Imagine you find yourself in your car, your room, or your friend’s house and you can’t decide what you feel like listening to. You ask yourself a series of questions: “do I want to listen to rock? Or do I want to listen to pop?”
Rarely in the music world do you have bands that can fuse together two genres of music that are complete polar opposites and even more rare do these bands ever create a successful career from the mix. King Tuff is among one of the fortunate ones to call themselves “decent.”
From the sound of their music, King Tuff succeeded in mixing the elements of rock n’ roll with a somewhat of a “pop” sound. Some of their songs from their second album, like “Bad Thing,” “Anthem,” and “Stranger” have a classic rock sound to it. King Tuff’s, low, nasal voice that occasionally veers off into high key tonality has a “Bob Dylan” essence to it. It’s a different sound when compared to music that is streaming in today’s media, but is it necessarily a good thing?
Songs like, “Alone and Stoned,” “Keep on Movin’,” and “Baby Just Break,” capture and exemplify the “pop” aspect of their sound. The guitar, whether electric or acoustic, is always present, but what gives their music that upbeat sound are the fluctuations of pitches in lead singer, Kyle Thomas’, voice.
While still a new band, King Tuff has gathered a fan base reaching out from both of these genres. It’s pointing rock into a more mainstream direction underlining what I feel are “hollow lyrics”. And while credit is due where credit is worth, I don’t feel their sound is “anything to write home about.” However, I do invite you to take a listen and make your own opinions about their distinctive sound because; after all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
