British duo Everything But the Girl have shared another new song, “Run a Red Light,” from their forthcoming comeback album, Fuse, out April 21.
The song is a smoldering ballad, with producer Ben Watt weaving buzzing synths and heavy kicks around a steady piano progression. Tracey Thorn captures the feeling of invincibility and vulnerability that late-night adventures conjure, building to a hook where she sings, “Run a red light, forget the morning, this is tonight.”
That theme is captured in the song’s music video, directed by Charlie Di Placido, in which two dancers (Vanessa Pang and Samuel Caleb Baxter) fly around a big empty house where a raging party is confined to a lone room.
“Run a Red Light” is the third song Everything but the Girl has shared from Fuse, following “Nothing Left to Lose” and “Caution to the Wind.” Fuse — which the duo first teased last November before officially announcing in January — marks Everything But the Girl’s first album in 24 years, following 1999’s Tempermental.
Everything But the Girl started working on Fuse in March 2021, recording the album at home and in a studio outside Bath, England, with producer Bruno Ellingham. “We were aware of the pressures of such a long-awaited comeback, so we tried to begin instead in a spirit of open-minded playfulness, uncertain of the direction, receptive to invention,” Thorn said in a statement when the album was announced.
During the two decades Everything But the Girl was dormant, Thorn and Watt (who are married) remained busy with other projects and did work together. Thorn’s output included several solo albums, EPs, and multiple memoirs, including 2021’s My Rock ‘n’ Roll Friend, about her friendship with the Go-Betweens’ Lindy Morrison. Watt, meanwhile, ran his record label, Strange Feeling, and released a couple of albums of his own.
