Videos
FREE THROW release video for ‘MissingNo.’
Free Throw have released their long-awaited new album, ‘Moments Before The Wind‘ via Wax Bodega. Alongside the release, they’ve dropped a new music video from their album opener ‘MissingNo.’
The emotional architecture of the album might be abstract, but the stories at its centre – the heart of Free Throw’s music for more than a decade – are disarmingly real and inspired by the anime of the same name and stuffed with dextrous Midwest emo guitar and rough-hewn punk tempos.
Having worked hard for many years and enjoyed global tours with the likes of Hot Mulligan and New Found Glory and slots at Slam Dunk, Riot Fest, and The Fest. Every milestone has pushed them ahead, but on their sixth LP, Moments Before The Wind, that constant charge gradually slows, suspended mid-step, mid-thought, mid-life.
“The record has this theme of liminality – not just as a place, but in your mind,” vocalist/guitarist Cory Castro explains. “It’s like being stuck in a doorframe or a long hallway that never ends.”
The band have once again returned to longtime producer Brett Romnes (Hot Mulligan, The Movielife) for this record. Together, they wrote and recorded the album’s 11 tracks in two sessions on either side of the band’s touring. Stepping away between sessions gave them perspective; when they returned to the studio, they heard everything with fresh ears. At the same time, Romnes challenged them to trust their instincts, resulting in spontaneous sonic breakthroughs:
In all, the record chronicles a period of intense personal upheaval in Castro’s life: the dissolution of a long-term relationship and attempts to move on, the slow realisation that what he’d lost was actually what he truly wanted and, ultimately, the life-altering moment of finding out midway through recording that he was going to be a father. The closing track, “The Waters Of Life,” written in the afterglow of that news, becomes the push that finally shoves him through the doorway into something new.
“There was a lot to write about this time around, but getting over that threshold definitely took some time,” Castro says. “We tend to write albums that have a conceptual arc to them, but you just sort of have to let the songs reveal themselves and figure out what that actually is. When I got the call that I was going to be a dad, I immediately knew what song I was going to write. It just felt right.”
Pulled from Mark Z. Danielewski’s cult novel House of Leaves, Moments Before The Wind references a passage that compares life to fragile structures on the verge of being blown apart and rearranged into something unrecognisable. It’s artwork mirrors that feeling: a massive crystal head cracked open, its interior filled with surreal, Dalí-esque rooms and corridors that echo the “backrooms” of the mind Castro kept returning to while writing lyrics.
Moments Before the Wind tracklisting
1. MissingNo.
2. Mike Nolan’s Long Weekend
3. For Those Who Come After
4. Floaroma Town
5. The Need For A Post-Credits Scene
8. There Will Come Soft Rains
9. Deviancy
10. This Dollar General Store Ain’t Gonna Rob Itself
11. The Waters Of Life
Free Throw will be touring North America this Spring before the band heads to the UK for Summer festivals and select shows with Saturdays A Your Place.
US TOUR DATES
12 April, Delmar Hall, St. Louis, MO
13 April, The Waiting Room, Omaha, NE
15 April, Summit Music Hall, Denver, CO
17 April, Soundwell, Salt Lake City, UT
18 April, Shrine Ballroom, Boise, ID
19 April, Revolution Hall, Portland, OR
20 April, The Showbox, Seattle, WA
22 April, The UC Theatre, Berkeley, CA
23 April, The Observatory OC, Santa Ana, CA
24 April, The Observatory North Park, San Diego, CA
25 April, The Van Buren, Phoenix, AZ
28 April, Paper Tiger, San Antonio, TX
29 April, Tannahill’s, Fort Worth, TX
1 May, The Masquerade, Atlanta, GA
2 May, The Underground, Charlotte, NC
3 May, The National, Richmond, VA
5 May, Soundstage, Baltimore, MD
7 May, Paradise Rock Club, Boston, MA
8 May, Webster Hall, New York, NY
9 May, Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA
11 May, Electric City, Buffalo, NY
12 May, Opera House, Toronto, ON
14 May, Bogart’s, Cincinnati, OH
15 May, The Roxy, Cleveland, OH
16 May, The Crofoot Ballroom, Detroit, MI
17 May, House of Blues, Chicago, IL
30th May – Brooklyn Bowl – Nashville, TN
With Tigers Jaw, Ben Quad, Pool Kids
TICKETS HERE
MOMENTS BEFORE THE WIND UK/EU TOUR 2026 (High res tour art)
Free Throw
Saturdays At Your Place
26 June – Outbreak Festival, Manchester
27 June – Jera On Air Festival, Ysselsteyn
29 June – Gebaude 9, Cologne
30 June – Neue Zukunft, Berlin
01 July – Zentralcafe, Nuremburg
02 July – Juha West, Stuttgart
04 July – Electric Ballroom, London
05 July – Waterfront, Norwich
07 July – The Garage, Glasgow
08 July – Newcastle University SU, Newcastle
10 July – 2000Trees Festival, Cheltenham
1 October- Aftershock Festival, Sacramento
General On Sale –TICKETS HERE
Free Throw is– Cory Castro (vocalist/guitarist), Larry Warner (guitar), Jake Hughes (guitar/vocals), Justin Castro (bass) and Zach Hall (drums/vocals)
ALBUM ‘MOMENTS BEFORE THE WIND’ – OUT NOW VIA WAX BODEGA