Walking Wounded

Consistently good band over many years. This lp is consistently good.

Not sure I fully understand the shade that's been thrown these guys' way. It's a perfectly polite and listenable electronica album - maybe a touch unremarkable and the sort of music you'd hear on the old Sky TV Guide menu screen, but hardly a poor offering.

The vocals are genuinely lovely, anchoring the instrumentation well. It's not a particularly upbeat electronica album which I guess does relegate it to a fairly narrow niche in terms of when I'd put it on again, and it is very attributable to its time production wise through the programmed drums and synth textures, but I don't much mind that.

Apparently this isn't the only album they have in the 1001 list, which seems a tad excessive.

The Good: We’ve got everything but the girl…
The Bad: We kinda wanted the girl more than the boy…
The Ugly: Uncertain where the wound is which we are walking around with…

It’s all so casual… isn't it? Walking wounded… Like it’s nothing… Like it’s applying some lip-liner…

Anyway, the music… what can not be denied is that Mrs Anything But The Girl has a terrific voice. Boy oh boy, she knows how to sing.
Mr Anything But The Girl, well, he knows how to sport the jacket he’s wearing… right?

For me this is mid-90s lounge music, perfect for an afternoon of easy drinking, followed by a night of heaving boozing and some kebabs at the end…

Anyway, that was the young me.
The old me got bored of the music pretty fast…

So, here’s bored me giving the most boring score I can think of, without insulting them spectacular vocals…

3*

This album put me to sleep twice. Not good.

Pretty boring music

This was very chill and overall a great listen. Very easy listening and calming experience. Great vocals as well, very fitting with the whole vibe of the record. I really liked it a lot. It's like trip hop mixed with drum and bass.

fun!

Tracy Thorn has a genuinely powerful voice — warm, melancholy, and completely distinctive. On Walking Wounded it's the constant that holds everything together, and it deserves better than what surrounds it here. The mid-90s drum and bass-inflected production that made "Missing" a surprise international hit becomes the dominant presence across the full album, and for this listener at least, it works against the songs rather than serving them.
The programmed drums and synth textures create distance rather than momentum. What should feel intimate — Thorn's voice is built for intimacy — instead floats in a slightly antiseptic electronic framework that pushes the music toward background listening rather than genuine engagement. It's not that the production is poorly executed. It's that it keeps pulling attention away from the thing that actually matters.
There's probably more depth here for a closer listen, and the fault may be as much about fit as quality. But a record that consistently recedes into the background rather than demanding attention has a fundamental problem regardless of its craft credentials.
A broader observation feels appropriate here too: the 1001 Albums list is generous in what it considers essential, and Walking Wounded is a reasonable example of that generosity. Historically interesting, competently made, and not something most listeners would reach for as a desert island record. A fair three — neither terrible nor truly essential.

Ooooo one I really like! Not familiar with their electronic stuff much before today, but I was having a right groovy old time here. Love the juxtaposition of electronic music and Tracey Thorn's voice, creates a chill but still boppy vibe.

Today’s album was Walking Wounded by Everything But The Girl. When I saw this come up I wasn’t particularly excited, but it actually turned out to be a really enjoyable listen.

The first two tracks are very strong. Before Today and Wrong both stand out straight away with great music and solid lyrics. It starts the album off really well and pulls you in.

This is very 90s in sound, really chilled and easy to listen to. It’s the kind of album you can just have on and let it run. My only issue is the lack of variation. As it goes on, a lot of the tracks start to sound quite similar and it loses a bit of impact.

Favourite tracks: Wrong and Before Today are great songs and make for a very strong start
Least favourite tracks: There isn’t a bad track on here, it just becomes a bit samey as it goes on
Album artwork: I remember this cover from my youth, still a good one

I remember first hearing of them through Missing from the previous album, and I think I remember hearing Wrong from this one. I remember seeing this album cover art a lot. But the rest of the album was just ok.

I’ve never heard of this artist, which isn’t surprising as I’m not from the UK and this feels like a “you had to be there in the 90s” kind of artist.

The first track, Before Today, was actually pretty interesting and I kind of dig the drum track in it. Unfortunately, it’s followed up by just an awfully boring, 4-on-the-floor electronic dance track and then slips into some awfully boring easy listening music. There are some interesting beats and electronics that appear from time to time, like on Flipside, but nothing that made me think that this was an album that really needed to be heard before you die.

I made it as far as the song "Wrong" before I thought "this sounds like whatever group made that 'and I miss you like the deserts miss the rain' song" …and I was right - it’s called "Missing", from 1994's Amplified Heart. That song was pounded into my brain by some tv commercial for a compilation album that I had to sit through almost constantly at one point in the 90s. The 90s loved trying to sell you something with a 1-800 number and a TV commercial.

Anyway, this whole album is not all that different from that song; maybe less interesting. For a group called Everything But The Girl, they seem pretty hyper focused on putting the girl front and center and not doing ANYthing else even remotely interesting that might risk distracting you from her. I considered abandoning it 1/2 way through, but stuck it out til the last song just so I could say I won. I've spent this whole review talking about a song that's not even on the record, so maybe I’ll save my stars for whenever I probably have to listen to that album.

It isnt the worst brit house music ive heard on this list but its pretty damn boring. The fact ive got 250 albums remaining out of the 1089 and this band has at least 1 more album for me to listen to has me sighing

Immediately thought of the XX with the female vocal and electronica vibe. It's an easy listen. Nothing to be super excited about but nothing terrible either. 3/5.

Gotta be honest, my mind drifted and I completely forgot I was listening to this for a good ten minutes at least.

On a positive though the singer does have a really good voice. It just wasn’t for me whatsoever. I found it unfathomably dull.

Walking Wounded was a pretty good album. This one definitely feels quite a lot more electronic than the last Everything But The Girl album i heard as it really does go hard on it's electronica tag. It does remind me a lot of Madonna's Ray Of Light in quite a bit of ways. Both albums feel rather electronic and the songs in both feel as if they have rather similar structures too. Granted, this one uses less styles of music than the former and because of that, gets repetitive faster but i still never hated my time with this album. I also liked it quite a bit more than Idlewild as it just feels like it is more of my style of music. Pretty good album if i say so myself.
Best Song: Wrong
Worst Song: Good Cop, Bad Cop

I quite like downtempo house with female vocals on top, and this is no exception

3.75

You know those sex scenes that are all closeups of elbows crossfading with lit candles to maintain a PG-13 rating? This sounded like music specifically written to underscore those scenes.

It’s like they spent all of their studio time programming the drum machines and then someone was like, “Shit! We’ve only got 15 minutes to record all the vocals and synths!”

YABA!!!
Yet Another British Album :(
More 90s british music -- but will THIS one be any different?
...
Ok, don't hate it as much upon listening to it. Kinda reminds me of the xx. Listenable (that's like saying food is edible), but not outstanding.