Review: Pulled Apart By Horses - Tough Love

 The first time I read about Leeds' Pulled Apart By Horses, the feature was being rather dismissive simply referring to them as a Biffy Clyro clone. At least I think they did. I've been getting Pulled Apart by Horses and Band of Horses mixed up and then Band of Skulls comes into the equation and mixes things up further. Now I'm confused and I'm already ill. Really I'm in no position to write at all.
 Anyway, listening to Pulled Apart By Horses' self-titled-debut showed there to be some similarities between them and the Kilmarnock trio, with the loose wildness of the album sounding closer to the weird and experimental post-hardcore sounds that made up some of Biffy's earlier work. Second album Tough Love keeps up the hardcore antics but is now fueled with a greater drive and a greater sense of very pure classic rock and roll.

 The heavy aqnd melodic guitar riffing of Tom Hudson and James Brown mixed with the wild unrefined screamingof Hudson throughout the album brings back warm memories of Queens of the Stone Age at their best when Josh Homme and Nick Oliveri worked well together. It makes tracks like V.E.N.O.M and Wildfire, Smoke and Doom alive in their sense of exhileration and deranged ecstacy.
 This wild rock and roll velocity is present across the album but it's delivered in two main differing manners. One is in the group's talent for making ferocious post hardcore punk songs, where the rapid-fire spiked riffing that makes up Some Mothers and Bromance Ain't Dead show the bands more active intense side off, while the more traditionally crafted hard rock that makes up Give Me a Reason and Degeneration show a more laid-back yet equally as direct element to their music.
 However, no matter what style the music is presented in, it's sound has the capability to hit listeners hard with every new song. The production throughout is anything but slick so, a sense of vigour plated in barbed wire emerges with every power chord. But classy production isn't required here. Brown's guitar licks on the part upbeat part chilling closer Everything Dipped in Gold and the atmosphere of evil that is effortlessly packed in Epic Myth with it's cool light-heavy chorus exchange is proof that Pulled Apart By Horses have the capabilities of creating an overwelming class and style through their performance alone.
 Essentiallyon this album, Pulled Apart By Horses prove on Tough Love that they are the number one drop off for people who are seeking the sound of classic rock and roll that has an extra spark and kick to it in it's extra heaviness and hardcore influence and in times of sickness, there's nothing better than relaxing to some in-your-face, loose and frantic post-harcore music with a rough soul. Actually, that kind of music is brilliant however you're feeling.

 Pulled Apart By Horses' Tough Love is out now via Transgressive Records. The band will tour the UK with The Computers.