[1] Watt continued to build on the sound of Everything but the Girl's previous album Walking Wounded (1996), on which the duo worked with electronic music artists such as Howie B and Spring Heel Jack, in producing Temperamental.

He incorporated production techniques that he had learned from his three years as a resident DJ at Bar Rumba and Notting Hill Arts Club into the album's songs, including crossfading, back spinning, and filtering.

[3] AllMusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine viewed Temperamental as a continuation of the musical direction pursued by Everything but the Girl on Walking Wounded, merging electronica with elements of folk, jazz, and pop.

[8] "It's not as poppy as Walking Wounded," Thorn would later write, attributing the album's darker and less accessible nature to the circumstances surrounding its creation: "It's like going back to Amplified Heart: you can tell it's made by people who are in a stage of turmoil and change again.

[22] Spin critic Barry Walters said that on Temperamental, "EBTG's early bossa-nova folk has been fully transformed into a contemporary sonic physicality that washes the album's desperation with sweaty, regenerative joy", finding that the duo's "radical departure" on Walking Wounded sounds "tentative by comparison.

"[31] In his review for AllMusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote that "Temperamental isn't all that different than its predecessor, but its blend of house, electronica, pop, jazz, and folk is equally satisfying as that landmark album.

"[4] Ernesto Lechner of the Los Angeles Times stated that the duo manages "to dispel any doubts about its validity in the field of ethereal dance music",[25] while in Rolling Stone, Rob Sheffield noted their "elegantly morose songcraft" and concluded, "if Cole Porter had composed a disco song cycle for Dusty Springfield, it might have sounded like this.

"[30] Daryl Easlea, in a retrospective review for Record Collector, highlighted Thorn's performance on the album, commenting that "her ability to understate emotion is arguably unparalleled in British pop music".

[27] NME reviewer Gill Whyte disparaged the duo's take on house music as "diabolically banal, ersatz coffee-table, piss-weak tinniness", and their lyrics as "nothing more than the moanings of a 30-something, glossy-reading self-help enthusiast".