Product Description

Ben and Tracey went clubbing last night and decided to go straight from the dance floor to the studio. They emerge withWALKING WOUNDED, an album that features Tracey's plaintive vocals backed by layers of electronic percussion. Tracey's soul-baring singing pulls you into the songs--we ride with her atop waves of drum beats and dreamy orchestrations in dance styles that vary from jungle to hip-hop to house. The combination brings about an interesting sensation: The beats move your feet while her wistful voice eases you into a state of relaxation. Melody and melancholy are wrapped together in these dance-sized pieces. So are crossover and hit: In Europe, a remix of the title song was the first true pop/jungle hit. (Simultaneously in the U.S., a remix of "Missing", a track from the band's previous album, AMPLIFIED HEART, stayed on the Billboard pop chart for more than a year, longer than any single in Billboard history.)

Track Listing

1. Before Today
2. Wrong
3. Single
4. Heart Remains A Child
5. Walking Wounded
6. Flipside
7. Big Deal
8. Mirrorball
9. Good Cop Bad Cop

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13267 in Music
• Released on: 1996-05-07
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
Purists on both sides scoffed, but EBTG's transition from bedsit folkies to club favourites was one of the artistic coups of its year. Ben Watt had admitted that their previous album in 1994, Amplified Heart, seemed lacklustre, the work of a band trapped by its format, and he sought an outlet for his burgeoning love of dance music. Encouraged by the chart success of Todd Terry's remix of that album's "Missing", and by partner Tracey Thorn's collaboration with Massive Attack, the pair took the plunge setting their melancholy vignettes of love-gone-wrong to discreet electronics, and recruiting an impressive roster of drum & bass producers (Omni Trio, Howie B, Spring Heel Jack) to assist with the update. The result was their most cohesive and satisfying collection since Idlewild, an extraordinary return to form that sounded nothing like their earlier work. Tracks like "Single" and "Big Deal" covered familiar lyrical terrain (loneliness, nostalgia, unrequited passion), but allied the material to a radically more contemporary sound. Yet, as ever, the real coup was not any piece of studio trickery, but Thorn's languid, sensuous vocals. Rarely has heartbreak seemed so enticing. --Andrew McGuire