Review by UnhinderedbyTalent for Party Cannon - Partied in Half (2013)

If I am honest, I have fallen a bit out of love with death metal in recent months.  Some of this is due to me exploring black metal in some more detail but some of it is equally down to the lack of real appeal behind most of what I hear from the genre nowadays.   The vast majority of death metal has been done before, let's be honest.  Yes, there are relatively new off-shoots such as Dissonant death metal which add the occasional variance from the norm but at the same time there seems to be a bottomless pit of bands doing nothing new.  In this state of the death metal world address I am leading up to the fact that I needed a jolt in the arm to try and shake off this funk.  Fuck me did I miss the vein with this attempted injection of exploration.

Dunfermline, Scotland's Party Cannon are a spoof band or one that does not take themselves too seriously anyway, this we all can see from the logo of their band alone.  The dumbass cover that adorns this EP does do the job in setting the expectations of what to expect from Party Cannon perfectly.  This is noisey death metal, often just done for noise's sake it seems.  Dubbing themselves as "party slam", the band skirt aorund the periphery of brutal death metal and slam death metal with an assortment of breakdowns, pig squeals and a seemingly inexhaustible level of energy.  I mean, Partied in Half is a tiring experience, even for this old extreme metal fan.  Dizzying heights of blistering pace and repetition soon make this fifteen minute EP feel like it is just one track, interrupted only by film/tv extracts to help the listener determine some change in schedule.

There is a version of this EP that is extended to include a promo release from the previous year.  This only extends the agony if you are unfortunate enough to find it, you'll have had enough by the time you get through the main three tracks that make up this EP.  I am all for humour in metal (Macabre have made a successful enough shot at it over the years) but this just seems immature and attention seeking stuff that I don't really need in my life.