Free Throw Delivers on Highly Anticipated LP5 “Lessons That We Swear To Keep”
Tennessee native band Free Throw already has four full-length albums under their belt, adding Lessons That We Swear To Keep as their fifth. For this album, Free Throw had a considerable amount more freedom in the creation with it being their first independent release. The album is a labor of love and dedication from the members—with their classic emo feel preserved yet infused with some more experimental feel.
“A Part is Better Than Zero” starts the album. The intro of the song starts with a series of guitar riffs then mellows out as the first verse begins. It begins with “It’s so crazy that your aging somehow/ becomes so complicated/ as you water it down”. These lyrics are the epitome of the album’s theme. This song has a prominent pop-punk feel that deals a good hand of nostalgia. Especially in the second part of the chorus, a harmonizing “oh” vocal is heard in the background, which makes the song lean more to the pop side. The song ends with some powerhouse screaming vocals in the background, giving the song a bit harder feel towards the end.
The second song, “Spacer’s Choice”, was the first single pre-released off the album. This song continues the nostalgic pop-punk feel. The vocals on this one though are a bit less poppy—they’re more strained and hold some more weight. The second to last chorus switches up the feel to a more head-banging syncopated beat to emphasize the lyrics and to keep the momentum of the song. The riffs in the background are similar to the first song’s, keeping a consistent feel for the album's start.
“Replacing Leene’s Bell” is the song that the album title comes from. “History is doomed to repeat/ Unless mistakes turn into lessons that we swear to keep/ And never lose”. This song is an apology to a partner that was done wrong by the singer. It’s a bit sadder than the last two songs, with some super muddled and spacey pedals laid over the guitar—even starting with an acoustic. The context of the song gives the album name a different weight—it’s not about swearing to keep lessons within a relationship, but fresh out of one. The singer confesses that all he wants is to make his partner happy. The song starts and ends with the same ambient sound—giving it a full-circle feel.
In “The Museum of Orphaned Concepts”, the band really plays around with their drums. Keeping them very restricted in the first verse, amping them up in the chorus, and then really fleshing them out in the second verse. The bridge of this song features some muted vocals over a reverbed guitar riff, slowly adding back the layers of the song. The drums return, then the vocals become more prominent, and another guitar layer is added. There’s an awesome choral effect happening at the bridge’s end where tons of vocal layers are poured on top of each other. This song really plays with song orientations and throws basic structure out. The song ends with some wind chimes, again really playing with the boundary of emo that they confine themselves within.
The fourth song on the album is called “So Yeah, So”. This one starts out very classic emo with just some power chords played over drum riffs. The lyrics start “Why does it feel like I’m working on a puzzle with the lights off”. The lyrics have a call-and-response sort of vibe to them with half of the vocals muted. The song is about battling with yourself and feeling like everyone is walking on eggshells around you. Although the lyrics are a bit cliché in the beginning, the song gets a lot better as it goes on. It starts to slow around the 2-minute-30 mark, filling the last minute or so of the song with a slowed breakdown with the same screaming background vocals from earlier in the album.
The second single released off the album was “Thanks For Asking”. It uses synth in the intro above a guitar riff before transitioning into the more classic emo/pop-punk feel the rest of the album has been about. The song seems to be about a life crisis— “Where did my life go? / What is it doing to me? / It had a knife so/ If it's in my back I can’t see”. The lyrics in this song are very well-thought and the vocals have enough clarity to understand them without seeing them in front of you. The drums again on this song are super interesting around the second verse. The bridge and the outro of the song both have chanted vocals over a silent background. This makes the song super intense at those parts and emphasizes “I can feel the blades in my back/ they’re tearing up my lungs like glass/ broken into shards from the crash/ but with each breath I can grasp”. The song ends with the singer asking how you would know if he was lying about how he was doing…and alluding to the fact that that is exactly what’s happening.
The band really starts to change up the album sound on the track “Into The Wind Stream”. Although it definitely stays true to the vibe of the genre, this song is a bit sadder and on the more intense side of the spectrum. Instead of the higher-pitched riffs of the last few songs, this one has a much more classic treble-range riff throughout. This song dives into mental health struggles. It recalls both the singer’s struggles and dealing with the death of a friend close to them. They discuss how “Life is a constant perpetual motion” where we “bring our memories with us”—essentially saying that things will move on, and we have to too. The same super-fuzzy pedal from earlier is used towards the end of this song, in the same way, that life gets more complicated as we grow older. There’s also a xylophone-sounding instrument around the song, adding an extra layer of sound, especially toward the end as it becomes more prominent.
“Joy Ephemeral” is a song that really takes its time to build. It doesn’t really get powerful with chugging and intense drumming until halfway through the song—in fact, there are no drums at all in some of the beginning quarter of the song—specifically. The reserved beginning of the song really emphasizes the power towards the end, and then returns back to that quietness in the end. This song is about the joy that’s in sadness, and the sadness that invades joy.
The next song, “Cinnabar Island” leans even toward a softer-hardcore song. There’s no build, the song starts right out with chugging on the guitar and intense chanting vocals. The song hardly lets up throughout, making it a super high-energy feel. The song plays around with some almost-too-literal effects with bubble sounds when the singer refers to feeling like they’re on the “bottom of the ocean” but redeems itself when the song returns back to its intense feel.
As the album begins its ending, the song “Tips For Safe Travel” appears. This song is very simple, sort of just a recollection of a visit back home after being in a long-distance relationship. The singer describes a person who has been loyal throughout all of the singer’s struggles, and even through the distance. The song is sweet, with a tragic twist to it when the singer’s partner is told they have a limited time to live. The song deals with the pain of watching a person you love slowly die. It gets very intense in the end of the song, essentially ranting about all of the painful events that come along with the situation. Ending with “I will always be your home”, the song leaves a dramatic taste in your mouth as it abruptly ends. The instruments progress in the background along with the events of the story, growing more and more as the song goes on.
The last track of the album is called “What Comes Around is All Around”. This song is also the farthest from a classic emo sound. The song is the most sonically different from the others on the album. It changes orientation multiple times, making it a super interesting and dynamic listen. There’s an anthem-feel pre-chorus and a My Chemical Romance feel chord progression on the chorus and thereafter. The song starts to fade out super suddenly at the end and adds what sounds like a synth and strings to end the album. Above the keys, you hear “It took time to understand that/ Our lives are spent within the bounds/ Ups and downs, they don’t define me/ I’ll find solace in the middle ground”. This song is definitely on par with the album's theme of swearing to take learned lessons to heart. It combines everything from the album into one pot in order to wrap everything up.
Listen to Lessons That We Swear To Keep on any streaming service, or catch Free Throw on tour with Prince Daddy & The Hyena this fall. Not only is it a solid emo album, but it also has some pretty interesting titles to dissect.