The Last Dinner Party - From The Pyre

It’s been one long year since The Last Dinner Party’s game-changing debut album, ‘Prelude to Ecstasy’. The world hasn’t yet moved on from earworm ‘Nothing Matters’ and still can’t get enough of Emily Roberts’ Brian May/George Harrison hybrid style guitar solos, but even so, second LP ‘From The Pyre’ is a more than welcome arrival that quenches a collective thirst for more. Bold opener ‘Agnus Dei’ tells the album’s first tale, as it swoops and melodically over Abigail Morris’ suave vocals. ‘From The Pyre’ isn’t a new era per se, but it’s both thematically and sonically richer; in other words, the band are audibly more comfortable in their own skin, reaching further into their creative depths to make something more daringly mythological, yet still based on lived experience. The euphoric beginning of ‘Second Best’ suggests a world above the clouds, like a crystalline choir that exists exclusively in dreams. Then, in stark contrast, the sinister vocal passage of ‘Woman Is A Tree’ crawls in, its discordant harmony sounding unsettled yet beautifully tethered. But perhaps the jewel in the album’s crown is ‘The Scythe’, which sneaks up from melancholy, gothic rock towards a soaring chorus, making it instantly addictive. All in all, The Last Dinner Party have done it again - ‘From The Pyre’ is set to be on repeat well into the new year.