Everything but the Girl
's resurrection as a sophisticated
electronica
outfit may have been unpredictable, but it certainly revitalized the duo's music. Prior to 1996's
Walking Wounded
,
Ben Watt
and
Tracey Thorn
had taken their charming, jazzy acoustic
pop
as far as it could go. Adding
, primarily
drum'n'bass
trip-hop
, to the equation broke their potential wide open, as the captivating, seductive
proved. It was such a drastic, fulfilling departure that it did raise the question of where they go from here; its 1999 sequel,
Temperamental
, answers that by offering more of the same, except just a little different.
tempers the lightly skittering
and eliminates
, yet retains the same feel as
.
House
music -- everything from classic '80s
house
to contemporary
-- serves as the musical foundation, which actually opens the doors for slight jazzy inflections, along with long, hypnotizing instrumental passages (most notably on
"Compression"
). Weirdly, it also serves as a good setting for a batch of songs that are essentially in the
singer/songwriter
vein. In fact, there aren't as many clear
hooks here as there were on
Walking
"Five Fathoms,"
"Tempermental,"
and a couple of other tracks work as singles, but the album is a more of a meditative, reflective piece, like a
album -- except it's dressed in sultry, evocative
electronic
dance
music. That means, of course, that
isn't all that different than its predecessor, but its blend of
jazz
, and
folk
is equally satisfying as that landmark album. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine