Start the Party is the bands 4th studio album and the second studio album since signing with record label Cooking Vinyl in 2011, the first album Hope finishing 27 in the UK album chart. Many saw Hope as a sign that The Blackout were back and so Start The Party was highly anticipated.
Hope saw the Welsh sextet mature lyrically whilst maintaining a commercial sound that made them accessible to audiences who otherwise wouldn’t have listened to an alternative rock band, the same sadly can’t be said of Start the Party. The clever lyrics of old have been replaced by lyrics you would expect to hear in a chart hit.
It is however by no means a bad album, it is the bands least ‘heavy’ album to date, lighter use of guitar and the screaming of lead singer Sean Smith being used more as background noise hiding behind softer singing you’d expect to hear in a chart hit.
The use of lyrics such as Start the party/ Call everybody/ Rock the party/ Let’s get it started/ Rock the party…” would suggest The Blackout have realised the ethos of Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll has been replaced with Sex, Drugs and Partying and in order to achieve chart success you need to join them.
Tracks such as ‘Running Scared’ and ‘Throw It All Away’ are great songs and as you would expect on an album by The Blackout, there is no shortage of sing-a-long choruses. However the U-turn from Hope may grind with some people, ditching the depth that really benefited the album in favour of a potentially more mainstream ‘party’ album.
Track listing:
1. Start The Party
2. Radio
3. We Live On
4. Let Me Go
5. Take Away The Misery
6. Keep Singing
7. Running Scared
8. You
9. Free Yourself