Album Review: The Last Dinner Party, From The Pyre

With their sophomore album From The Pyre, The Last Dinner Party deepen their baroque, theatrical vision, weaving tales of femininity, queerness and sacred rage with lush, cinematic flair.

The artwork genuflects at the altar of Hieronymus Bosch, lending the record a crowded chaos of dream logic and mystic juxtapositions. Lyrically, there are motifs of sailors, funerary infernos, casual Wicca, Greek tragedy, blasphemous saints and sacred rage, gloves off and teeth bared.

Despite their flair for high drama and camp, the results sometimes feel too carefully plotted. The Last Dinner Party’s proggy precision is surprising on songs that explore emotional violence through womanhood and queerness, leaving little room for the raw chaos that glam once gloriously burned itself out on.

‘This Is the Killer Speaking’, riffing on Hank Williams’ ‘Hey Good Lookin’’, feels oddly well-behaved: more West End than Wildean, teasing flights of fancy. ‘Count The Ways’ veers into Arctic Monkeys territory before recovering with swashbuckling flourishes fit for a Suspiria bacchanal.

High points include ‘Agnus Dei’, exhoing Kate Bush in its baroque pop eccentricity and jagged diction. Frontwoman Abigail Morris doesn’t sing the story of devastation, she embodies it superbly.

‘Second Best’ and ‘The Scythe’ showcase the band at their peak: the former a reverent choral fugue building to a holy crescendo, the latter trading subtlety for spectacle. All told, From The Pyre is a solid step forward for one of the UK’s most theatrical rising acts – sonically mature, thematically precise, and with many more dinner parties to be had.

7/10