Pulled Apart By Horses - Tough Love Review

rating: 4

I€™m calling it now, 2012 is the year of British rock. We€™re only three weeks into the year and Enter Shikari have already stormed the top five of the UK album charts, and now Pulled Apart by Horses have released their second album which has already earned them airtime on Radio 1, following their fantastic performance opening the second stage at Reading/Leeds festivals during the summer of last year, as well as being handpicked to support Muse and Biffy Clyro at sell-out gigs. PABH are a hard band to catagorise, but if you€™ve never listened to them before, imagine a punk rock band with tons of melody, but also with riffs coming at you out of left-field along with bouncing dance rock beats somewhat reminiscent of Death From Above 1979. Throw in a sprinkling of grunge and post-hardcore and you€™re probably not really close to the PABH sound in all honesty. This is a band that has to be listened to, forget pigeonholing. Tough Love is the follow up to 2010€™s eponymous self-titled debut, and continues where their first album left off, with angular riffs, screamed vocals and a punk rock vibe, whilst also being mainstream accessible, a rare quality in such an aggressive band. The album rarely lets up, and whilst the riffs and vocals are a focal point, the real strength of Tough Love comes through its pummelling rhythm section. Perfectly in sync, the rumbling basslines and heavy percussion complement the rest of the music excellently and hold everything together without dominating the tracks. That€™s not to say that the riffs aren€™t up to scratch, because tracks like the opener and lead single V.E.N.O.M and Night Of The Living contain some brilliantly obscure guitar work, and the atmosphere that is built in some of the instrumental sections on Give Me A Reason and Everything Dipped In Gold help build up to a mighty crescendo. Night Of The Living would probably be my pick for the album€™s finest track, with its huge chorus and great instrumental backing, especially the outro. Like much of the album, it is a song made for the live stage, somewhere PABH excel. This album is full of tracks that are meant to be performed live, and as good as they sound on record, I can€™t help but imagine they will be even better when heard in a live venue. PABH have a fearsome live reputation, one which is only going to be strengthened with the release of Tough Love. With a little bit of luck (something which shouldn€™t be hard to come by, considering the band already have the attention of a number of big names in the music business), you may well see PABH headlining 3000 capacity venues before the year is out. The only real criticism of the album is that there is a degree of familiarity to their songs, and whilst it is arguably heavier than their debut, many of the songs on Tough Love would have also fit on their self-titled. This is in no way a bad thing though, as the €˜if it ain€™t broke, don€™t fix it rule€™ very much applies; this is a band that don€™t need to reinvent themselves, especially considering they€™ve only been together for around 4 years. Besides, when an album is this much fun and rattles by at such a blistering pace, who cares if it sounds a bit samey? I cannot stress enough how much you must see this band live. They are touring all over the country next month (February) and some of the gigs are so intimate they will be nothing short of amazing. The strength of the songs and the pure energy of the band should be reason enough, but at ten pounds a pop? I have my ticket already, why don€™t you? Pulled Apart By Horses new album Tough Love is available now.