Tuxedo - Tuxedo II

Tuxedo
Tuxedo II
2017
Spotify

I wrote about Tuxedo's debut album Tuxedo (Tuxedo) almost exactly two years ago. 2015 seems like an insanely simpler time and musically like a million years ago but you are not going to find much evolution on the follow up Tuxedo II. With the likes of Mayer Hawthorne and Gavin Turek involved you would expect a 70s twinged Funk, Soul and Disco party which is exactly what you get. However it is all you get. Gavin Turek's recent EP was really great because it took Disco, which she is fantastic at, and moved it forward. Tuxedo seem to be content sitting in the same guitar riffs, bass lines and synthy backing track after track after track. They are likely doing what they do better than anyone else out there today, but if that music is not going anywhere it is hard to stay interested. That is not to say that the album is a bore, because it really is not. Each track has such a fun upbeat vibe that you can't help but bop along, maybe even breaking into an all out dance party at points. You want these moments to last and hang with you but Tuxedo II  seems to go in one ear and out the other leaving little if any lasting impression. Snoop Dogg actually offers his turn up the party voice to the albums opener "Fux With the Tux" giving you quite a bit of hope for a non-stop party, but even that promise is never fully actualized.

The slowed down tracks like "Rotational" and "Shine" are where the record really suffers. They have a slow song at a Middle School Dance ability to clear the dancefloor. "Scooter's Groove" has vocals that are basically people talking at a party saying mildly amusing thing, but you just find yourself asking why? at the end of the track. If you are able to make it to the end of the record you will be hard pressed to pick out a favorite song, they just don't leave anywhere near the impression to add to a playlist or revisit. At 37 minutes you would expect the album to sail by, but often Tuxedo will hang on one line of music for so long that even these party disco tracks drag. The bones seem to be here, the voices are clearly here, but the record is just to damn dated. There is not one point on this album where you do not want it to succeed, it is just so nice, but it just never really works all that well.

5.0 out of 10