Free Throw have released their long-awaited sixth album Moments Before The Wind, out now via Wax Bodega, alongside a new music video for opening track ‘MissingNo.’.
Watch ‘MissingNo.’
The track sets the tone for the record’s restless emotional core, pairing jagged Midwest emo guitar lines with bursts of punk urgency. It’s immediate, slightly unsteady, and perfectly in line with a band that has spent over a decade refining the balance between vulnerability and velocity.
A record suspended between moments
Moments Before The Wind captures a band pausing mid-motion. Across its 11 tracks, Free Throw lean into a sense of liminality — a recurring theme that threads through both the lyrics and the album’s structure.
Frontman Cory Castro describes it as existing in a kind of mental in-between space, where nothing quite resolves. That feeling is reflected in the writing process too. Recorded in two separate sessions with longtime collaborator Brett Romnes, the band stepped away and returned with a fresh perspective, allowing instinct to guide the final shape of the record.
The result is an album that feels fractured but intentional, constantly shifting between clarity and confusion.
Personal upheaval at the centre
Beneath the conceptual framing sits a deeply personal narrative. Much of the record documents a turbulent period in Castro’s life — from the breakdown of a long-term relationship to the slow, complicated process of understanding what was lost.
That arc takes a decisive turn with the closing track, ‘The Waters Of Life’, written after Castro learned he was going to become a father. It’s a moment that reframes everything before it, pushing the record out of its suspended state and into something more grounded, even hopeful.
Built on cult influence and visual surrealism
The album takes inspiration from House of Leaves, the cult novel by Mark Z. Danielewski, with its title referencing fragile structures on the verge of collapse and reinvention. That idea carries into the artwork: a fractured crystal head filled with surreal, maze-like interiors — a visual echo of the “backrooms” feeling that runs throughout the lyrics.
It’s a fitting aesthetic for a band that thrives on emotional disorientation without ever losing its melodic core.
UK and EU dates confirmed for 2026
Free Throw will head to the UK and Europe this summer for festivals and headline shows alongside Saturdays At Your Place.
FREE THROW UK/EU TOUR 2026
- 26 June – Manchester, Outbreak Festival (UK)
- 27 June – Ysselsteyn, Jera On Air (NL)
- 29 June – Cologne, Gebaude 9 (DE)
- 30 June – Berlin, Neue Zukunft (DE)
- 01 July – Nuremberg, Zentralcafe (DE)
- 02 July – Stuttgart, Juha West (DE)
- 04 July – London, Electric Ballroom (UK)
- 05 July – Norwich, Waterfront (UK)
- 07 July – Glasgow, The Garage (UK)
- 08 July – Newcastle, Newcastle University SU (UK)
- 10 July – Cheltenham, 2000Trees Festival (UK)
With a catalogue already rooted in emotional honesty and catharsis, Moments Before The Wind finds Free Throw stretching that identity into something more reflective — an album that lingers in uncertainty before finally stepping forward.
More Free Throw on Punkinfocus: Free Throw Unveil The Outlaw Star and Announce Moments Before The Wind (February 2026)
