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.
