Austin, Texas-based hybrid-metal outfit
Pushmen arrive on the scene with a rock-solid pedigree, boasting a band history that includes doom giants
the Sword, sordid roots rockers
Heartless Bastards, visceral experimental noise outfit
Bad Powers, and underground thrash legends Employer, Employee. Named after the Japanese subway workers whose sole job it is to cram fevered commuters into already packed coaches, the band definitely sounds like the sum of its parts, offering up explosive volleys of volume that land somewhere between the bottom-heavy blast of post-
Melvins sludgecore and the noisy, melodic, post-punk unpredictability of
Baroness. Sporting the appropriately nihilistic title
The Sun Will Rise on the False and the Fair, the band's End Records-issued debut starts out strong with "Child of Chaos," a just-under-five-minute stew of fragmented breakdowns and atonal, jack hammered verses that dissolve into a surprisingly triumphant, melodic chorus. Elsewhere, the turgid "Amass" sounds just as its name would suggest, all twisted limbs and dissonant, witching-hour atmospherics, the wily and propulsive "Year of Hands and Neck" explodes mid-section into a caustic,
Sabbath-kissed groove festooned with wailing feedback, and the moody "Crime Again" impresses with a foundation that leans heavily on classic
Pixies offerings like "There Goes My Gun" and "River Euphrates." It's an impressive, lived-in set that feels more like a long couple of weekends than it does a first strike, but if the carnage is this deep on the test run, one can only imagine what the body count will be when the troops are at full-strength. ~ James Christopher Monger