It revolves around party-going, having received comparisons to the output of the Beastie Boys, and the guitar work of the Foo Fighters and Papa Roach.

For promotion, the Blackout went on another headlining UK tour, a European support slot for Yellowcard, and made appearances at the Soundwave festival in Australia.

Independent record label Cooking Vinyl released the Blackout's third studio album Hope, which was crowd-funded through PledgeMusic, in April 2011.

[3] They chose to continue working with Cooking Vinyl for Start the Party, which allowed them to focus on writing rather than on business issues.

[2] The Blackout promoted Hope with two tours of the United Kingdom, and appearances at the Reading & Leeds, and Merthyr Rock festivals in late 2011.

[4] Shortly after the first promotional tour, the band started writing new material for the next album, with the rough of idea of centering it around partying.

[16] "Keep Singing" is about fighting through life, and enjoying things one likes; its melody and lyrics recall the work of Jimmy Eat World.

[21][23] The track is followed by "Sleep When You're Dead", which has an intro that is similar to the work of AC/DC; Butler said the song is a homage to Dirty Sanchez' stunt performer Mathew Pritchard, and is named after a party boat he owned.

[8][34] Butler said he was looking through his Instagram feed and came across a photograph of Pritchard "in a thong drinking champagne out of a bottle on a snowmobile in the middle of Norway", and felt he embodied the spirit of partying.

[8] The physical deluxe edition included a DVD on the making of the album, and live performances from the band's Reading & Leeds and Merthyr Rock appearances.

[53] Islington Gazette writer Stephen Moore found the album "a surprisingly sustained set" with its "well-used combo of pop structures, catchy melodies, [and] heart-on-sleeve lyrics".

[13] South Wales Argus reviewer Andy Howells admitted that the Blackout "get 2013 off to a cracking start with a throat blistering, mosh moving collection".

[54] Renee Jones of The Music said the band "shift away from their previous work to create a combination of catchy choruses and cheesy, fairly generic ... sounds", with every song "aiming for the obvious – a party-rock vibe".

writer Laurence Kellett noted the "refined change", resulting in a "fine-tuned, polished album", which he said could "greatly benefit from the party rock ... attitude" of their prior material.

[22] The Crack's RM said the Blackout come across as "the Scrappy Doo of rock: relentless and yappy with it", and added the album "sounds like The Beastie Boys ... with the hip-hop and bratty humour surgically removed".

[12] DIY contributor Greg Inglis wrote that if the band removed all of the expletives on Start the Party "then there would be more potential singles here than a David Guetta and Calvin Harris combined Greatest Hits LP".

"[52] Thrash Hits writer Tom Doyle wrote it "feels like an album made by a band rehashing ideas from their youth to appeal to their indefatigable but relentlessly young fanbase.