Description
Fuse is the upcoming eleventh studio album by British duo Everything but the Girl, scheduled to be released on 21 April 2023 through Buzzin’ Fly and Virgin Records. It is their first studio album in almost 24 years following Temperamental.
Fuse combines elements of Temperamental’s old-school garage house and trip hop, the duo’s love of pop-imbued songs and, inevitably, a worldview that has been shaped by their life experiences over the past quarter of a century. As always, an unbroken thread of melancholia stitches everything together, with Thorn’s voice deeper (and, occasionally, auto-tuned, for no apparent reason other than that she just wanted to experiment), investing the songs with more world-weary edges that reflect life being lived with all of its sporadic upsets and catastrophes.
‘Fuse’ is an album unencumbered by pressure or record company expectation, two people doing whatever appeals to them and it works, balancing resigned bangers with more experimental moves. Thorn is in superb voice and Watt’s unexpected musical tweaks are a revelation.
A very welcome return, then? It’s much more than that. Fuse is so good a soundtrack it is as if Thorn and Watt have never been away.
