At the beginning of Naked at the Albert Hall, one of several illuminating memoirs
Tracey Thorn has published since 2013, the singer notes that she doesn't do nostalgia gigs. After she and
Ben Watt turned their backs on pop stardom in 2000, performed their final concert as
Everything But the Girl, and focused on raising a family together, it took several years before
Thorn returned to the recording studio and restarted her solo career. With
Fuse, the first
EBTG album in 24 years, the duo immediately make it clear that they aren't interested in dwelling in the past. The
Overmono-like taut beats and vibrating bass of marvelous lead single "Nothing Left to Lose" plunk
EBTG's sound firmly into 2023, yet the sparse, clear production makes it unmistakable that
Thorn's voice has roughened up a bit, even since her last solo record. This only adds more emotional weight to her lyrics, which are as thoughtful as ever, yet especially relevant for the 2020s. "Kiss me while the world decays," she exclaims at the climax of "Nothing Left to Lose," while she's reassuring and understanding during "When You Mess Up," which mentions living "in a world of microaggressions." The song makes momentary use of Auto-Tune, letting the pitch of her voice flutter upward for a few lines, and the ambient lullaby "Interior Space" shades reflections on alienation with
James Blake-ian vocal processing. "Lost" is a lyrical as well as textural experiment, with
Thorn listing various losses that came up as search engine results (particularly making an emphasis on "I lost my mother, then I just lost it"), while various vocal fragments and twittering glitches float around her inside a giant bubble. The calm, piano-driven "Run a Red Light" reminisces about playing shows at bars, and recalls the duo's earlier jazz-pop sound without re-creating it. That's as close to nostalgic as the album gets, though. The gently dramatic electro-pop tune "Time & Time Again" flirts with trap-influenced drum programming as a way to underline
Thorn's urgent "call me" pleas. Most excitingly, the midtempo, shaker-heavy rhythm of "Forever" sounds inspired by South Africa's amapiano movement, and the bass hits just in time for the tremendous chorus: "Give me something I can hold onto forever."
Fuse is nowhere near as club-friendly or single-driven as the stacked-with-hits
Walking Wounded and
Temperamental, but it contains the most adventurous production
EBTG have ever attempted, showing that the duo haven't lost their touch for pairing up-to-date music with relevant, affecting subject matter. ~ Paul Simpson