Work on Knife Party's debut album started in September 2013, after the conclusion of their previous tour. By 4 June 2014, progress on Abandon Ship had reached a completion of nine tracks out of a desired twelve for release, with "five in the "maybe" pile and five in the "ideas" stage". The album entered its mastering stage in July 2014.
Promotion
The title of the album, Abandon Ship, was unveiled on 8 June 2014 by Knife Party through a post on social networking serviceTwitter, which was illustrated with the image ofPresident Calvin Coolidge tipping his hat. Knife Party appeared at the 2014 Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas, Nevada on 20 June 2014 for the first show of the duo's Festival Tour during mid 2014. Their 70-minute set at EDC, which included new tracks from Abandon Ship in both demo and studio form, was streamed live over the internet. On 6 August 2014, Rob Swire released a teaser for the track "Boss Mode", from the forthcoming album. "Resistance" was released for free on 25 August 2014, also available for sale and supported by BBC Radio 1Xtra DJs including MistaJam. On 22 August 2014, the album was formally announced on Twitter, and is scheduled for release on 10 November 2014. "Begin Again" was released as the album's second instant grat on 22 September 2014, entering the UK Singles Chart at number 183. The song received widespread airplay from BBC Radio 1 DJs, including Zane Lowe and Greg James. In a series of tweets on 11 October 2014, shortly after it was announced that the album release date had been pushed back by 2 weeks for reasons out of Knife Party's control, Swire spoke up about the decision to make the album; "So close to finishing this thing. Can't believe it. Before we embarked on this thing, some people in our sphere of influence told us "don't bother, just release your previous EPs as an album. EDM is dead, you should just release all your old material on one CD, fulfill the contract and then do something with Pendulum." I realised that if an artist I liked released an album of old tunes, I'd be pissed off. So we wrote 12 from scratch, and it took forever. But I'm so glad we did it. Even if it turns out they were right and no one buys it and we have to sell organs for food."
Abandon Ship received mixed to positive reviews from music critics. Andy Belt of We Got This Covered gave it 3 out of 5 stars, saying "Knife Party’s debut album will rouse you and get you in the mood to celebrate, at least for its thunderous first half. Its best tracks are Begin Again, Boss Mode, Reconnect, D.I.M.H., and Kaleidoscope- these tracks utilize not only EDM but also house, space and/or dubstep."
