If you’ve been on social media lately you may have noticed there’s been an upsurge in nostalgia for the years between roughly 2008 and 2012, this brief glowing pocket of time where indie culture still felt handmade and full of possibility. Before social media was embedded into our phones and taken over by ads and algorithms, when we were all just taking 100 photos on a digital camera on a night out, watching HBO’s Girls and wearing American Apparel disco pants. The Tiktok teens are calling it the “Millennial Optimism Years”. For me, who turned 18 the year Obama was elected, went to fashion school and moved to Portland in 2012, I lived the absolute peak of it. During that time, much like I am now, I was absolutely obsessed with new music discovery and I still remember the very moment I came across King Tuff on one of the music blogs I checked daily. His single “Bad Thing” had just dropped and it was so refreshing, so crunchy and alive and joyous- I was immediately hooked.
King Tuff’s self-titled album became one of those records permanently fused to memory for me- it was full of songs I put on every single mix cd I made, songs that I would play for people I wanted to impress. It became the soundtrack I put on when packing up my first apartment and moving up north to the Pacific Northwest. When I first got to see Kyle and King Tuff live in Sacramento in 2012, he was sweaty and wild and probably more than a little buzzed- just absolutely rocking in that perfectly chaotic way that made early King Tuff feel less like a band and more like a possessed garage séance.
Over the years, King Tuff drifted into something more whimsical and cosmic. Albums like Black Moon Spell still ripped, but there was increasingly this elvish mysticism around the project — flower-child psych, glowing mushrooms, stardust weirdness. I love those eras too. When I saw King Tuff a few years ago supporting Smalltown Stardust he even came out in sort of wizard garb, which was lovely and entertaining and the show killed but I’ve always been partial to the energy and vibes of that self-titled pink covered album.
Until the release of Moo this March. We are BACKKKKK. Moo feels like hearing someone suddenly reconnect with the voltage source underneath all of it. Kyle has found his way back to his truest form.
The press release for the album is basically Kyle describing a spiritual reawakening through tape hiss and blown-out speakers. He talks about dragging his old Tascam 388 out of storage in Vermont, recording onto the same machine he used for his earliest material, and immediately “feeling like himself again.” After years of obsessing over waveforms on a computer and sanding songs down into lifeless perfection, he rediscovered the joy of mistakes. “There’s not enough mistakes,” he says at one point, which honestly feels like the thesis statement not just for Moo, but for an entire generation of over-curated modern indie music.
Because Moo is alive in a way so much newer rock music no longer allows itself to be. The guitars snarl and glitter- there’s something so unique about Kyle’s guitar playing because he had his start in the super stoner rock band Witch but clearly also has a love of jangly powerpoppy catchy goodness. Opening track “Twisted on A Train” is a true return to form- absolutely sick guitar licks, huge sound, diving headfirst into some psychedelic freakout midway through before coming straight back to the driving rhythm. Songs like “Landline” and “Invisible Ink” have the huge sticky hooks that King Tuff has always been capable of, but they also feel loose, like they were captured before anybody had the chance to second-guess them to death. There’s no click track here, no autotune. The whole record radiates this feeling of instinct over optimization. “Stairway To Nowhere” and “East of Ordinary” have a locked in 70s groove and a sort of stadium clap-along energy, while “Oil Change” feels like it could’ve been pulled from Was Dead- just punky, pogo-worthy fun that’s over in 2 and half minutes.
At one point Kyle describes rock and roll as “the music of rodents and bugs,” saying it should sound like it crawled out of a trash can instead of being polished into content for playlists. That energy is all over Moo. Not in some exhausted “return to basics” legacy artist way, either. This doesn’t sound like nostalgia bait or a self-conscious attempt to recreate the past. It sounds energized. Reinvigorated. Like someone remembering why they loved making music in the first place.
And maybe that’s why Moo hit me so hard emotionally. Hearing it takes me right back to the thrill of hearing King Tuff for the first time, that energy and exuberance that was there in my early 20s. Not because it sounds exactly like 2012, but because it taps back into something that felt increasingly extinct: messy, physical, deeply human rock music made by people who still seem genuinely thrilled to be making noise.
And Kyle does sound thrilled to be playing this album, especially when you see him play it live. The live band he has put together right now, holy shit. The 3 piece he is currently touring is the tightest, brightest, most locked in I have seen him, ever. I saw them last week on Cinco de Mayo in Portland, knowing that I would be including some coverage of the show into this record review. After the show ended I realized I took absolutely zero videos because I didn’t want to waste one single second to take out my phone- I was so entranced by the band and just wanted to dance and rock and sweat with the crowd. The band had no set list, just tore through all the new material plus threw in some of old favorites, and came back out for an encore including “You Wreck Me” By Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers and of course “Bad Thing”. The crowd was all feeding off the energy the band was putting forth- mooing back in response to everything Kyle said, dancing and moving together. Kyle took a moment to compliment me and another girl in the crowd who were wearing cow print, which made me feel very cool.
Moo is a real return to form to King Tuff- whether we have to thank the repair of his Tascam 388, his use of his trusty SG steed Jazijoo, his move back to Vermont, unconsciously tapping into Millennial Nostalgia or something else entirely, I’m grateful for its existence. Go pick up a copy now!
Follow King Tuff: https://www.hellomerch.com/collections/king-tuff
Buy Moo: https://www.hellomerch.com/collections/king-tuff
Banbcamp: /kingtuff.bandcamp.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/KingTuffy
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kingtuffy
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/kingtuffy
