Party Hats
Photo Cred 📸: @stevenruud
When Party Hats dropped their debut album “Fatima” they completed a course that had been mapped in the shape of their early demos. The textured guitarwork, al dente noodling and breathy-till-frenetic drumming all spoke volumes of their journey as both people and as a band. Its what has also made their newest EP, “autobiographic autopsy”, enthralling in so many ways. Such a thoughtful pensiveness wraps every melody on this EP that it's hard to not feel this pang of nostalgia and loss rippling through its gone-but-all-too-soon run time of 15 minutes.
Opening track “New Tricks Off The Table”, feels traditional in their sense of things, but there's a newer edge to everything, the bounding of fingers maneuvering fretwork, the crispness of the crashing kit and the relentless nature of the vocals that seem to lumber and sprint at intervals. It feels fully figured then seems to uneasily shift into a slowed and unnerving outro. The title track for the EP opens with a lick that wouldn’t feel unfamiliar around a campfire jam session born witness by an open range and an impossible night sky before the song launches full into a stop-start tackling of shredded vocals, languishing across staccato drumming and looping finger taps.
My favorite off the EP, “My Big Fucking Head”, feels iconically midwest in its build and like any cheekily named track, it drips this crippling loop of mistakes in ones mind with a fantastically catchy last half that is as enjoyable as it is cutting. Lyrics painting an all too familiar picture of watching it all just so simply and easily slip through your fingers, I replay it / Over and over again / I replay it / Over and over again. Segueing into “Belly Up”, there isn’t much pause given. The song explodes and features some truly incredible performances all within the first 30 seconds.
As the track slows its pace the elongated screams and spaced riffs simply pick back up again, a constant parade of push and pull, the drums feel as if they’re floating straight through you. As the song ramps the shrieks become even more intense before meeting an almost heavenly choral background, further vaulting the intensity before cutting away to an abrupt end.
With closing track “Fish Hook”, there’s a moment where the screaming almost sounds like early #12 and it’s exceptional. Easily the most ferocious of the EP, the seesaw kick between guitar and drums, alleviate these immense screams to the front, before a cooled down middle section lights up a clumsily thumbed baby grand getting its footing, sounding like if a young Bill Evans was exclusively listening to Burial. As the guitar kicks back in, the drumming runs to meet it and the howls unleash at their most heightened laments, before angularly closing out on us.
It would be easy to draw the line that connects Party Hats back to bands other exceptional Denton bands like Two Knights or Father Figure, but it's also become quite obvious that they are so much more than a simple heir apparent. If “Fatima” was us getting to watch ball connect bat and begin its ascent, then “autobiographic autopsy” is certainly our view as it rockets through the sky and reaches clouds unknown. We loved this EP and we can’t wait to get our hands on the physical release.
“Autobiographic Autopsy” will be released on cassette through Self Versed Records and available on all streaming services February 14th.
Check out their Bandcamp here: Party Hats
Writer : @letsgetpivotal
Editor : @just_reidz
02/13/23
