Everything But The Girl's Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt official press photo (Image by Edward Bishop)

U.K. pop-electronic music duo Everything But The Girl returns sounding like 2023 on the new album “Fuse.”

Dulcet-voiced Tracey Thorn and pianist-singer and songwriter Ben Watt a.k.a. Everything But The Girl is back with an all-new 10-track album. This is the eleventh studio album by the British sophisti-pop duo who brought us the hits “Cross My Heart,” “I Didn’t Know I Was Looking For Love,” “Missing,” and fan-fave songs “Come On Home,” “We Walk The Same Line,” and “Temperamental” to name a few.

At the kick-off, “Fuse” sounds like it could pick up right after 1999’s “Tempermental” and that the reverberating opening bass notes, and pulsing beats of “Nothing Left To Lose” could sit with any track from said era.

Said track is the proverbial fuse that lights this new EBTG album that by all means feels like a meditative and sometimes feel-good throwback. Tracy Thorn intones 'I need a thicker skin /this pain keeps getting in /tell me what to do/ ‘cause I’ve always listened to you' as it sows a feeling of trepidation in you. Later she sings 'Kiss me while the world decays / kiss me while the music plays' near the end after choruses of 'what is left to lose? / Nothing left to lose' still lingers fresh. Nothing like a dance floor romance to spice things up.

Those who've come expecting EBTG circa, “I Didn’t Know I Was Looking For Love” won’t be disappointed when they hear Ben Watt-piano decked “Run A Red Light '' with its sophisti-pop roots.

Up next is grooved and rising “Caution To The Wind” as morose singer-songwriter ballad “When You Mess Up” follows suit.

Which leads one to think that there’s two ways to listen to this EBTG record: one; coming in with a club music mentality in mind. Two; with the atmospheric and pondering mood at heart.

Everything But The Girl

Having said so, “Time And Time Again” is where these two lines of thought meet. A sashaying middle ground, a pick-me-up before things get too contemplative.

Ben Watt’s piano keyboard skills are still aces and it’s in full display in “No One Knows We’re Dancing” as said tune holds the tempo of the previous song. If you want to see Ben Watt in action, check out the pair’s recent performance in BBC 6 Music A-List Playlist.

Long time EBTG listeners would at this point in the album would notice that Tracey Thorn’s voice has changed. The singer herself has admitted that her vocals have always been changing in the course of her career. It has definitely done so, yet it is a familiar voice. It start’s off noticeably at the onset but by the time upbeat “Forever” comes, shades of the robust and low-voiced Tracey Thorn of 20-plus years ago is there once more.

Admittedly that it was by way of the sophisti-pop era EBTG that endeared me to the Watt-Thorn partnership. That’s why slow but beautiful sounding “Lost” is such a fast favorite. Meanwhile those who want to learn Ben Watt’s style should listen to this; with his tasteful layering of keyboards, from wheezy organ sounds that dictate the feel fused with acoustic pianos, it’s a masterclass in knowing one instrument, but being good at making-many-sounds-with-it style of arrangement.

Watt mentioned that he wrote the next track “Interior Space” as an atmospheric “improvised piano ballad” on his iPhone. Crazy good skills.

“Fuse” ends relaxed with last track “Karaoke” which might sound their usual pensive, but seems like a nod to what Everything But The Girl has been doing all these decades. The lyric goes: ‘do you sing to heal the broken hearted faces on the wall? / or do you sing to get the party started or not at all?’

We know the answer to that of course.