Tuff Love - Resort
8/10
Young Glaswegian songstresses Julie Eisenstein and Suse Bear throw all their Junk, Dross and Dregs into one neat package, producing a chronological anthology of their output so far. Only Groucho, the limited edition release for Record Store Day is missing from this collection of fifteen tracks reproduced in the original running order of those first three EP's.
Those who saw Tuff Love supporting Ride on their comeback tour in the spring were quick to realise that this was far more than a shoegaze-inspired tribute, and Resort perfectly plots the trajectory that this still-evolving duo are set on. Early pop grunge offerings like Sweet Discontent soon make way for melting vocal harmonies and melodic aggression borne out of adolescent adjustment to a world being fucked up by adults. Iain Stewart (The Phantom Band) adds drums to a perfectly balanced interplay of guitar and bass as themes of loves lost and missed opportunity showcase a developing maturity in the later tracks Cum and Threads.
The final track from the collection, Carbon, emerges as a perfectly-formed diamond, a shining gem of compressed guitars and voices demonstrating Tuff Love's confidence to move onwards and upwards.
8/10
