King Tuff - 'King Tuff'

The Pros And Cons Of King Tuff's Self-Titled Second Record

PROS

—King Tuff is the alias of Kyle Thomas from Happy Birthday. And it should be already obvious that you should be listening to Happy Birthday.
—When we last spoke to him, Kyle was just about to go on holiday to Disneyland.
—With his parents.
—At the age of 26.
—He also has a project called the Mouse Memory Book: he collects random people's drawings of Mickey Mouse from memory. It is a Tumblr waiting to happen.
—King Tuff is his conduit for pouting, groinal glam rock in the Great British tradition. And glam IS BACK. Or, at least, it could be.
—He has taken pretty much every glam figure ever and pastiched them, from the Roxy-style power ballad of "Swamp Of Love" to the joy-whoop Cockney Rebel-aping "Hit And Run."
—This is one of the records Sub Pop is putting out that doesn't come from the sadsack acoustic warbler post-Fleet Foxes part of their latter-day catalogue. Surely cause for celebration in itself.

CONS

—It's not quite clear how King Tuff is in any way different from Happy Birthday. Certainly not as different as Thomas thinks it is. The choppy power-pop of "Bad Thing" could completely have fallen off his last record. (Though maybe not the hyperactive glitter-boogie of "Stranger.")
—If you can't put up with a guy who sounds like he's swallowed a pedophile Marc Bolan gumming on about "drowning in the swamp of love," this is not the record for you.

VERDICT
Disposable, lightweight, trivial, and many other great things. If you don't like King Tuff, you are probably incapable of orgasm.