Their efforts resulted in a primarily new wave record, which Jackson described as being "warmer" and "sexier" than her debut studio album, La Roux (2009).
In an interview with BBC Radio 6 Music on 27 November 2009, La Roux frontwoman Elly Jackson announced that she and Ben Langmaid had plans to start writing material for the duo's second album at their manager's house in France over the Christmas period.
During her show in Brighton, she debuted four new songs that would eventually be included on Trouble in Paradise: "Uptight Downtown", "Kiss and Not Tell", "Sexotheque" and "Tropical Chancer".
[9] In late June, Langmaid responded to Jackson's comments in a statement published in NME magazine, saying, "We've had creative differences in the past (what band hasn't?)
[12] Speaking to Spinner in October 2010, Jackson declared that she did not intend to "make synth music for the rest of [her] fucking life" and that "[t]he whole genre is so over", adding that she wanted the second album to be "more human, more open, warmer".
[5][16] According to Hugh Montgomery of The Independent, the album replaces the "chilly retro-futurism" of its predecessor with "a lissom tropical-pop sound, complete with funk guitar, calypso rhythms and love among the palm trees",[17] while Nick Levine of Time Out London commented that La Roux's new sound incorporates "Chic-like guitar licks and balmy synth parts straight off early MTV".
[19][20] The album opens with "Uptight Downtown", which Jackson wrote about the 2011 London riots, specifically the energy that she perceived in Brixton at the time.
[23][27] Alexis Petridis of The Guardian hailed the track as "the most sublimely euphoric exploration in recent pop history of the pressures placed by society on the individual who declines to define themselves as either straight or gay.
"[28] The chillout ballad "Paradise Is You" is a "panic-prevention visualisation technique disguised as a love song",[17][23] led by a piano and lush synth pads.
[29] Named after a sex club that Jackson saw while visiting the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland,[30] the mid-tempo disco song "Sexotheque" is about a man who ignores his girlfriend for seedier pleasures.
[4][31] "Tropical Chancer" is a disco and electro-calypso track that incorporates elements of reggae and dancehall, set against a Nile Rodgers-inspired funk guitar and echoing steel drums.
[23] The song opens with a "steady electronic beat bumping through the buzz", and after a brief moment of silence, it builds into a "euphoric, cathartic barnstormer, complete with skyscraping sax solo.
[25] Trouble in Paradise was officially announced on 12 May 2014, and on the same day, the song "Let Me Down Gently" premiered on Zane Lowe's BBC Radio 1 show.
[38] The album's first official single,[5] "Uptight Downtown", premiered on Lowe's BBC Radio 1 show on 27 May 2014,[39] and was released digitally the following day.
[45][46] On 3 April 2014, La Roux announced a North American tour, which spanned 10 dates from 1 June to 13 July, including two opening shows for New Order in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
[49] Alexis Petridis of The Guardian wrote that "La Roux's sound has expanded its horizons" and "the songwriting quality never really dips", concluding, "Almost sickeningly overburdened with fantastic tunes, Trouble in Paradise may well be not just a triumph against the odds, but the best pop album we'll hear this year.
"[17] Matthew Horton of NME observed that the use of bass on the album "irrevocably switch[ed] the La Roux sound from sparse to lush."
He also observed "traces of the turmoil" on songs such as "Let Me Down Gently", "Silent Partner" and "Paradise Is You", stating, "In spite of all the terror and uncertainty, it's the warmth that lingers.
"[23] Dean Van Nguyen of Clash viewed the album as "an altogether brighter piece" than its predecessor, and wrote that "this polished set is pure aural candy from front-to-back and firmly re-establishes Jackson as one of Britain's premier pop talents.
"[50] Kevin Liedel of Slant Magazine characterised Trouble in Paradise as "a much more balanced and consistent effort" than La Roux, but felt that "[w]hen Trouble in Paradise loses its way, it's because Jackson has traded in her frigid allure and commanding bellicosity for frailty and soft-heartedness, sentiments she doesn't deliver with any sort of sincerity.