The Brag

Pulled Apart By Horses
Tough Love
Co-Op/Universal
*** 1/2

Misanthropic Leeds scream-traffickers and fanciers of unusual capital punishment, Pulled Apart By Horses play music that sounds like being smacked in the face with an iron gauntlet by Dolph Lundgren. Legendary live performers and toast of the bootless at last year’s Golden Plains festival, the band return with Tough Love, the follow-up to their eponymous 2010 debut.

For the unfamiliar, Pulled Apart By Horses play a vein of alt-rock/post-hardcore that recalls a porridge of influences including early Deftones, Fugazi and Biffy Clyro as well as a mОlange of early-’80s British metal (fun fact: their lead guitarist goes by the name of James Brown). Raucous opener ‘V.E.N.O.M’ lazily spells out the song title for its chorus, and despite my personal hate of that technique, I can begrudgingly admit fondness for the track’s fast-paced Tom Morello-style chord changes, as well as singer Tom Hudson’s distinctive screeching vocals – possibly the band’s greatest selling points.

Tough Love continues on a naturally aggressive course, with an impressive barrage of early songs such as ‘Wolf Hand’, ‘Shake Off The Curse’ and ‘Epic Myth’. Still, it’s not all plain sailing, the record getting bogged down in the concluding stages with numbers like ‘Degeneration Game’ and ‘Bromance Isn’t Dead’ rehashing the pattern established earlier. The riffs begin to sound stale, all too familiar and boring, despite the dynamism of closer ‘Everything Dipped In Gold’.

Tough Love proves to be a game of two halves, the first seeing Pulled Apart By Horses go three-nil up, the second bearing witness to an almost fatal defensive capitulation – conceding two late own goals, but still managing to eke out a narrow win.

Darragh Murray