Throwdown

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Considering they’re five guys with an average build of 5’ 8” and 150 pounds, you shouldn’t be fooled by the name. Throwdown isn’t here to pound you into submission. Not with their fists, anyway. Boasting an arsenal that includes some of the most visceral, fist-pumping pit anthems to ever emerge from the underground scene and with three-full length albums, several headlining treks across Europe, Australia and the North American continent and show stopping sets at all of the major hardcore festivals under their belts, if you haven’t heard of Throwdown by now, then it’s high time you started paying attention. Throwdown have been the Orange County, California hardcore scene’s flagship band since 1997, grabbing the torch lit by the seminal OC punk bands of the ‘80s and early ‘90s and carrying it to heretofore uncharted heights. Over the years they’ve shared members with Eighteen Visions, Death By Stereo and Bleeding Through, emerging first as a pile-up inciting joke band (yeah, yeah what’s in a name?) but quickly developing into one of the most potent and vital bands in the worldwide hardcore landscape. What’s allowed Throwdown to persist and endure is the urgency of their music and a fiercely loyal dedication to their relationships with their friends, their fans and each other. They called one record “You Don’t Have To Be Blood To Be Family” and they meant it. This is their lives, this is their blood, and this is, truly, their family. The message is as forthright and abrupt as it is painstakingly sincere. Throwdown lyrics deliver impassioned pleas for positive thinking, self-realization and fulfillment through an invigorating mixture of sing-along inducing gang vocals, throaty bombast and moody atmosphere and their earlier releases harnessed the band’s abil ty to adeptly combine the meaty stomp of the more musically aggressive crowd with a healthy sense of depth and melody—a potential for innovation that’s now fully realized by “Haymaker,” their Trustkill debut. Throwdown have opened up their otherwise suffocating sound with a few spots to breathe, yet still pack a punch harder than even their name implies. “Haymaker” will undoubtedly become the next pre-game soundtrack to the live-setting. A Throwdown show is a sweaty display of solidarity between brothers and sisters, united through their diversity and a celebration of independent thought free from mainstream constraints. The band smiles and laughs as the pent up frustrations from the daily grind, the 9-to-5, the dark and confusing times in which we live, are unleashed in cathartic release. Throwdown is a bludgeoning force to be sure, but one put to good use. Get the record, learn the words, head out to the show and get yourself… “In The Family.”

- Ryan J. Downey

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