Everything but the Girl Walking Wounded (Atlantic)
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The band’s 1994 album, Amplified Heart, was appealingly dark and sultry, with lyrics that vividly illustrated a relationship on the brink of collapse, but Watt’s dense arrangements smothered his delicate melodic confections in schlock. The record eventually attained gold status in the United States. But in February 1995 New York house producer Todd Terry’s pounding house-driven remix of the song “Missing” accomplished for EBTG what countless singles from eight albums had failed to do: score the duo a bona fide international hit. The remix has remained on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart for a record-breaking 49 consecutive weeks.
Blending the smoky languor of Thorn’s melodies with a variety of aggressive club styles–house, breakbeat, jungle–created a delicious tension previously unheard in EBTG’s music. Light guitar strumming and unobtrusive synth washes can be heard, but the primary components are Thorn’s voice and the complicated rhythm programs. The pair of tunes employing the drum ‘n’ bass patterns of jungle (the title track, a collaboration with leading British jungle group Spring Heel Jack that resurfaces as remixed by Omni Trio at the end of the CD; and “Before Today”) pit Thorn’s febrile phrasing against the upper-register cymbal patter and low-end bass rolling embedded in the rhythm programs.
It now seems unlikely that Walking Wounded will fulfill the commercial prophecy of “Missing.” On the other hand, it’s the group’s finest and most daring work, and the artistic success of its bold stylistic fusions may stand as its own prophecy. If club music is to permeate the pop landscape with real staying power, EBTG has proffered a ripe paradigm for the invasion.
