Additional personnel: Richard Thompson (guitar); Peter King (alto saxophone); Kate St. John (English horn); John Coxon, Ben Watt (keyboards, programming); Danny Thompson (acoustic bass); Dave Mattacks (drums); Martin Ditcham (percussion).

Producers: Ben Watt, Tracey Thorn, John Coxon.

Recorded in London, England in winter 1993.

Despite its title, Amplified Heart is one of Everything but the Girl's more acoustic works. A simple instrumentation of guitars and keyboards, augmented here and there by British folk-rock veterans like Richard Thompson, Danny Thompson, and Dave Mattacks, serves to set up a series of songs of romantic disillusionment. Declaring "my life is just an image of a roller coaster, anyway" and "I don't understand anything," among other things, over and over the songs speak of confusion and disappointment deriving from failed love affairs. The approach is much more introspective than that taken on the group's previous album of new music, Worldwide, but Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt's musical restraint supports it well. This is an album to listen to when you've just broken up with your lover, or even when you're just in the mood to think about lost lovers from long ago -- self-pity set to music. ~ William Ruhlmann

On AMPLIFIED HEART, this pop duo's mesmerizing blend of swooning Fleetwood Mac-like vocal textures and modern dance floor beats is a departure from their previously sparse, jazzy acoustic style, but is equally as beautiful. Out of a fertile territory of delicate melodies and precise musical passages, vocalist Tracey Thorn allows us to peer in at both her chilling memories and warmest moments. With the often overwhelming sincerity of Ben Watt's musical accompaniement to Thorn's settled vocals, AMPLIFIED HEART is everything adult-oriented pop needs to be.