Hi everyone. Airthony Planetano here, the internet's busiest music nerd, and it's time for a review of this new The Last Dinner Party album From The Pyre.

Here we have the newest and second full-length LP from English art and pop rock outfit, The Last Dinner Party. A group that really hit it big last year off the back of some very sharp and well-received singles that were packed with bold lyrics, dramatic rock instrumentation, as well as theatrical lead vocals, too. These were memorable, sticky songs with an even combination of both old and new ideas that somehow just worked.

And while the band's sound and vibe did garner a lot of comparisons to the likes of Kate Bush, personally I heard a lot more influence coming from the world of glam rock in what they do. Or another way you could see it is The Last Dinner Party is like what you would get if you could write rock music for period dramas. I mean, after all, there aren't really a whole lot of bands out there right now that would write and could actually convincingly deliver lyrics like, "I'm Joan of Arc, I'm dying / Just waiting for your call / I'm watching the Real Housewives / And crawling up the walls."

Anyway, songs like "Nothing Matters" as well as "Sinner" were slowly building up steam through 2023 into the following year. So by the time the group was ready to drop their full-length debut, a lot of the music industry was watching them, and that album – Prelude to Ecstasy – was actually a surprisingly great first album. Just a banger-packed tracklist with very little in the way of any low moments or filler.

But as good as that album was, The Last Dinner Party does not seem content to just rest on this impressive breakout moment. Because after all the touring and promo they did throughout last year, apparently, they jumped right back in the studio at the start of 2025 to write and record the follow-up with producer Markus Dravs, who has in the past worked with artists like Florence + the Machine, which I think is pretty sensible. There's a lot of creative and aesthetic overlap there with what The Last Dinner Party does. And he's worked with Wolf Alice, too, whose a latest record actually featured a lot of very showy, ornate instrumentation.

With Dravs on this record, it's clear The Last Dinner Party is trying to give us a fine-tuned version of what they did on their debut. I think there are pros and cons to going in that direction. For one, giving us something so similar so soon does risk stalling out their sound, especially since many of the tracks on this thing don't come across as immediately snappy and melodic. Because comparatively, From the Pyre is definitely a record that is asking audiences for a little bit more patience as the writing and some of the musical passages on these songs is more nuanced and ambitious. As the band's typical stories of very bitter and rocky romances are more shrouded in metaphor this time.

For example, rather than getting beat over the head with lines like, "And you can hold me like he held her / And I will fuck you like nothing matters," you get similar stories and dynamics playing out through characters and iconic figures, like on the opening track "Agnus Dei", which translates to Lamb of God or Jesus Christ, which is an interesting title for a song that essentially asks what's love and lifelong romantic bonds in the face of fame and potentially having your name up in lights forever. And as we have lyrics on the track asking questions such as, "Am I enough to make you stay?"

The meaning intentionally gets muddled to where you have to ask is this song about a whirlwind romance or is it about literally the band's connection to their audience? The very strong start to this record is bolstered by some very good singles that dropped in the lead up. Their second best with its driving chorus and righteous lyrics about moving on, essentially when somebody has moved on from you or has given you cause to make them second in your life to someone else who's waiting downstairs because there's always someone downstairs. It's one of the catchiest tracks here, and I do like the way the bridge of the song flips the meaning of the track, or at least displays different emotions under the floorboards that are presented in the verses and choruses.

There's also "This is the Killer Speaking", which I love. It's another song about a love or a romantic connection that didn't last, and feeling burned over, feeling left for dead in a sense, and as a result, likening the other person to a killer of sorts, a heartbreaker, as it were. I do love the really energetic tempo changes and the burst of instrumentation that comes through on the chorus.

"The Scythe" I loved as well. A song that, at its core, feels like a very smooth, romantic synthpop tune, but it's played out with rock and Baroque instrumentation instead. And the lyrics of the song feature intensely emotional writing about a love that lasts across different lifetimes and eras in a way that's actually deeply touching.

Now, it's on the deep cuts of this record where I think things lose a little bit of steam. Of course, here and there, you do have some more straightforward rockers like "Count the Ways", but there are many more tracks on this LP where the band really tries to explore song structure and dynamics, extending things out into these winding progressions and huge instrumental climax.

The result of this move can be a little hit or miss, like on the song "Rifle", which I do think suffers from a bit of underwhelming verse syndrome. As much as I do like the contrast into the choruses the song presents with all these howling group vocals. I don't blame the band for wanting to change things up a little bit in terms of pacing and different passages within the song. But I don't think they've truly reached a place with it yet to where the song feels edge of your seat, even as they're moving from moments moment to moment to moment.

There are spots and changes in which the momentum gets a bit lost. Like on "Woman is a Tree", which doesn't feel like a song as much as it does a soundtrack piece or an interlude that was extended out a bit too long. Whatever potentially sharp message or melody there is in this one does get a little lost in the grandiosity of it all. And while I do think "I Hold Your Anger" is definitely one of the better tracks of the bunch here, the piano ballad that the band tries to execute on "Sail Away" does leave a lot to be desired, especially in its final moments, where the song doesn't really build up into much and it just ends abrupt out of nowhere for the most part.

And the closing track, comparatively, to me, while it is passable, it just feels like such a blah moment, I suppose. I mean, for a good deal of the song, the dramatic performance style that The Last Dinner Party was delivering for pretty much every previous track just isn't really here. For the most part, the song just sounds like a jangly pop rock track. That gets a little bit more intense as it progresses, but there's definitely songs in the first leg of this thing that have more bite than this. I don't know. It's definitely not the worst song the band's put out, but it's not a sign of this album going out with a bang, that's for sure.

But yeah, for the most part, I liked this record. I think The Last Dinner Party for sure managed to deliver some of their best tracks yet. But by that same token, this record does run into some issues.

One – it doesn't really feel like there was enough time in between this and their last album to really develop more memorable, more hard-hitting songs and grow and advance their sound a little bit to where it felt like a real elevation beyond what they did on their last LP. For the tracks that do actually feel like they're delivering grander displays of instrumentation and layers, sometimes the songs and the progressions of these songs are just getting a little bit lost in all of that new noise.

While I don't think the direction this album was heading in is a bad one overall, maybe it just needed more time to incubate. I'm not entirely sure. Either way, I'm currently feeling a decent to strong 7 on this one.

Anthony Fantano, The Last Dinner Party, Forever.