This jazz-rooted, seven-piece London combo first whetted the palettes of forward-looking music connoisseurs with their 2019 self-titled EP, and became word-of-mouth sensations on the strength of their 2022 full-length debut Could We Be More. Now, in a development sure to please the thousands of new ear canals currently ingesting Kokoroko’s entrancing, groovy sounds, Tuff Times Never Last (Brownswood Recordings) leapfrogs genres even more gracefully, weaving Fela Kuti’s Afrobeat and the larger Black music diaspora through shimmering threads of pop, R&B, and neo-soul.
The glorious highlife guitar noodlings and cresting horns of the group’s earlier work are as effective as ever on songs such as the sumptuous “Idea 5 (Call My Name)” and the yearning, slap bass-studded “Just Can’t Wait,” but the greater emphasis on singing introduces surprising new delights into the mix, from the sleek, Sade-meets-The Love Boat “Da Du Dah” to the almost gospel-y “My Father in Heaven,” which finds salvation in divine, Stevie Wonder-style stacked vocals.
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There are no lyrical profundities on Tuff Times Never Last — rather, there’s a pervasive sense of connection and shared experience at play here, from the musicians’ ceaseless rhythmic intuition to the joyous “aah aah aaahs” lifting the gently bumping “Together We Are” into the stratosphere. The electric piano solo on “Time and Time” would even bring a smile to Bob James’ face. Across these 11 songs, dreams are never lost, your baby comes closer and closer, kids can be heard laughing and playing in the background, and the band members crack themselves up at the goofiness of a spaceship sound effect.
It may be wishful thinking, but if these tuff times really are just ephemeral, we’ll all owe Kokoroko a heck of a debt of gratitude for helping us run out the clock.
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