In early 2024, British band The Last Dinner Party released its debut album, Prelude to Ecstasy, and exploded in popularity. The band’s uniquely Victorian and Gothic image helped propel the band to success, but their debut showed more style over substance. The album reached the U.K. top 20 with the hit single “Nothing Matters, ” with many labeling them as industry plants with connections to higher-ups because of their precisely refined image and immediate success.
Now, the all-women group has released its second album, From The Pyre. While their follow-up treads similar ground to their debut, the group has honed its songwriting to create an album that feels like a more successful attempt at reaching their goals a realization of a collective vision as a band rather than five musicians.
Right from the album’s start, the band hits the listener with an explosion. The Last Dinner Party goes further into dramatic aesthetics with the harmonies on “Agnus Dei,” the album’s opener. “Here comes the apocalypse / And I can’t get enough of it” sings Abigail Morris, setting the stage for the rest of the album. Treat every song like its own journey, and the emotionally intense instrumental alongside the band’s graceful harmonies hits much harder, like a punch to the gut.
“Agnus Dei” sets the tone for the album and contains much of what the group does well. Its music works best when it’s emotionally intense, with guitars accompanying vocals laden with passionate sorrow and poetic lyrics that could only come from the mouth of a literature student.
The Last Dinner Party most successfully achieves this on “This Is The Killer Speaking,” which has one of the band’s proudest choruses and takes their glam drama to a new level. It’s like a sequel of sorts to “Nothing Matters,” the song that set the band off into the mainstream.
The band has acquired a signature sound to the point where it’s hard to associate The Last Dinner Party with any other modern band. It has excelled in achieving a new self-image, but more than that, its sound has become one-of-a-kind. All members join in for backing vocals, with the distinctively noble English accent matching the band’s image.
The Last Dinner Party also translated part of their identity in their music. The band’s queer identity and commentary on women in society reoccured as themes on their debut, and lyrics continue to approach these themes.
“We want to be role models for younger girls” said Morris and Georgia Davies, the bassist, when they initially created the group. Their success has not come at the cost of vulnerability and relatability, and their widespread following has meant that The Last Dinner Party has succeeded in at least some of its goals.
From The Pyre explores additional elements of chamber pop, featuring heavy strings throughout. Although these elements were present in their debut album, the more intricate instrumentation adds more depth to their music. Songs start with more minimalist instrumentals, before more instruments join in. The build-up places more of a focus on every instrument and makes each song like its own play that increases in intensity before Act Five’s climax at the end of each song.
Nothing exemplifies the build-up like another excellent single, “The Scythe.” The first minute or so features just a lamenting organ and Morris’s voice. The percussion doesn’t even start until 80 seconds in. It has a similar structure to an ’80s power ballad with its loud chorus compared to the verses. Completing the trope, the bridge takes everything away before building up to a final chorus hit like a truck. I’m a sucker for this song structure, and “The Scythe” removes all of the cheesiness that so many of the ’80s power ballads had. The band retains all of the genuine emotion, and the harmonies really make it sound like they’re “bound together” as they sing in the chorus.
However, some of the songs drag on for longer than they need to. I usually like longer songs, and only one song crosses the five-minute threshold here. At the same time, some songs feel jam-packed with ideas that don’t always fit. Does “Rifle” need a verse in French? Choruses sometimes repeat on and on, and they savor the build up just a little too much on many songs. The band has mastered creating an exciting song structure, but have struggled with endings aside from its guitar solos.
The Last Dinner Party quickly made itself into one of the most exciting modern bands with one album, reaching wide audiences. However, on From The Pyre, the group refined a lot of the traits that made it unique and made a great album. If the band hinted at a promising future with a debut titled Prelude to Ecstasy, then From The Pyre is almost certainly that ecstasy.
