Free Throw is Back at it Again

Free Throw includes lead vocalist, Cory Castro, Jake Hughes on guitar and backing vocals, Lawrence Warner who plays lead guitar, and Kevin Garcia who smashes on the drums. This four piece emo punk band from Nashville, Tennessee have been making heavily riffed, tempestuous music since 2012. It's been two years since their first breakthrough album Bear Your Mind, and since then they have gone on several tours with bands including Boston Manor and Knuckle Puck.

They are now signed to Triple Crown Records and have just released their second album, What's Past is Prologue. This album is golden, truly an evolution from their earlier album and EPs. They have perfected their mix of punk influence and a melodic dialogue type singing that formulates to the perfect hard hitting tune. The twelve song album begins with an addendum to the last song on the previous album where he goes over the regrets he has of meeting up with someone who he use to share his life with and how those regrets made him to turn back to a prior smoking addiction. It begins slow, almost as if he's in pain going over the past, but then toward the end the music speeds up and the aggressive sound of his voice is mashed perfectly together with the drums.

They also focus on their vices, with Castro painstakingly facing his ultimate demon in the "Corners Dilemma." "Anxiety" is a powerful feeling, and in that song, you can hear amidst the soft cords of the guitar and fast paced drums, the shame that Castro felt in hiding a part of himself from the people he loves. The song ends with him admitting to himself and to everyone else what the anxiety has caused him to become; someone he doesn't recognize. In today is especially delicious, he also talks about another one of his vices, alcohol. He runs through his self medicating habits with liquor and the effects that has had on his life.

This album is an evolution; the first few songs beginning with his melancholic past and then transforming into songs that give power to those who listen. He talks about his fight with mental health and the ways that that journey was something he went through but not something that he has to constantly carry on his back. Some of the last lyrics of the album is “I finally learned to love myself” which is a sharp turn from the self hatred and insecurities that were common themes in the last album. There was even a lyric in the last album which is antithetical to the previous lyric; “i just want to love myself." What's Past is Prologue is something that I know I'll have on repeat because of the emotion filled lyrics and the complex riffs and drums. It's a reminder that we can begin again, even amidst all our regrets and self harming habits. Thank you Free Throw for being Free Throw.