Tuff Love - Resort: This rather charming pair should stick around

Like Garbage, Crass and Perfect Pussy, Tuff Love aren't afraid of having a confrontational identity.
Tuff Love: ResortTuff Love: Resort
Tuff Love: Resort

The Glasgow-based duo, Julie Eisenstein and Suse Bear named their first three EPs Junk, Dross and Dregs, and the 15 tracks across those now-sought-after 10-inch records are repackaged on Resort. Trashy it isn’t. Eisenstein and Bear count Paisley chart-botherer Paolo Nutini among their growing fan base and hitched a ride as support to reformed shoegazers Ride last year, taking their fuzzy, sun-warped songs to supersized audiences.

Written, performed and produced in Bear’s flat, Resort’s songs offer a certain bedsit charm, bearing comparison to the Shop Assistants.

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The album sequences the EPs chronologically, with opener Sweet Discontent the track that set Tuff Love an early high bar, thanks to its slow-fast clatter and often frenetic energy coupled with somewhat oblique, subtly dark lyrics.

They sometimes clear that bar - Slammer being the kind of sussed pop The Breeders might have patented, and That’s Right an indiepop stomp - and occasionally drop just short.

Resort might not offer constant sunshine, but it confirms this rather charming pair should stick around.