Pulled Apart By Horses: Blood review – from subtle to skull-rattingly loud

Pulled Apart By Horses emerged from the ashes of the NME-constructed New Yorkshire scene, along with other Leeds bands – such as Dinosaur Pile-Up – producing a mix of slacker and stoner rock and doing it with a sense of humour. On their third album, this quartet stick with the formula that's worked for them so far: QOTSA-style riffing (Hot Squash), daft song titles (ADHD in HD) and the kind of huge, singalong choruses (You Want It) that suit their raucous gigs. They're hardly reinventing the wheel, but their riffs'n'rawk approach should be lapped up by all those people currently flocking to see the likes of Royal Blood, hungry for simple, stripped-back tunes. Blood definitely has plenty of those: Medium Rare bounces along from riff to riff, while Skull Noir takes a couple of minutes to transform from a slow, downbeat number into a chugging standout. Album closer Golden Monument is perhaps the best track on the record, and features a lengthy crescendo that proves Pulled Apart By Horses can be subtle as well as skull-rattlingly loud.