It’s like a sign from above. There’s ten inches of pink vinyl spinning around right in front of me on the turntable of love and I know it is God – in Her infinite inscrutability – telling me that I was right about something. The something? Tuff Love and their prospects for 2015. That’s the something.
My fondness for their debut EP “Junk” led me to proclaim Tuff Love as a band destined to have greatness or, at the very least, widespread popular affection delivered to them by first class mail throughout 2015. Now there is their EP obliquely named “Dross” to tempt your ears to reflect on the glories of C86 and the reasons why so many other bands have a grasp that will never exceed their reach.
On “Dross”, you get five lessons – let it be so - on how to write a scuzzy indie pop song and make it both interesting and accessible at the same time with Tuff Love using sweet harmonies and sharp lyrics to give the misfit a voice without ever straying into polemic territory. Point your ears at “Slammer” or “Sebastian” and you won’t need to be Mr Spock to understand their motivations.
Make no mistake about it, Tuff Love are a cut from a different cloth. Many of their contemporaries draw their musical energy from the same well as Tuff Love but few will ever understand that sugar coating the truth makes the message all the clearer. Revel therefore in five pink songs properly performed and be simultaneously glad that you, like them, still have a heart.