Pulled Apart By Horses, Roundhouse, London

It’s the last night of the iTunes Festival at the Roundhouse in steamy Camden and raucous Leeds-based rockers Pulled Apart By Horses are warming up the crowd in support of Biffy Clyro. PABH have been greeted with almost universal media approval since their formation in 2008 and it’s easy to see why their brand of chaotic yet light-hearted alt rock is so intoxicating.

The band struts to the stage and immediately launch into smashing clash-fest ‘E = MC Hammer’. The assembled uber fans initiate a swirling slam pit of appreciation. Lead singer Tom Hudson next screeches into a reverb packed ‘Back to the Fuck Yeah’ before ‘High Five, Swan Dive, Nose Dive’, the stand out track on the album, induces furious head banging (band) and flailing-limb-moshing (audience). At this point the band scale the speaker stacks, signalling a stone cold electric jam. It seems we might be about to witness the injury inducing stage antics that the band are well known for, but sadly not. The wildest it gets is guitarist James Brown sliding to his knees, but they seem to have tamed it for the iTunes live stream tonight.

For ‘Yeah Buddy’, about ‘a guy who took so many steroids he went insane’, Hudson screams characteristically daft lyrics like ‘That’s superheavy, lightweight baby!’ with conviction. He then stands at the front of the crowd inciting a minor riot and demands a ‘circular action’ for crowd favourite ‘Meat Balloon’. A song with only three notes shouldn’t be this good but it’s outstandingly pounding and joyous. ‘Moonlit Talons’ signals a psychedelic instrumental frenzy which could rival Motorhead in intensity. The momentum continues as they launch into 2009 single ‘I Punched a Lion in the Throat’ which sounds frighteningly good with the acoustics in the Roundhouse.

Before we know it Brown slams to a distorted finish, nonchalantly drops his guitar on the spot and the band strides off in unison, confident of rock well done.