The Last Dinner Party Channels Fire and Fury in ‘From The Pyre’
When The Last Dinner Party emerged from London’s indie scene in 2021, their rise felt meteoric. By the time their debut album Prelude To Ecstasy dropped in 2024, they had already carved out a distinct sonic and visual identity: lush, theatrical, and defiantly maximalist. To release a sophomore record of this magnitude just 20 months later is a feat few could pull off. From The Pyre is an ambitious, textured, and fiercely emotional record that cements their status as one of the most exciting forces in modern rock.
The opener, “Agnus Dei,” sets the tone instantly. With classically influenced instrumentals and Abigail Morris’s vocals—often evocative of Kate Bush—the track unfurls like a baroque fever dream. “Was that enough to make you come?/Am I enough to make you stay?” she pleads, before a powerful guitar solo erupts in the outro. It’s the kind of opener that doesn’t just pull you in; it devours you whole.
“Count the Ways” follows with garage-tinged riffs colliding against elegant strings, creating a thrilling tension between the hyper-real and the abstract. When Morris sings, “Let ’em crawl under your skin, let ’em eat you from within,” it feels like an invitation to let the record nest itself deep in your bones. On “Second Best,” her vocals take center stage again, wrapped in a dense web of harmonies. The lyrics chart the push and pull of obsession and betrayal—“Chewing gum and white wine/Your cold answer’s mine/I’m wasting my time /You know I hate to lose”—a portrait of love at its most self-destructive.
“This is the Killer speaking” leans fully into the band’s theatricality. Folksy, violent storytelling delivered with wicked delight, it shows Morris at her most commanding, slipping through octaves and cadences with ease. “Your kindness didn’t last beyond a fry-up and my spit upon your sheets,” she sings—a line that’s both vicious and deliciously camp.
One of the record’s most haunting moments comes with “Woman Is a Tree.” Opening with choral harmonies and unfurling into something darkly cinematic, it has the feel of a pagan hymn, witchy and gothic. “Woman is a tree/Livid hero, I am here,” they sing in unison, their voices merging into something ritualistic. It’s a stunning display of the band’s collaborative power, with Lizzie Mayland and Aurora Nishevci joining Morris in a spellbinding vocal arrangement.
“Sail Away” offers a quieter, more whimsical reprieve—piano-driven and featherlight, yet devastating in its intimacy. “I’m more than a girl, I am a seaside/You carved your name inside of my thigh,” Morris sings, her voice at the edge of a confession. “The Scythe,” one of the album’s most moving tracks, begins as a breakup song but blossoms into a meditation on mortality and grief. Mourning her father’s death with brutal serenity, Morris delivers a chorus that lingers like a prayer: “Don’t cry, we’re bound together/Each life runs its course/I’ll see you in the next one.”
The band’s knack for fusing the ancient with the modern is perhaps most sharply rendered in “Inferno”: “I’m Joan of Arc, I’m dying/Just waiting for your call/I’m watching The Real Housewives/And crawling up the walls.” It’s this ability to layer biblical imagery, baroque detailing, and modern indie energy that makes From The Pyre so intoxicating.
Throughout the record, poetic monologues collide with sweeping rock instrumentals, creating a sound that’s rich, chaotic, and deliberate. Morris typically leads, but Mayland soars on “Rifle,” while Nishevci delivers fire on “I Hold Your Anger.” Together, their voices weave tales of femininity, queerness, and sacred rage with lush, cinematic flair.
From The Pyre is not just a follow-up; it’s an evolution. If their debut announced them as a band to watch, this record solidifies them as a band to be reckoned with—unapologetically grand, richly layered, and brimming with both artifice and real emotion. It’s a reminder that rock can still be daring, theatrical, and gloriously alive.