LEEDS rockers Pulled Apart By Horses reckon their new album is their most ghoulish yet - because it is inspired by gory Italian horror films.

The quartet enjoyed a first Top 40 record with this year's Blood, their third album.

But while some bands point to classic records for inspiration, singer Tom Hudson reckons Blood took its tone from the work of Dario Argento, the legendary Italian filmmaker behind horror classics such as Suspiria.

"A lot of the new album is influenced by Dario Argento, and that weird, art house direction in his films," says Tom, who brings the band to Stereo this Saturday night.

"He was renowned for making his horror films visually stunning and really artistic, and the story came afterwards.

"So they are psychedelic to watch, and that influenced the album - me and Rob (Lee, the bassist) created the artwork, and some of the songs were really inspired by what he did."

The record may not be as macabre as, say, Deep Red or the Bird With The Crystal Plumage, but it does come crammed with fast and furious rock.

There are big riffs and big choruses aplenty, which should go down a treat at the band's rowdy live gigs.

If their first two albums marked them out as a band to watch, then Blood is inching Pulled Apart By Horses closer to the mainstream, with thumping singles such as Medium Rare and Hot Squash earning them radio play, something that has taken Tom aback.

"Rock music's always there, but it comes in waves," he says.

"You'll get a year when the music press say guitar music's dead, but it's always going to be present and it's always going to be there.

"We still get surprised when we get played on Radio 1 because I just think of people sitting in their car or working in an office listening to pop, and then one of our yelpy, noisy tracks comes on.

"There's something nice about that."

One of the album's best tacks is the group's recent single, Medium Rare. However the tune nearly didn't make the cut for the album, as it wasn't until the final day of recording that Tom whipped up the words for it.

"On Medium Rare we had all the music written for a while, but no vocals," he says.

"We literally wrote the words and recorded the vocals on the last day we were in the studio, so that was leaving it pretty close.

"It got to the stage that they were packing down all our gear while we were trying to finish it."

While the band make a ferocious racket, they have got a daft side to them too.

Their song titles are known for being silly, including numbers like ADHD In HD, Night of the Living (I'm Scared Of People) and E=MC Hammer.

Tom clearly believes it's important the foursome, who formed back in 2008, don't take things too seriously.

"There are bands who come back going 'this is a mature album, we're dark and serious' but it's part of our nature to be playful and stupid," he says.

"A lot of the time with the song titles we call it the first thing that comes into our heads, or a joke we've made down the pub, and then it's gone too far - we can't change it back after that."

Speaking of pubs, the foursome had an extra reason to pull a few pints recently.

To mark the new album they teamed up with a local Leeds brewery to release their own ale, made with blood oranges and Yorkshire tea.

Tom and guitarist James Brown were involved in the whole process.

"It was a small local brewery where our friend Paul works, and you get bands doing gimmicky things when they release albums, and we thought it'd be cool," says the singer.

"We thought why not and it worked out well - we got a load of free beer that we'd made and got to have almost a second launch party for the album.

"James and I actually made it with our own hands, so we got our hands dirty with it.

"We didn't get someone else to do it, we were involved with the whole process, which was really cool."

l Pulled Apart By Horses, Stereo, Saturday, £12, 7pm