February 2nd, 2012 
Ethan Merrick 
Artist: Pulled Apart By Horses
Album: Tough Love
Genre: indie rock/post-hardcore
Label: Transgressive Records
When they came barreling on to the scene, Pulled Apart By Horses gained the attention critics and fans alike for the their energetic, bombastic live shows. With their self-titled debut record Pulled Apart By Horses was able to capture everything that made their live shows great without losing anything in the studio. On Tough Love the band sounds tighter, sharper and, maybe, a little cleaner. Despite the studio’s polish Tough Love is still brash and bratty.
The album’s opening track and first single “V.E.N.O.M.” kicks off with a whirlwind of churning guitars and thunderous drums before dissolving into an infectious repeated guitar riff with Tom Hudson, the band’s front man, repeating the phrase, “slow your breathing/you haven’t got a pulse.” Half through the track Hudson’s vocals dropout and the band dives into rapidly accelerating instrumental portion ending in Hudson’s shouts and barks.
The rest of the album continues at a furious pace, rarely slowly down to pause and take a breath. Tough Love is a solid album with no weak or clunker tracks. However, there are several tracks that stick out amongst the rest; “Wolf Hand,” “Epic Myth” and album closer “Everything Dipped in Gold.”
Throughout “Wolf Hand” Hudson repeats, “When I was a kid I was a dick/But nothing changes,” while early Fugazi-esque guitar and bass riffs comprise the majority of the instrumentation on the track.”Epic Myth” is unique as it features bassist Robert John Lee singing lead vocals with Hudson supplying shouts and barks as accents throughout the track.
“Epic Myth” also features gang vocals from the rest of the band on the chorus, “the architect that built this house/laid secret rooms that no one knew about/with every floor is another maze/once you’re inside you’ll never leave.”
“Everything Dipped in Gold” finds the band indulging in Fugazi instrumentation and vocal delivery. The track opens with a sludgy bass riff before erupting in bright spiraling guitar riff. In his best impression of Ian MacKaye Hudson delivers, “I can’t see it/I can’t see/so shed a light.”
After touring relentlessly, Pulled Apart By Horses have tightened up as individual musicians and as a band. The end result of all that hard work is that Tough Love avoids succumbing to the dreaded sophomore slump. This is a vicious album that deserves multiple spins.
Score: 7/10
Review written by: Ethan Merrick
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