King Tuff

On his latest record Kyle Thomas makes a return to roots, ditching a life under the smog and smoke of L.A. for a jaunt back East to where it all began. Settled into Brattleboro, Thomas fixed up the original tape machine that wrought his debut Mindblow (or Was Dead if your CD-r bin is shallow). The return to the reels also brought an embrace of the more immediate, DIY process that pumped through the veins of his first record. That immediacy, along with a love of the Northeast, is at the heart of MOO. Along the way Kyle might have picked up a trick or two, so the record sounds a touch bigger than Tuff in its infancy, but at the core both albums are power pop gems with shaggy hearts. It’s good to have Tuff back in the ‘boro, and likewise to have the ‘boro back in Tuff.

Back in 2006, King Tuff was born out of a home-brewed pressure cooker; a solo stint etched to bedroom tape between the smoke clouds of Witch and the free folk family hour of Feathers. The same pop itch hits on MOO. It feels like a record made to exorcise pop demons — dear journal in-jokes and Vermont love letters tossed into the blender with pop rocks and set to spin. MOO, as a result, hits like the year’s first rays of East Coast sun, shaking off the plastic facade of L.A. to land among the post-hippie punks pulling Sun Medallions out of flea market stalls. The record aims for just East of Ordinary and succeeds nicely, dragging it’s patched denim particulars out into the light. The record chews on a power pop that’s lodged between eras, reverent and ragged in ways that might send you on a Blogspot download deep dive to fill the headphones with source material. Hits so good, you might accidentally grab for the faceplate on the CD player on the way out of the car.

Support the artist. Buy it HERE.