Moonlight
Hanni El Khatib
(Innovative Leisure)
Two stars
Born to a Filipino mother and Palestinian father, the American rocker Hanni El Khatib was the creative director of the buzzworthy skateboard fashion label HUF – all the while writing his own collection of songs. The hobby turned into a full-time gig with the release of his 2011 debut album, Will the Guns Come Out, and many of the bluesy numbers found a home on television series such as Suits, Californication and Luther. El Khatib's 2013 follow-up, Head in The Dirt, received more acclaim, with the raggedy track Can't Win Them All even appearing in a Super Bowl advertisement – the financial holy grail for an independent artist.
There is a lot riding on his potential breakthrough release Moonlight. Produced by The Black Keys's Dan Auerbach, the album continues El Khatib's vintage-rock approach but, ultimately, you can't shake off the feeling that the retro sounds would have best gone down during the garage revival at the turn of the century.
Not all of the 13 tracks are derivative, however. For El Khatib fans, Moonlight is his moodiest offering yet. Indeed, the noirish tracks live up to the album name – they are best played in the small hours of the night.
The opening title track benefits from a wiry riff that merges into a shadowy chorus. Ever the night owl, El Khatib howls about "fighting for the moonlight/ Nobody wanna hear you crying now". The Teeth has a grizzled grandeur about it through its washes of dark keyboards and spiralling hooks, while Melt Me is a gnarly rocker straight out of The White Stripes handbook – the only let down are the trite lyrics: "Come over and melt me, like an ice-cream cone in the street in the sun" (Häagen-Dazs will definitely not be calling for this tune).
While Moonlight can conjure a brooding mood, at times it finds El Khatib falling for that old pitfall of style over substance.
Worship Song (No. 2) is dire; the intention may have been to sound minimal but instead it comes across as a tuneless shuffle. Servant is unimaginative; El Khatib sticks too close the standard blues script and you can almost guess how the song and lyrics will unfold after the first 20 seconds. While All Black possesses a winning groove, it's hard not to realise this was already done with aplomb by his producer's outfit, The Black Keys.
There is no doubt television producers will take Moonlight apart to provide the soundtrack for their montages. It's apt, too: heard sporadically, the tracks act as a decent blast from the past. Put the songs together, however, and you've got an album too subpar to stand on its own.
