Underpinning The Last Dinner Party’s polished, Rococo-era aesthetic is an epic striving for greatness. When the London-formed five-piece crashed into the indie consciousness two years ago, they arrived seemingly fully-formed, with a fairytale arc to their origin story. Major record labels had clamoured over them after YouTube footage of a set at the tiny Windmill pub in Brixton gathered momentum in late 2022, leading to a deal with Island.
The success of the storming and anthemic debut single “Nothing Matters” made the group, alongside recent Billboard U.K. cover stars Wet Leg, a rare British guitar band from the last few years admitted to the genre’s increasingly rarefied upper echelons. It was a remarkable rise, though perhaps what’s more admirable is how The Last Dinner Party turned all of that immediate attention into a foundation for longevity as a unit.
Rather than blast straight into the theaters it could have filled, the group toured smaller venues and took a step back from media commitments in order to grow their confidence as performers, honing one of the most energetic live shows on the circuit. Yet in the U.K., The Last Dinner Party’s swift ascent became subject to scrutiny online, with the term “industry plant” disproportionately thrown its way; images of early gigs from 2021 onwards, however, show that the band had been steadily gathering a cult following for years prior to its mainstream crossover moment.
By early 2024, their BRIT and Mercury Prize-nominated debut LP Prelude to Ecstasy reached the top of the Official U.K. Albums Chart with the biggest opening week for a debut by a band in the U.K. since 2015. Unlike its explosively successful predecessor, which was buoyed by tight, richly-decorated pop melodies, new record From the Pyre is darker and more ambitious. These 10 songs see The Last Dinner Party weave tales of greed and obsession, hinting at a fabulist side to its writing by pulling from Greek mythology, and references such as Joan Of Arc, apocalyptic imagery and the Medieval age.
With an extensive U.K. headline tour on the horizon, including first-time arena billings, From the Pyre arrives as The Last Dinner Party makes good on years of industry hype with a definitive artistic statement. Consider the moment met. See our ranking of the 10 songs from From the Pyre below.
