Everything But the Girl: Temperamental : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Ten years ago, Everything but the Girl were pathetic New Wave dinosaurs, piddling their talent away on jazz-pop piffle. So how ya like them now? They finally got loose with the stunning acoustic soul of 1994's Amplified Heart, one of those records that can stand up to literally hundreds of listens over the years and still keep revealing new pleasures. And after "Missing" became a surprise dance hit, EBTG rose to the challenge with the moody drum-and-bass blues of 1996's Walking Wounded. Temperamental digs even deeper into clubland, as the married London duo of producer Ben Watt and singer Tracey Thorn weave their elegantly morose songcraft around house and jungle beats. Thorn breathes a seductive chill into lyrics that detail the struggles of night-to-night romantic commitment without pretending it's no fun. Time will tell whether Temperamental can sustain hundreds of spins -- I'm still not sick of Amplified Heart, so ask me in five years -- but if Cole Porter had composed a disco song cycle for Dusty Springfield, it might have sounded like this. (RS 823)

ROB SHEFFIELD