Acoustic presents two side projects in one. The first half of it consists of
Everything but the Girl's covers of six songs by other contemporary performers. The second half contains two live recordings and four re-recordings of songs from
Everything but the Girl's repertoire. All of the songs are performed with spare, acoustic instrumentation. The group's favorites are predictable --
Bruce Springsteen,
Elvis Costello, and
Tom Waits at their quietest -- and while the choices are indisputably good ones -- "Alison," "Downtown Train,"
Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time" -- they are also familiar, and
Ben Watt and
Tracey Thorn don't bring anything new to them. Their own material is calm and contemplative anyway, so stripping away the synthesizers doesn't affect the arrangements much.
Acoustic is a pleasant-sounding, inessential
Everything but the Girl album. ~ William Ruhlmann