Album Review: Pulled Apart By Horses - "Reality Cheques"

 

Leeds natives Pulled Apart By Horses were one of those bands I was kind of aware of back in the day without really knowing too much about their output. Now on Alcopop records (also home to the likes of Helen Love and the Subways among others), Reality Cheques is their first album in five years and their first as a trio following the departure of guitarist James Brown earlier this year.

It gets off to a decent start - the slow building Pipe Dream is something you could imagine sitting on Queens of the Stone Age's Rated R album and First World Problems and Rinse And Repeat are angular jolts of Wire style post-punk with some good guitar work on there. Sleep In Your Grave keeps the punky energy up and could almost be a more melodic version of Winnebago Deal with a hint of the Damned circa Neat Neat Neat in there which is no bad thing. Devil Inside is built on the same sort of buzzsaw drone riff that Pigs Pigs Pigs do so well before Rat Race picks up the tempo with a jumpy nervous central riff with lyrics about the crushing futility of nine to five monotony. The sky surfing riff of Positive Place backs up the uplifting lyrics before the six minute Fear Of Missing Out to bring this one to a close in a suitably epic manner.

Hands up, I was pleasantly surprised by this. Possibly because of their band name, I'd always had PABH down as yet another one of those dreadful idea-free emo bandwagon jumpers but Reality Cheques is the sound of a band confidently ploughing their own furrow and coming up with just the right mix of angular anger and catchy hooks to make a genuinely good album. My only minor complaint is that a couple of extra songs wouldn't have gone amiss here but overall, this is a good effort which deserves a look.

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