Everything But the Girl
Temperamental
[Atlantic]
Rating: 5.3
Back in 1995, Everything But the Girl's Tracey Thorn broke into the electronic
mainstream as the guest vocalist on Massive Attack's "Protection." When the
song became a monsterous club hit, it almost seemed as if the folk duo saw
dollar signs. Suddenly, we were hit with Walking Wounded, the first
Everything But the Girl full- length to be comprised entirely of smooth,
soulful electronic music.
Sadly, their formula didn't work on a grand scale basis. It's not that it
was a bad concept-- actually, it could have worked out quite nicely. The
problem is, the jungle- style percussion is rarely varied, and when you've
been hearing the same speedy breakbeat four times a measure for upwards of
five minutes, it comes out sounding stilted, uninspired and sterile.
Despite extreme advances in the sound of electronic music in the three years
since Walking Wounded was released, Temperamental sticks with
the same sound Everything But the Girl offered up in 1996. The stuff probably
still works as well as Walking Wounded on the dance floor at the local
sportsbar, but for casual listening, it's incapable of holding interest.
The thing about this band is that they're not a bad band-- they work fine
as an updated version of Sade. Their problem is, they're just so average.
I mean, songs like "Hatfield 1980," "Downhill Racer," the album's standout,
"Lullaby of Clubland," and the closing track, "The Future of the Future
(Stay Gold)," a collaboration with EBTG- contemporaries Deep Dish, could work
as singles. But at the end of 60 straight minutes of this record, you feel
like you've just spent half your life in an upscale women's clothing store.
-Ryan Schreiber