Boston’s By The Throat’s four-song EP Riders of Boards provides standard fare for the mischievous skate punk. While they are self-advertised as hardcore punk, they can’t quite be categorized under the same umbrella as other current hardcore punk bands. Rather, their style is defined more by hardcore punk roots of the seventies and eighties– they cite Minor Threat, Black Flag, and early Replacements among their musical influences.
But without getting too wrapped up in genre-labeling, rowdiness outweighs heaviness on Riders of Boards. The title track could very well be the theme song to a cross between Rocket Power and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with its rampant, testosterone-pumping urgency and skate manifesto lyrics like “And if there’s a bowl we’re gonna carve it / And if I get air I gotta method.”
Besides shredding, their songs go into subject matter such as beer, challenging the status quo, and getting even. Indian Summer Revenge takes advantage of catchy guitar fills, but when the band members shout “We want revenge!” in unison, it doesn’t sound as viciously convincing as it could.
The biggest strength of these four tracks is in the band’s straightforward punk aggression, but there’s still room for them to go louder, harder, more distinct. While the lyrics seem a bit generic and under-developed, the three-chord energy works for them. The band members– who go under the names of Biff, The Muscle, Brat, and Dimwit– convened in 2010, bringing with them experience from various other punk outfits including The Dimwits, The Acro-Brats, Buried in Leather, and Blood Vessels. Riders of Boards is the follow-up to their self-produced EP One Good Night.–Sarah Ruggiero