(Andy Synn is plowing ahead with reviews in 2026, aided and abetted by the new one from Push!)
There’s a line in the song “Movie Night” by Aesop Rock that answers the question “What kind of dog is that?” with the words “That’s a mutt… it’s five-dogs-in-one.”
And while we can’t be sure exactly what breed the spiky hound adorning the cover of Plowing Ahead is, it’s clearly not a pure-bred.
But, then again, neither are Push!, as while the Portuguese quintet are definitely a Hardcore band – one with the likes of Born From Pain, Sworn Enemy, and Merauder in their auditory ancestry – there’s also at least some Metal in their DNA too, as the hybrid-vigour of their new album so plainly demonstrates.
Early highlights like “Beyond Exhaustion” and “Dig Deep” (the latter possessing a subtle undercurrent of melodic menace) quickly show off the group’s impressive knack for combining muscular metallic riffage with hooky Hardcore rhythms, balancing punchy, proto-thrash intensity with toe-tapping, two-step-friendly tempo shifts and crowd-killing cadences that are pretty much guaranteed to go down an absolute storm live (as are the beefy, brutish breakdowns they drop into the mix exactly when they’re needed).
And while the record doesn’t always land its punches as crisply and cleanly as it intended – opener “Sauron” is largely superfluous, as are a few of the samples if I’m going to be honest (especially the one which pads out the end of the otherwise killer “Right Through”), and it has to be said that “Frantic Pace” could definitely have done with being a little more, ahem, frantic if it wanted to stand out – but when it hits (and, the bruising, bass-heavy beatdown of “Porcelain” , for example, hits very hard indeed), it’s more than capable of leaving a serious mark.
In particular, for all that it initially seems to have front-loaded its attack, Plowing Forward actually saves some of its hardest hitters for the back half, with the terrific triptych of “Karma’s Call” (all razor-sharp melodic hooks and anvil-heavy metallic chugs), infectious stop-start stomper “Impunity” (which also features an unexpectedly stand-out solo section), and ultra-aggro penultimate anthem “Hands of Concrete” (arguably the best, and definitely the catchiest, song on the entire album), ensuring that the album goes down swinging right to the end.
Ultimately it’s telling that closer “Too Nice” ends with a sample of Joe Pesci in Raging Bull asking “What are you trying to prove?“, as if there’s one thing that Push! have proven on Plowing Ahead it’s that their sound is more than just swagger and bluster, and that their bite is just as sharp as their bark.