Tuff Love: Resort (Lost Map Records)
LP | CD | DL
Out 5th February 2016
9/10
Tuff Love have taken their time evolving into a powerful live band, self-producing three brilliant EPs with Resort being the culmination of their hard work.
Glaswegian duo Tuff Love are finally set to release their long awaited debut album, Resort collates the bands three EPs into one handy package. With all tracks being recorded in bassist Suse’s flat, the band self-produce and engineer everything themselves and the results are frankly excellent.
Their heartfelt tracks coupled with upbeat summery melodies have won them a great number of fans, including Ride who personally invited the duo to support them last year. With a string of festival dates under their belt, Tuff Love are battle hardened and Resort benefits from this.
Opening track Sweet Discontent, sums up the entire album in a track, there’s a racing melody underpinning a barrage of unhappiness that exudes from the lyrics. As they complain of “sweet discontent and unease” there’s urgency reminiscent of Joanna Gruesome, as they cut the guitar driven rhythm with these sombre words.
That’s Right is another stand out track, with its driving bass and piercing blasts of fuzzed guitar, and packed with intensity it oozes hip shaking swagger. This is Tuff Love at their grungiest; as they chant “that’s right” it’s a track fizzing with confidence and excitement.
Yet Tuff Love show a slightly more vulnerable side in Cum, whilst the heavy bass remains, there’s something much more delicate about it. It’s laid-back as they sing of longing for someone to come back, and there are those trademark fuzzy guitars but they part to allow the lyrics to stand out.
As the album closes out with tracks from the Dross EP, Tuff Love appears to have honed their sound. There’s a newfound clarity in their guitars, whilst they maintain the ferocity that’s been present almost throughout. Threads really shows this off to such a fine extent as this trio of brilliant EPs comes to an end.
Resort shows Tuff Love’s evolution, from the heavily fuzzed up urgency of their first EP Junk, through the delicacy of the second Dregs to the culminating brilliance of Dross. Let this take absolutely nothing away from the early tracks though, all of which have their own exciting sound.
Every track is grounded with a real story to tell, there’s a beating heart that is synonymous across all of the tracks. There’s angst, there’s urgency, there’s vulnerability but overall it’s a brilliant album packed with fuzzy guitars driving bass and pounding drums.
All words by Lee Hammond. You can check out more work by Lee at his Louder Than War author’s archive, he also tweets as @Napzap.
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