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MSN Consumer Guide (Robert Christgau)

What lyrics there are mourn absence and loss, and many of the effects are achieved by fabricating and then calibrating dirty sonics both electronic and organic.

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Filter

Like a Lynchian vision, it's darkly mysterious and disconsolate, but essentially human--and it's that sense of the persistence of humanity that lends this work its majesty. [Summer 2009, p.91]

Paste Magazine

It’s a remarkable work, and while Moby may find himself once more providing the soundtrack to every trendy restaurant and automobile ad for the next 18 months, what’s best about this record is that it’s just that: an album, meant to be consumed the old-school way, front-to-back.

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musicOMH.com

For anyone wanting to hear a genuine progression from the blueprint laid out by "Play" and to enjoy the calmer, more ethereal and undeniably sadder side of Moby's music, Wait For Me is worthy of further investigation.

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Urb

While it may be Moby's darkest record yet, Wait For Me should, at very least, serve as an optimistic sign that Moby's independent creative juices are still flowing.

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Lost At Sea

The end result is a rewarding record fraught with introspection and melancholy but also one that perhaps signifies that Moby's shaken off his early 90's sentimentality...for now.

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PopMatters

It’s a quiet, humble little thing that can pass by almost unnoticed if you don’t pay attention to it. It’s when you do pay attention that its beauty unfolds, and for the first time in a while, it doesn’t sound like he’s pandering.

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All Music Guide

Moby's most unified and understated album, and all the better for it, Wait for Me is a morose set of elegantly bleary material, quite a shift from the hedonistic club tracks of "Last Night."

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Boston Globe

This is all about mood and texture - some of it is beautiful, some of it is noodling. Moby is smart enough to leave most of the singing to others, but the soundscapes and melodies are commanding enough by themselves.

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Slant Magazine

Wait for Me is persistent in humility and dismissive of grandeur, often preferring sedate exposition to the usual club-conquering anthems. It's not the most daring choice of experimentation, but for an artist as commercially minded as Moby, it remains refreshing nonetheless.

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Spin

The mood is somber, mournful, and at times, downright postapocalyptic. But the best of these ambient orchestrations, gurgling uncomplicated beats, and scattered vocals add up to something emotionally wrought, even transporting.

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Rolling Stone

Never the most convincing singer, Moby wisely farms out vocal duties to friends--of them unknowns and ripe for discovery. It's a return to form but with a wider romantic streak. Age will do that.

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Billboard

This is Moby without his usual bag of tricks; the material rings truer than any of his previous work.

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cokemachineglow

So it’s possible that the songs on Wait For Me will end up in the same coffeehouses and car commercials and other small, sterile environments as those on Play, but Hall’s drawing inwards as hard as he can, to the great benefit of his compositions, and Wait For Me is unabashedly majestic.

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Prefix Magazine

Unfortunately, his unleashed creativity didn’t inspire unforeseen greatness. It’s just more Moby, but without a kick drum.

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Q Magazine

There's stirring emotion to 'Pale Horses' restrained mournfulness and the soulful vocals on the minimal 'Walk With Me,' though it can sound as if has a button on his laptiop that wafts this stuff out automatically. [Aug 2009, p.108]

Observer Music Monthly

Yes, he's still plugging away, swapping the frenetic disco of 2008's "Last Night" for a more cultured sound.

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Mojo

It's a doleful piece, with many trad Moby elements present. [Jul 2009, p.94]

The Guardian

Recorded in his Manhattan flat and released on his own label, Wait for Me often allows Moby's vocalist pals from the Lower East Side to take the spotlight on a contemplative collection.

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Pitchfork

It's too listenable overall to be outright dismissed as some sort of flop. But it's too willfully unobtrusive and happy with its lack of ambition to try and sell as good pop, even in a year thin on the mediocre kind.

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No Ripcord

Wait For Me hugs the middle of the road with such caution, it’s strenuous to either love or hate.

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Under The Radar

The one word that comes to mind when listening to Wait For Me is quiet--no matter what the number of sounds or sound sources. [Summer 2009, p.72]

Entertainment Weekly

The album collects 16 droopy, drowsy, mostly instrumental tracks of gauzy piano and somnambulant  murmurings, only a very few of which (the mournful title track, the ominously lovely 'Slow Light') exhibit a pulse.

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New Musical Express

Wait For Me, though, mostly confirms even cheap-sounding wallpaper remains, sadly, wallpaper.

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Uncut

Elsewhere, sluggish excursions in ambient pop and a commitment to melancholia that borders on the opppressive suggests that all those years grasping at the advertising dollar have left a taint of bland that won't scrub off. [Aug 2009, p.96]

Tiny Mix Tapes

It is Moby’s right (as well as his wont) to repurpose the same songs, the same structures over and over again. It is my own right, however, to choose to listen to something else entirely.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this album is 9.0 (out of 10) based on 12 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Jay L gave it a10:
A beautiful record. Moby at his best.

mars 75 gave it a10:
Moby definitely back to form...his best outing since 18 which is a masterpiece imho.

mike s gave it a10:
A great album is one that we want to completely immerse ourselves in, letting the whole experience wash over us without having to skip tracks, often referred to as fillers or ballads. Wait For Me is a great album. Hauntingly beautiful, not haunted and eerie, but spiritual and uplifting, it’s probably fair to say that this sensuous collection of songs is really music for grown ups. The reason 13 year olds buy CDs is because the 15 year olds singing them present an image of self, and often cheap catchy melodies. The reason that 33 year olds buy CDs is often because they can transport ourselves to another place and time, or because they can soothe our frayed nerves, calming us, inspiring us, propelling us up, up and away on some flight of fancy, or bringing us down, down deeply into the cushions or bed covers. Lyrically Wait For Me is emotional; Study War is a heart-felt anti-war song that would have fitted well into his award-winning 1999 CD Play. In fact Play is a good reference point because Wait For Me is just as good and deserves as much attention, though not much here is very radio friendly, it’s too mellow for the radio, but it’s not sleep inducing mellow, don’t let the chillout tag fool you, Wait For Me is uplifting, but also quiet and earthy. A number of collaborations with women I’ve never heard of all hark back to the Moby of Natural Blues era (again from Play). If like me you are many summers old, there is a high probability that you’ll find many reasons to enjoy Wait For Me.

Br R gave it a7:
I'd give this a 6, but i'm sure it will grow on me. A few listens in, "Wait For Me" is pleasant and well produced, but other than "Shotin the Back of the Head", having been played numerous times in anticipation of the album release, i can't recall a single track. So, it's diverting and downbeat, but nothing special.

Marcelo L. gave it a10:
I just cannot understand why those guys qualify this album that bad. is a masterpiece.... for people like me who preferes eluvium and this type of sounds.

Sam R. gave it a5:
Eh, Whatever. The only good track here is "Shot in the Back of the Head," which isn't even that great.

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