The Last Dinner Party ‘From The Pyre’ review: A Sublime Return

‘Here comes the apocalypse and I can’t get enough of it,” sings The Last Dinner Party’s Abigail Morris over the glorious guitars and keys which underpin the opening track to their second album and reflect the darker edge that’s all too present throughout.

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Their 2024 debut Prelude to Ecstasy was a game-changer of a record, one which combined baroque pop with bigger rock sensibilities to deliver a sound that was truly their own. It achieved the UK’s biggest sales in nine years for a debut album in its first week, while sold-out tours and performances at the BRITs cemented the five-piece’s position as one of the UK’s boldest and brightest new bands.

But on From the Pyre, the band sounds even more defined and blessed with the ability to make their point with searing clarity. The album’s first song ‘Agnus Dei’ is a piercing dissection of lovers past and – as Morris told Rolling Stone UK for the band’s cover earlier this year – even interpolates a melody from a song by someone she previously found herself in a situation-ship with, though she reckons it would be impossible to work out who they are.

That’s in part down to the sonic identity at play here, which means that the record never stays in one avenue and sounds all the better for it. That opening track might deliver the baroque grandiosity you’d expect, but ‘This Is the Killer Speaking’ offers their first ever country/pop moment and is enriched by one of the biggest choruses they’ve ever done.

It’s a similar story on ‘Rifle’, a sludgy, stoner rock-flecked song which feels like a companion piece to ‘My Lady of Mercy’ from their debut and sits somewhere between Queens of the Stone Age and Black Sabbath’s ‘War Pigs’. As Morris sings of “boots and rifles stained with red”, it doesn’t take a genius to see that there’s a very modern parallel to be drawn. 

At times, these euphoric moments are simultaneously capable of breaking your heart. That’s certainly true on ‘The Scythe’, a slow-burning rock epic which began life as a break-up song before Morris slowly realised that she had written a thorough rumination on the death of her father. “Don’t cry, we’re bound together / Each life runs its course,” she sings with razor-sharp precision on the song’s euphoric chorus. The result is one of the best rock songs about death and facing mortality in recent memory.

All of these tracks reflect the more sombre themes inherent within the album and indeed its title – the large pile of wood used to burn bodies in traditional funeral ceremonies. It’s ironic, however, that ruminations on death and darkness have allowed this band to sound more alive than ever. The five-piece previously told Rolling Stone UK how producer James Ford – shortly before pulling out of this project due to illness – told them to “have fun, be bold and make a classic record”. All considered, they’ve heeded that advice to the max. It would be a tough ask for them to top their sublime debut, but it feels like they might just have managed it. From the Pyre should cement their place in the biggest of leagues.