I have to admit that I am falling a bit in love with Tough on Fridays, they remind me of some of the music I grew up with in those heady, post-punk meets new-pop days of my 80’s youth. Pop was reinventing itself, it was melodic and addictive but still had enough of the punk vibe from the previous decade to give it a robust, edgy and attitude driven groove. There are precious few bands around today that tick those boxes but these ladies seem to tap into such past nostalgia but do so whilst driving the musical agenda ferociously forward.
Too many of today’s such indie bands try to appeal to the mainstream, to smooth off the rough edges, to please too many different audiences, to play by someone else rules. Tough on Fridays instead get things just right and their image, one that mixes charm and innocence with street smarts and garage band swagger is perfect to cut through the conformity that infects most of todays music. Retrospect is the sort of song that will find favour with the more discerning of mainstream rock and pop audiences but there is just the right amount of bite in the delivery, just the right amount of jagged-edged originality to the band that they could easily end up the darlings of the underground scene. Who needs to play at pop when you can rule at rock? Who indeed.
