Pulled Apart By Horses, King Tut’s, Glasgow

You’ve got to feel sorry for The Computers, who warm up tonight for one of the UK’s most renowned live bands, Pulled Apart By Horses. In theory, they should be walloped, gazumped and overlooked come closing time. The reality, however, is much different, with the quintet’s effervescent cocktail of slicked back rock n roll and hardcore punk proving to be an outlandish yet compelling combination. Their frontman doubles up as an all round oddball, controlling the show like a psychotic ringleader before guitaring his way through the crowd on a pair of well-worn roadie shoulders.

You’ve got to feel a bit sorry then for Pulled Apart By Horses, tasked with following up such high jinx japery - but this is what they do, and boy do they do it well. They’re here tonight to tour their new album ‘Tough Love’ for the very first time, but it’s the oldies that elicit giddy fever, with ‘I Punched A Lion In The Throat’ an apt opener. Nevertheless, the likes of flagship newbie ‘V.E.N.O.M’ manages to rouse the troops with its punctuated, sing-a-long chorus, ripe ground for mosh-pit delirium and tight-fisted shout-outs. Unlike his predecessor tonight, frontman Tom Hudson doesn’t quite sit on top of massive amp stacks for five minutes or pogo through the venue like a deranged loon, but he does manage to prove himself as a sort of Simon Neil-from-Biffy-Clyro-at-his-domineering-best type; Hudson, however, is turned up to the proverbial 11, sweating beads of rock and roll out of his facial fuzz like the most gushing of rivers. Once you forget about the slimy sweat now suffocating your skin, this is most definitely fun, rowdy and exhilarating stuff.