I have to admit, it has been a while since i’ve handled a CD, the immediate realisation of this saddened me, not to mention that my homebuilt computers don’t have CD-drives! I had to rip it onto a Playstation3 and transfer it to a desktop on a USB stick!

Anyway, the album in question is by rapidly rising stars Pulled Apart By Horses, in their second big studio release ‘Tough Love’, this seems a bit random, I can only guess it pertains to the state of the band or their passion for their trade, but surely anything is better than the previous self-titled album.. those always seem like a wasted opportunity, or is just me?

Lets dive straight into things here and get some stuff out of the way, with a debut album, you have ‘good or bad’, but with a second album this changes to ‘better or worse’, and from the majority of viewpoints, this is definitely better (song writing, producing etc). The one thing that hasn’t translated over well is the amazing raw energy that follows the band everywhere they go, the mere professionalism of the record has somewhat sterilised it, I’m hoping this is a coincidence and not a purposeful attempt to grab a more mainstream audience. I mention this because I believe the majority of PABH fans were won over by their amazing live performances in the festival season and in supporting Muse where they gave everything 110%.

Kicking things off is ‘V.E.N.O.M’, a sensible choice as the band themselves have described the track as ‘a bridge’ between the old and new, which stands true as it certainly wouldn’t be out of place on either record, and is the most recognisable track having had some major radio support lately (well done Radio1), but what works so well is that absolutely everyone in a crowd can spell venom! Don’t know the rest of the lyrics? Doesn’t matter, V E N O M! The amount of times they spell it however, could become repetitive by anyone’s standards!

As it progresses, things become increasingly grungier, I almost did a  double-take and checked I hadn’t inadvertently switched to an old Nirvana demo, these are certainly not going to entice as many mosh pits or crowd surfing but they are technically sound and every record has to have its calm before the storm. ‘Some Mothers’ is the storm, this is what PABH do best, gargantuan riffs, a voice that sounds like it’s about to kill your family and lyrics totally open for interpretation or rather misinterpretation in a hundred different ways.. and impossible not to bust some shapes at too!

The momentum picked up mid-cycle builds and builds, until it just has nowhere to go anymore and then it’s just over, no slowing down, no instrumentals for the last couple of minutes, no slow fade away, just a thumping drum symbol that comes to an abrupt end barely two seconds after the last spoken word.. massive adrenaline dump.

I feel this will be a common conclusion for many listeners:
   Wait, did I just listen to 11 tracks?

      feels like 5?

         I can only remember 3 of them?

But what an amazing 3 tracks.. (Incidentally this is the same conclusion that came from their debut with ‘High Five’, ‘Yeah Buddy’ and ‘Meat Balloon’ being the 3 stars shining beyond everything else they were surrounded by.)

Oh well, better rewind that sucker until their next headlining tour next month!

The album is definitely only a substitute for the tour, like methadone is to heroin, it’ll keep you going for so long, but it’s not the real thing, and you know it isn’t.