Piecing It Together is the fourth full-length album from Free Throw and it finds the band grappling with hard truths, and making music about the present and how seeking balance in our lives is far more meaningful work than the endless pursuit of whatever you deem to be enough. In essence, Piecing It Together is an exploration of self-acceptance. Nashville will be an ever-present landscape for this album and we aim to further identify Free Throw as a Nashville band outside of the Country artists that are most often associated with the city.

2005年秋末台北樂團一隅之秋解散，擔任主唱/吉他手的洪申豪計畫組織一新樂團，於是找來了一隅之秋時期負責彈奏電吉他的唐世杰擔任鼓手一職，並邀請好友張盛文加入樂團。樂團成立初期一直沒有固定的BASS手，2007年初薛名宏於網路論壇上看見透明雜誌的徵團員啟事後主動和洪申豪連絡，經過多次樂團練習後確定加入。透明雜誌現在的陣容成型。
透明雜誌的作品風格主要建立在四位團員的音樂喜好之上，並無以一特定之類型作為創作最終目標。初期受Pixies、Superchunk、Fugazi、Sonic Youth、Weezer、Cap'n Jazz以及NUMBER GIRL等8、90年代的外國樂團影響所寫的直線吉他噪音搖滾曲子為多數，這些歌曲常以直線行進的爵士鼓和電貝斯為架構搭配刷滿大音量破音效果的電吉他。樂團於2007年9月獨立發行的『4 TRACKS EP』中的四首曲目皆為上述之風格。
十分重視現場演出氣氛的樂團，初期表演的文字宣傳多會註明『請觀眾穿著輕便、盡量避免攜帶相機等物品至現場，以方便活動』。直至近期現場的全員合唱、流汗跳舞、騷動熱絡的氣氛已成透明雜誌的表演傳統，常看透明雜誌現場演出的客人也可接受如此型態的現場演出，不只是站著"看"表演而是參與一場表演。

Origami Angel are a bit of an oddball band. A scattered discography, including an EP based on the 3rd generation of Pokemon games and a debut EP that was more soft-acoustic-emo than the explosive energy of their recent output, makes them a hard band to *place*. Somewhere between the snotty, heartfelt emo-punk of Remo Drive and the hyper-mathy, clean pop punk of outfits like Tiny Moving Parts, the band's sound is familiar, but not instantly analogous to any of the big dogs in the pop-rock/pop-punk scene. They're relatively unknown too, with Somewhere City being their first full length release, following their eclectic (to say the least) collection of EPs and splits. They'd seem unlikely candidates then, to offer up a genuinely brilliant and creative effort to a blend of subgenres that, in all honesty, are fading from the heydays of the 2000s and early 2010s.
But with Somewhere City, that's exactly what they've done.
To manage the expectations of more discerning listeners, much like Remo Drive's 2017 debut, this record isn't the Ok Computer of emo punk. It's not treading any totally unfamiliar territory, and it's likely not the most polished collection of songs to ever grace your eardrums. What Origami Angel do on this record, however, is take a genre that has largely stagnated, and approached it with such blind optimism, enthusiasm and genuinely interesting songwriting flourishes that new life is found from nowhere. The willingness to take fairly conventional ideas and play with them, making something unexpected is possibly the band's biggest strength. From 'Doctor Whomst's almost easycore-ish fight riff close, to the danceable boppyness of '24 Hour Drive-Thru' and the blast beats that rip through the end of '666 Flags', no song is without some kind of twist or turn that is a complete departure from what you might expect.
There's some genuinely strong songwriting here too - 'Say Less' has an utterly infections earworm of a chorus, whilst the hyper-peppy of optimism of 'Find Your Throne', whilst not the most creatively written track on the record, is undeniably catchy. The closing track is an absolute class act in this regard - nothing that special until the halfway mark, at which the band reincorporate pretty much every hook of the rest of the record into a soaring, multilayered polyphony that ties the whole of Somewhere City into incredibly satisfying harmony. The rhythmic variety on this record really can't be emphasised enough, either. 'The Title Track' is almost borders on some kind of jazz-emo-punk fusion with it's commitment to seemingly relentless syncopation, and the intricacies of the band's TMP-style tapped noodling are well placed and impressive, although some may find the recurrence of these flourishes a little excessive. Perhaps the best example of this working is on the opener, 'Welcome to...', where a distinctly midwest emo flavoured ostinato gives way to an affirming, steadily building crescendo to kick the record off to an anthemic start.
The instrumental performances are fantastic; the drums are tight, the guitar is snappy and has a great crunch to its tone. Ryland Heagy's vocal performance is sassy, emotional and vibrant in equal measure, thankfully without the return of the half-rapped style that cramped the style of the closer to their Gen 3 EP. With these positives said, the mix feels just a little thin on the bottom end, and a couple of tracks like 'Escape Rope' sometimes feel a bit scooped out in their verse passages, but this issue isn't big enough to have much of an impact on the overall listening experience. Lyrically, the record indulges some pretty well trodden themes of loneliness, losing and finding sense of self and belonging, but with a general trend to positivity and optimism - a breath of fresh air in a genre with slightly more self-pitying lyrical trends. Whilst the uncompromising youthfulness of the lyrics could be a little tiring for those already exhausted by the sensibilities of pop-punk, they're by no means bad enough to mar an altogether surprisingly polished and coherent take on the genre.
Again, it has to be emphasised that for all this record's brilliant use of rhythm, variety, fantastic songwriting and entertaining twists on well-trodden concepts, this isn't anything entirely new. If you come in to Origami Angel expecting an avant-garde take on pop-punk you might leave disappointed. But if you suspend your cynicism for just half an hour, and let Ryland Heagy and Pat Doherty's frenetic, bright, surprisingly fresh, self-branded 'emo-pop' in to your eardrums, you might just come out the other end thinking Origami Angel have dropped the best record the genre has seen this year.