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.”
“I met a lot of characters during my years in clubland, and I wrote this song about the guy at the end of the night, who dreams his big moment is just around the corner,” Watt said of the song in a statement. “All the bravado and good intentions masking the vulnerability.”
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.
Of the video, Thorn added, “The video is like a dream of the story. We’ve found with this record that choreography can express the emotion in our music without having to be too literal. The characters, the clothes, the movement, the direction all just fit. Charlie and his team really get the feelings we’re going for. It’s been a great collaboration.”
“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.