After the Party (album)

The Menzingers went on a co-headlining tour with MewithoutYou in November 2015 in support of their fourth album Rented World (2014). Vocalist/guitarist Greg Barnett was hoping that following the tour's end, the group would "wind down and start work on the next record."[3] The group took a break in November and December, before spending January–March 2016 writing After the Party.[4] From the start of the writing process, Barnett became aware that the album would be "a love letter to our twenties."[5] The band took a break from writing to perform a couple of shows, which Barnett referred to as "that little extra push" near the end of the writing process.[4] The group began recording in April for a period of five and a half weeks,[4] ending in May.[6] The band worked with Will Yip at Studio 4.[7]

The band intended to create a "fun" album where, according to Barnett, "you throw it on a jukebox in a bar and be fucking punk the whole night."[4] At the same time, they wanted to retain the "integrity" with the storytelling aspect of their songs.[4] Vocalist/guitarist Tom May described the album as "us saying, ‘We don’t have to grow up or get boring—we can keep on having a good time doing what we love.’"[8] Dan Ozzi of Noisey wrote that "Lookers" features Barnett "looking at an old photo of himself with someone, and longing for the youth captured within."[9]

Collin Robinson of Stereogum wrote that "Bad Catholics" is about "balancing the messiness of being human with the virtuousness impressed upon us by societal, religious, and personal beliefs."[10] The track was originally planned for release on a split, until "all of a sudden, everybody just started falling in love" with it, according to Barnett.[4] Barnett referred to the title-track as the "central emotional epiphany" of the record, "written in images."[11] Barnett wanted to "use imagery as unexciting as the sludge in the bottom of a coffee cup to tell a bigger story."[11]

"Lookers" was made available for streaming on August 11, 2016,[9] before being released as a single four days later.[12] In August and September, the band went on a tour of the U.S. with Bayside and Sorority Noise.[9] The band went on a tour of Europe with The Bouncing Souls,[4] before going on a brief headlining tour of the UK in October.[13] On October 27, After the Party was announced for release, and the album's artwork and track listing was revealed.[8] On the same day, "Bad Catholics" was released as a single.[14] On November 15, a music video was released for "Bad Catholics", directed by Kevin Haus. The video is centred around a church picnic, which gets turned into a food fight by a few kids.[15] On December 12, a music video was released for "Lookers", directed by Sean Stoute. It is predominantly a live-performance video, along with footage of the group in their touring van.[16]

On January 9, 2017, "After the Party" was made available for streaming.[11] "Thick as Thieves" was released as a single on January 30.[17] After the Party was released on February 3, through Epitaph Records.[15] Shortly afterwards, the band went on a brief tour of Australia.[7] The band embarked on a headlining tour of the UK with support from The Flatliners in April 2017.[18]

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	80/100[19]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[20]
Blurt	[21]
Clash	8/10[22]
Drowned in Sound	9/10[23]
Exclaim!	9/10[24]
Kerrang!	[25]
The New York Times	Favorable[26]
PopMatters	8/10[27]
Punknews	[28]
Sputnikmusic	[29]

After the Party received mostly positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an average score of 80 based on 16 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews."[19]

All tracks were written by The Menzingers.[39]