2 out of 5

Label: Artist One-Stop

Producer: Jon Congleton

Well, the lyrics aren’t as annoying as the follow-up ‘Black Glove’ album, but perhaps only because they don’t make much of an impact.  There’s some interesting ground covered in the likes of tracks like ‘Lovable Losers’ and ‘Caligula,’ but for every hint of a good chorus or interesting line, there’s some pretty obvious stuff like ‘Baby’s Having Babies’ or generic new-wave dance schmap like ‘Young Doctors In Love.’  But either way, George Quartz totally 80s vocalizing delivers it well enough, even with a tad less malaise than on ‘Glove,’ as evidenced by the secret track which appears in produced form on that same followup.

Now this style isn’t exactly my style, but I think it’s a tad too generic to really work for fans of the whole pseudo new-wave thing.  ‘Glove’ hinted at some frenzy, as assisted by Congleton’s layered production, and where that peeks through on ‘Cusp’ – the opening track, ‘Caligula,’ again – Faux Fox kicks out some cool beats and sounds.  But the tracks don’t build to anything as select moments would on that other album that I’ve now mentioned like 50,000 times, and Jon’s production tricks aren’t here to flesh things out so much as just provide the tools.  Since I don’t think of Fox as having the most developed songwriting skills, this method flops and so nothing much happens beyond getting your toe tapping.

‘Cusp’ doesn’t annoy me like ‘Glove’ did, and there are even some moments that hint at an old-school / new-school fusion of sounds, but the band (and the production) don’t capitalize on it to any great effect.