Pulled Apart by Horses @ Sound Control, Manchester, 6 Apr

The reviewing ideal? A detached and humble scribe at the back of a sweaty room scratching at a pad (or tapping at a phone) – pure head, no heart, clinically critical. The less than ideal reviewer? Caught up in the midst of a feverish horde – an aerial for dissonant noise, reacting not recording, parsing words that rise above the hum as if delivered from heaven height. This is where we get to.

But first, Thee MVPs. But first, Tigercub. Both bands make a fine racket. Both bands have put the hours in. Both bands do what good supports should and properly warm up the crowd. Thee MVPs channel Yank Crime-period Drive like Jehu through a pointedly English vocalist, while Tigercub are a little more sophisticated. They have something of Kasabian about them (they have a way with sleazy anthems), something of Royal Blood. It feels like there are people who have come just to see them.

And then we get to Pulled Apart by Horses. It feels like PABH have had their ups and downs, that they should be playing bigger venues than Sound Control by now, that their new album The Haze should be outselling Ed Sheeran. You’d never know any of that to watch them play live, though. 'I’ve never been here before / The blood’s rushing to my head,' frontman Tom Hudson yells on The Big What If. They mean it, man.

What they play (most of The Haze, oldies in the shape of V.E.N.O.M. and High Five, Swan Dive, Nose Dive) is less important than how they play: like their lives depended on it. Here is a band that has gone back to basics to set the record straight – you can’t help but feel this will be one of those gigs where, in years to come, people will recall, 'Oh yeah, I saw them when they played Sound Control' (and other people will say, 'No way,' and we’ll say, 'Way').