King Tuff

King Tuff – Smalltown Stardust (deluxe dust) (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 55:52 minutes | 636 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Sub Pop Records

When he recorded the 2018 album The Other, King Tuff’s Kyle Thomas had grown weary of the power pop-meets-punk sound of the band and the rock & roll party-guy persona he had crafted to go along with it. Instead, he started making music that was more introspective and darkly psychedelic. 2023’s Smalltown Stardust moves even further away from the King Tuff formula in many important ways. Swearing off his sneering vocal style in favor of a heartfelt croon and stashing his guitar away for the most part, Thomas created the album in tandem with housemate Sasami Ashworth. She has a hand in the songwriting and production as well as adding many of the keyboards and strings that add color to the songs. The pair cook up a sound that’s warm and comforting enough to perfectly capture the sense of nostalgia that imbues the lyrics and melodies. Thomas wrote the songs while thinking back to his days growing up, figuring things out, and making music with friends in Vermont, and the tenderness that comes through in his words and voice is immense. Maybe not what anyone might expect from Thomas in this guise, but he proves just as good at getting down to some serious emotions as he does rocking out. Ashworth’s help is invaluable; her backing vocals are one click past beautiful, the instrumentation she adds gives the record a widescreen beauty, and having her as a foil seems to have opened Thomas up to being completely vulnerable and free. The combination of talents works almost like a superpower that unlocks the best from each musician. While the album does have a few tracks with a little bit of the rock & roll spark one might associate with King Tuff — both “Portrait of God” and “Rock River” bounce along nicely and feature guitars more heavily — where the album really hits home is on the ballads. Songs like “How I Love” or “Pebbles in a Stream” are like beacons from a lonely heart, “Love Letters to Plants” conjures up the warped sweetness of late-’60s Beach Boys, the Baroque pop-leaning “Always Find Me” is almost painfully pretty, and “Tell Me” uses the very familiar Fleetwood Mac trope but manages to escape scorn by being wonderfully light and melodic. Thomas also dips into fairly traditional singer/songwriter territory on the story song “The Bandits of Blue Sky,” but he keeps it weird and wonderful with some oddball bass sounds, swooping synth strings, and Ashworth’s rich vocal harmonies. Basically, this new direction for King Tuff is a perfect left turn, pulled off with a maximum amount of feeling and imagination. Aided by Ashworth’s sure hand, the new leaf Thomas turns over here means that Smalltown Stardust is just as good a mellow, meaningful King Tuff album as Was Dead is a rollicking, down-and-dirty rock record. Which is to say, really, really good indeed. – Tim Sendra

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King Tuff – The Other (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 43:39 minutes | 515 MB | Genre: Alternative
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Sub Pop Records

King Tuff is the neo-garage alter ego of Kyle Thomas (Happy Birthday, Feathers, Witch). “The Other”, his fourth full-length release, was self-produced and features contributions from Mikal Cronin, Jenny Lewis, Charles Moothart Kevin Morby, Greta Morgan, and Ty Segall. While not all-out riotous slacker-pop, he incorporates particles of honky-tonk rock, wry witticism in an admittedly more muted and seasoned, but still measured, present-day evolution of King Tuff.

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King Tuff – Smalltown Stardust (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 38:24 minutes | 444 MB | Genre: Indie Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Sub Pop Records

There are times in our life when we feel magic in the air. When new love arrives, or we find ourselves lost in a moment of creation with others who share our vision. A sense that: this is who I want to be. This is what I want to share.

It’s a fleeting feeling and one that Kyle Thomas, the singer-songwriter who records and performs as King Tuff, found himself longing for in the spring of 2020.

But knowing he couldn’t simply recreate this time in his life at will, Thomas—who hails from Brattleboro, Vermont—set out to write a love letter to those cherished moments of inspiration and to the small town that formed him. The one where he first nurtured his songwriting impulses, bouncing ideas off other like-minded artists. The kind of place where the changing of the seasons always delivered a sense of perspective and fresh artistic inspiration. Where he felt a deeper connection with nature and sense of community that had once been so close at hand.

“I wanted to make an album to remind myself that life is magical,” he reflects.

And so, Thomas seized upon his memories, creating what he calls “an album about love and nature and youth.”

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