techno best exhibited on “Hyenas” and “Ooh Yeah,” an opener so wet with synthetic strings that you might find yourself playing air violin in the chill-out room. Even the presence of hip-hop historical icon Grand Master Caz on “I Love To Move In Here” doesn’t prevent the song from grooving like deep New York house at its finest, because if Moby is “the techno guy” no matter what, then all those who enter his orbit must become techno guys too.

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