REVIEW: Everything but the Girl, Temperamental (Atlantic)
- Chris Hill
"I'm going to let nobody down," sings Tracey Thorn in "Low Tide of the Night." She could be voicing the lyric to fans of the group. Rarely does a band of so many years reinvent themselves with such success, but EbtG has made its transition from undeserved adult-contemporary limbo to house favorites look routine.
No surprise. EbtG built an reputation early on for mutability. As Thorn said in a 1988 interview, "It just seems to us the obvious thing to do...once we've made one LP, nothing would interest us less than to do the same one again." Jazz, country, pop, orchestra, acoustic, drum 'n' bass, house -- all facets of the EbtG diamond, and ones that glint here and there on Temperamental.
Let's recap. EbtG's current incarnation owes life to several things: a brilliant pairing with British dub sensations Massive Attack, Todd Terry's smash remix of "Missing," and, perhaps most intimately, Ben Watt's near-fatal contraction of Churg-Strauss Syndrome (documented in his personal account, "Patient"). Having faced death, Watt gained a new perspective on risk and reward. The stagnancy EbtG had complained of in interviews no longer appeared as an obstacle. '96s Walking Wounded was their first complete step in yet another arena, wooing club culture with tracks like "Before Today," "Wrong" and "Single."
Now the new album is out, with the Watt/Thorn duo grown comfortable in their new clothes.
"Five Fathoms," the first single, is a seamless segue from the last EbtG release, their collaboration with Deep Dish on the song, "The Future of the Future (Stay Gold)" (released by the latter on Junk Science and included on Temperamental). It's a pulsing rumpshaker, and if you can get around the album's weakest lyric ("I'm not immune. I love this tune."), then you're hooked. Only two other shortcomings to mention: the ninety-eight-percent instrumental "Compression" and the regrettable absence of Watt's vocals. "Compression" is filler, and places should have been exchanged with a vocal track, or even the Latin-flavored "Firewall", the b-side instrumental featured on the "Five Fathoms" single(s). As for Watt, perhaps he's more comfortable scratching and laying down beats, but he's missed.
Time has been well spent since the last record. As Watt says on their official website (http://www.ebtg.co.uk): "I was out in the city so much...At night in midweek clubs, coming home alone from DJing, during the day record-shopping, watching people, feeling changed by what I saw, absorbing. It spoke to me a lot. A lot of the lyrics explore this, I think."
"Who should I be tonight?/Who's gonna see tonight?" ("Low Tide of the Night"), "How much of yourself do you give away/after someone's left your life in disarray?/It still hurts but it won't show/because I'm too proud/so you're never ever gonna know" ("Lullaby of Clubland"). As with Walking Wounded, the lyric writing has been tailored to fit the form. Short, quick couplets, dealing with themes both fresh and familiar to the longtime fan, but primarily the irony that hedonism both allays and amplifies one's isolation with pretense and masks, finding release in the club scene, enjoying the immediate satisfaction of physical exertion and attraction, but gaining awareness of the gap that separates us all by stepping on to the bridge.
The wagging finger rhythms of the spurned lover moving on in "Lullaby of Clubland" are wildly infectious. If this isn't slotted for a single, it should be. The title track was pegged as the second single, but that honor's been shifted to the more uptempo, less soulful "Blame" (perhaps due to the falsetto Thorn employs on "Temperamental"?). Unfortunate. The risk should be rewarded. It's a deeper cut, though "Blame" employs beats and a bass courtesy of Metalheadz' J Majik, so perhaps it was chosen for crossover appeal.
For old-school EbtG fans, their jazz history is perfectly meshed with house music on cuts like "Downhill Racer" and "No Difference." Horns slide in and out of the rhythms, with Thorn's voice capturing the same winsome melancholia of past favorites like "Oxford Street" or "Two Star."
Truly, Thorn's singing has always been a strength in their various incarnations, and here it's no different. "Hatfield 1980," a gutsy title given that it points out the age difference between the band and many of their newfound fans, is a sweetly voiced recollection set to a dreamy, slow beat. The lyrical aloneness is mirrored by the vacant, urban landscape: "We'll have to go through the deserted shopping centre/Pedestrian walkways/I thought they were meant to make things better/but it's just emptier/and scary at night time."
Subject to interpretation, "Downhill Racer" is a look at EbtG's career and the affection that's stood up between the pair through the years and trials. "If you can ride the backlash/ there's still time for a comeback/you don't have to lie down and die/but Lazarus he only did it the one time/he couldn't face another try."
Luckily, Thorn and Watt could. All in all, a more assured effort than Walking Wounded, and worth the wait.
