Into The Music
King Tuff is back to basics, and the timing couldn’t be better. On March 27, Kyle Thomas dropped Moo, his seventh album under the King Tuff name, through MUP Records and Thirty Tigers, and announced a spring North American tour that runs through May. The album marks a deliberate return to the sound that made people pay attention in the first place: raw, glammy garage rock recorded on tape with the same Tascam 388 multi-track machine he used for his debut.
After two records, 2018’s The Other and 2023’s Smalltown Stardust, that moved toward more introspective, folky territory, Moo strips the hesitation away. Thomas moved back to Vermont, picked up the same blue Gibson SG that was on his first records, and made something that sounds like a great house show on a Thursday night. That specificity is the point. Every copy of the album ships with a physical newspaper called The Daily Moo, which tells you exactly what kind of record this is.
Lead single “Twisted on a Train” reportedly came together in a few hours, and that speed shows in the best way. The track has a live-wire energy that most artists spend months trying to manufacture and usually can’t. Elsewhere, “Invisible Ink” pulls some Americana influences into the mix without losing momentum, and “Crosseyed Critters” gives listeners a moment to breathe before the record picks back up for its final stretch.
The tour runs from April through May and covers both coasts plus a handful of southern and midwestern stops. Brooklyn’s Music Hall of Williamsburg is on the list for April 16, followed by Philadelphia, Washington DC, Atlanta, New Orleans, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland, among others. Toronto gets a date too, at The Sound Garage on May 16.
What makes Moo worth your attention right now isn’t just that it’s loud and fun, though it is both of those things. It’s that Thomas made it without trying to justify anything. There’s no concept, no narrative arc about what kind of artist he’s becoming. He just went back to Vermont, plugged in the same gear, and played. That kind of commitment to a feeling, without overthinking it, is genuinely rare. The result sounds like someone who remembered exactly why he started.
Tour dates continue through late May, closing with a hometown show in Brattleboro, Vermont. Tickets are available through the usual channels.
King Tuff recording to tape in 2026 is honestly such a vibe!! There’s something about the warmth you get when the machine has real limitations , my favorite highlife recordings have that same quality, like the music is breathing. Cannot wait to hear how Moo sounds, and a spring tour on top of it?? Going to be a good season!!
Seven albums deep and still going back to tape , that is such a cool choice and I love that he’s not apologizing for it! The tour dates better include somewhere in the Northeast because I am absolutely going. This is the kind of scrappy, joyful rock music that reminds me why I fell in love with live shows in the first place , like, before everything got so produced and safe.