It was going to be difficult for Hull's Everything But The Girl to follow up the acclaim that greeted 1996's 'Walking Wounded' album. Despite being around since the early '80s the duo of Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn reinvented themselves totally from an earnest acoustic band to ground-breaking trip-hop heroes of the dance floor, albeit a rather downbeat dancefloor; it stunned critics across the board. 1999's Temperamental is a much more subdued affair, although it kicks off quite superbly with the opening salvo of house-thumping 'Five Fathoms' and the more reflective 'Low Tide Of The Night' followed by the almost hypnotic 'Blame'. Fom there on in, however, it's largely a case of polite retreads of former glories but the double-barreled finale of 'No Difference' and 'The Future Of The Future' wake up the listener and remind us of what a fine band they actually are. The longest track and definitely the most boring is 'Compression' and is the perfect cure for insomnia. The overall feeling of the project is that it's a case of standing still and concentrating on what worked last time but some more risks would have been appreciated; after all, that's what got them noticed in the first place.