WORTH A LOOK?: ****1/2

Everything But The Girl’s career has embraced a wide variety of styles and this new single marks a return to where it all began, the laidback jazz of 1984’s debut album Eden.

• Read on for reasons including everything we know about the new album

It’s the chorus of: ‘Yes, I’m older and wiser. I know more than I did then. But I’d give up all the wisdom to be Young And Dumb again’ that hits hardest on 1st listen.

Singer Tracey Thorn is now 64 years old and it’s a sentiment not often expressed in pop music that rings very true with this 56-year-old writer.

We saw Thorn and Ben Watt at Hackney’s The MOTH Club in April 2025 for their 1st gig in a quarter of a century. We wrote: ‘The opening song is the band’s debut single Night And Day from 1982 and it’s just amazing to be hearing Thorn’s deep, soulful, yearning vocal live.’

Perhaps we should have guessed their MOTH Club run would continue – 30 sold-out gigs thus far and showing no sign of stopping – and that simple early sound would be the inspiration to where they would gravitate towards.

‘There was an intensity and simplicity to the MOTH shows that took us back to how we started out,’ Thorn told Classic Pop. ‘Direct, rooted in guitar and voice, a few extra colours. We hadn’t been in that world for a long time and it just felt fresh and real.’

Watt bought a Spanish nylon-string guitar in January 2026 to write and perform on. ‘It is the sound of so much of the music I first connected with growing up, and I’d never actually owned one. It became quite an emotional springboard for me. I found a voice I thought I’d lost,’ he said.

The music was written in early 2026 – 9 on guitar and 1 on piano – with Thorn penning half a dozen lyrics to Watt’s 3. It was recorded at RAK Studios in London over 10 days in July.

Young And Dumb‘s lyrical opening is just perfect: ‘At 17 I lived for drama but now I don’t have the armour’. Album Blue Reservoir is out 19 February 2027.

• Main pictures via Facebook courtesy Everything But The Girl Tickets
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