Live Review: Pulled Apart By Horses- Welly.

Pulled Apart By Horses' last scheduled tour of the UK at the tail end of 2012 never happened,  pulled apart by unforseen circumstances. The trip was cancelled on a promise of "exciting things in the pipeline" so as we approached Spring 2014, a long time has passed with little news forthcoming. It is with a lot of excitement then, that a couple of hundred Hullensians find themselves in the Welly Club on a Sunday night awaiting PABH to make the short trip down the road from Leeds for this, the fourth stop on their tour of smaller venues in lesser visited towns.

Like the tour itself, the show starts on a lesser trodden path as the band launch into V.E.N.O.M. B-side PWR. Its singalong 'Hey Hey Heys!' and clap along rhythms give the small but lively crowd exactly what they've been waiting for; something to dance to, sing to and slam to. The energy bounces straight back to the stage; PABH are four very watchable whirlwinds. Sometimes you feel it's a shame singer Tom Hudson is also playing guitar. How would his natural energy explode without the anchor of the mic stand? Early single Meat Balloon follows and as Hull continues to lap up it's awesome, radical and totally bodacious chorus, we realise that thankfully, this isn't one of those pre-new album shows where the favourites are eschewed in favour of an overload of unfamiliar newbies.

When the newbies hit though, it doesn't affect the energy one iota. The first of them to be aired, Hot Squash, is a stunner.  If we lived in a time where the youngsters were loving guitars en masse, it would be number one this summer for sure  A stadium filling pop chorus worthy of the Foo Fighters, but retaining a hard hard edge, it is going to be very interesting to hear how it translates to the studio. The new songs are slowly unveiled through the night and there is a contrast between them and the older material; the accessibility creeping into Pulled Apart By Horses' songwriting. The stop start structure of the tracks from their self titled debut just isn't there any more. Hot Squash and Wild Fire are both fast, full of energy. Grim Deal may slow down the pace, but it's stoner grunge-with-a-groove is still as unrelenting. The Pixies may continue to crap on their own legacy, but PABH take their loud-quiet-loud influence and transform it into loud-louder-loud. Yes boys and girls, subtlety, panache and crossover appeal can be achieved without sacrificing volume and energy.

The set enters the final stretch, and Hudson is standing on a table on the edge of the crowd looking out over them and not missing a note of High Five, Swan Dive, Nose Dive.  Whilst this is happening it springs to mind just how goddam young the band look. Guitarist James Brown and bassist Robert Lee inparticular look barely old enough to be allowed an 18+ stamp as they entered Welly tonight, but whether that's how old they actually are, or just their youthful energy playing tricks of the mind, who knows. An hour of stage time has passed once epic set closer Den Horn winds up, but both crowd and band are still feeling that energy in every chord, just like they were an hour ago. A more lively rock show you could not wish to see.

Pulled Apart By Horses soon to be announced third album could be the one to break them out, indeed should be the one to break them out. As fantastic a venue as Welly is, there's just no justice in a world where Coldplay are playing the Royal Albert Hall as an 'intimate' warm up show and the infinitely more exciting PABH can't quite sell out tonight for theirs. It would be only what they deserve if  the next time they announce a tour of much bigger venues those unforeseen circumstances don't show their head again.

Pulled Apart By Horses are giving away a free live download of I Punched A Lion In The Throat. Grab it here...

And there's still plenty of dates left on this very tour...

April
30 Oxford Art Bar

May
01 Norwich Epic Studios
02 Stoke Sugarmill
03 Leeds Live at Leeds
04 York YO1 Festival
06 May Cambridge Portland Arms
07 Aldershot West End Centre
08 Kingston New Slang @ McClusky's
09 Brighton The Great Eascape
10 Southampton Cellar
12 Exeter Cavern
13 Plymouth White Rabbit
14 Bath Moles
15 Cardiff The Globe