DUO'S LATEST FOLLOWS BEAT OF A BROKEN HEART.Byline: Stephen Holden The New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times Elaborately tricky digital beats have laced ambient dance music with eerie sound effects sound effects Noun, pl sounds artificially produced to make a play, esp. a radio play, more realistic sound effects npl → efectos mpl sonoros for nearly a decade. But until Everything but the Girl's stark new album, ``Walking Wounded Walking wounded is a term used in first aid and triage to indicate injured persons who are of a relatively low priority. These patients are conscious and breathing and usually have only (relatively) minor injuries; thus they are capable of walking. ,'' those beats tended to be rhythmic hooks hammered into abstract sonic landscapes. With ``Walking Wounded'' (Atlantic), the English duo that includes the singer and songwriter Tracey Thorn and her songwriting and producing partner, Ben Watt, have made an album in which the beats are extensions of their introspective in·tro·spect intr.v. in·tro·spect·ed, in·tro·spect·ing, in·tro·spects To engage in introspection. [Latin intr song lyrics. The beats also supplant the textural role previously played by guitars, keyboards and vocal harmonies. Listening to the album's nine songs plus two remixes, one has the sensation of being alone in a room with Thorn obsessing to the sound of her own digitalized heartbeat. Except for an occasional wash of synthesizer synthesizer Machine that electronically generates and modifies sounds, frequently with the use of a digital computer, for use in the composition of electronic music and in live performance. , the cavernous spaces between her sad, smoky voice and the rhythm tracks are occupied only by a nervous pounding and ticking, augmented with occasional bleeps and scratches. The atmosphere is charged with high anxiety. ``Amplified Heart,'' the title of the duo's last album, would actually fit this one better. With its lush harmonies, elegant string arrangements and streamlined grooves, that album, the duo's seventh since forming in 1984, is a minor pop masterpiece that pays homage to 1970s folk rock. Several of its songs echo the strutting high-gloss elegance of Fleetwood Mac's 1977 megahit meg·a·hit n. A product or event, such as a movie or concert, that is exceedingly successful. Noun 1. megahit - an unusually successful hit with widespread popularity and huge sales (especially a movie or play or recording album, ``Rumours.'' Others resurrect the orchestrated neo-romantic folk pop of Nick Drake and Sandy Denny. ``Amplified Heart'' became a hit in America only after a remixed version of ``Missing,'' its most commercial song, was a surprise top-five single. With its galloping electronic dance beat, the remixed ``Missing'' served as a jumping-off point for ``Walking Wounded.'' Another was Thorn's recent collaborations with the beat-heavy British dance-pop collective Massive Attack, one of which (a version of the Marvelettes' 1967 hit, ``The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game'') was featured on the soundtrack for ``Batman Forever.'' If the texture of ``Walking Wounded'' is a striking departure for Everything but the Girl, the duo's melodic style and lyrical subject matter have hardly changed at all. ``Walking Wounded,'' like ``Amplified Heart,'' examines a severed relationship that has left the narrator NARRATOR. A pleader who draws narrs serviens narrator, a sergeant at law. Fleta, 1. 2, c. 37. Obsolete. of the songs emotionally adrift and fixated fix·ate v. fix·at·ed, fix·at·ing, fix·ates v.tr. 1. To make fixed, stable, or stationary. 2. To focus one's eyes or attention on: fixate a faint object. on the past. ``The mind may grow wise, but the heart just sulks sulk intr.v. sulked, sulk·ing, sulks To be sullenly aloof or withdrawn, as in silent resentment or protest. n. , and it whines and remains a child/Why don't you love me?'' Thorn pleads in ``The Heart Remains a Child.'' In ``Wrong,'' the singer accepts the blame for the breakup (``I wanted everything for a little while/Why shouldn't I? I wanted to know what he was like''), then turns slavishly slav·ish adj. 1. Of or characteristic of a slave or slavery; servile: Her slavish devotion to her job ruled her life. 2. abject: ``Wherever you go I will follow you, 'cause I was wrong.'' If these lovelorn sentiments are indistinguishable from the misery found in countless other torch songs, the lyrics, most of which were written by Thorn, don't feel commercially contrived. These interior monologues, in which the narrator compulsively bombards a departed lover with pleas, questions and rationalizations, have the immediacy of diary jottings. ``I don't want to feel this way/I don't want to want to feel this way/Won't somebody take away this feeling?'' Thorn laments in ``Good Cop Bad Cop,'' the album's final song. ``Walking Wounded'' is a harrowing couples-counseling session at which only one of the unhappy partners has shown up. CAPTION(S): Photo Photo: Heartache and rhythm mark ``Walking Wounded,'' the n ew album by Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn's Everything but the Girl. |
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